shot foxes coming back into the caller

[griffshrek]

Hello all

I thought I’d share with you a recent nights foxing trip and what happened to a fox & two other previous shots onto foxes.

Last week I was out foxing with a buddy , a fox was called in using the FoxPro and a front on shot taken with his .243 . The shot appeared to be a clean miss no impact noise and the fox ran off apparently uninjured .

Only a short time later and less than a 100m away a fox was seen and I shot it fully side on with the .204.

On examination of the fox there was a 6-7” almost surgical laceration down the breast of the fox and a 20p size hole through its rear leg that was still bleeding .

For a while there was a bit of head scratching as how a fully side on fox shot with a 32gr .204 bullet had the injuries .

After establishing the .204 shot was in fact a side on , we concluded the other injuries to the fox were from the 1st shot with the .243 being low and cutting the skin and going through its leg.

What amazed me was that the fox after being hit with the 1st shot (.243) would still hang about .

Well this got me thinking of two other foxes that I called in and after being hit got away and later came back into the caller.

1st of these was a vixen called in on “vixen on heat call” ,shot with a .243 85gr hpbt the shot was front on and the initial shot took out most of the front leg just below the shoulder and a big chunk of the rear leg .

This shot sounded like a solid hit it sent the vixen into cartwheel impressions then it ran away, after the area was checked and about 15 mins later running the same “vixen on heat call” in came badly limping fox that came straight to the caller.

The 2nd was a dog fox shot with the .308 150gr call was “fox location call” the shot was again front on and took out most of its neck
( missing the spine) this fox after fleeing, and later with me running the same call again saw it come charging back in where it was shot.

Both the last two foxes had horrendous 1st shot injuries (would have been later fatal), the bit that got me thinking was that they came back into the caller after being shot . I would of thought with the 3 foxes mentioned they would of run for the hills and kept running.

Have any of you seen the same almost instinctual drive to get back at the callers.

Regards…..Neil

[visiter1]

when I first started shooting foxes with a .22 magnum semi i often found them running away after being hit my mate can mouth call and we often got the fox back in after being shot the first time , I kept this gun for a month and changed to a swift I never had this prob again , I also have seen them come back in after a clean miss .

[abolter]

Nope!!

 

Seen injuries you describe but I have always had to follow them to finish them. An interesting thing I found was that they would usually stop if you could walk them back (to what I thought was) to the territorial boundary when they would virtually sit and wait for you.

[Guest Stacka]

i had a fox last week with a number imprinted on his left ear. Of on a tangent i know but it was bloody odd

[JB1]

Strange that, you would think that they would just keep running.

But must add if that were me I would certainly check my zero.

[griffshrek]

The 3 foxes coming back to caller is over 4 yrs, I normally shoot 100+ foxes a yr so perhaps it

" the more you do the more lucky/unluckily you get"

[JB1]

The 3 foxes coming back to caller is over 4 yrs, I normally shoot 100+ foxes a yr so perhaps it

" the more you do the more lucky/unluckily you get"

sorry don't mean to knock your abilities, I got the impression it was am regular occurrence.

[griffshrek]

No offence taken I didn't explain myself too well initially.