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More foxing in the snow


Toby

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Managed to sit out again last thursday. I have two baiting points and try to shoot them in rotation although one is better than the other visibility wise.

One is on a field and the other a clearing in the forest, both with rivers in close vicinity.

I sat at my field baitsite last thursday. Within an hour or two a fox approached the bait from the river. I carefully lit the reticle and slipped the safety off. I aimed for the heart/lung area. At the strike the fox ran off over the crest of the hill nearby.

I was a bit miffed because although I didn't hear the bullet connect I was pretty sure that he would be dead over the hill.

My first shot at a fox from this site was almost exactly the same apart from he was facing me and I decided to shoot into his bib. He also ran off and disappeared over the crest of the hill. Following up next morning showed no blood or fur at the strike site and I followed his tracks for 3-400m looking for signs of injury. Looked like the first miss of 2015 :mad:

So with this in mind I was anxious when I approached the strike site. Yes, blood in the snow. Tracking over the crest revealed the fox dead 60-80m away.

He had run and then bled out and then another fox had dragged him away and started to eat him judging by the tracks.

 

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He had been dragged about 15-20m. I always find it amazing that a new fox will 9 times out of 10 approach a dead fox to inspect it. Have several times shot both doubles and triples with the help of their fallen comrades.

 

The 17 Rem is troubling me somewhat this year. I shortened the barrel to 20" from 24" to make it handier and to put a 17 cal specific mod on it. Last year pretty much everything I shot was dead before it hit the ground, this year pretty much everything has run. Also last year very few pass throughs, this year nearly every one although they have been small foxes (under 5 kg).

I shoot the Berger 25 MEF with a load of N150. I will have to chrono it and see the speed, otherwise experiment with N135,140 or RE 15 and see if I can get speed and accuracy. Shooting ranges vary between 50-120m.

 

I love hunting in the snow, it makes things alot easier for follow ups even though it gets pretty cold at times. There is also the general atmosphere, with the moonlight glinting off the snow crystals and the traffic noise dying down and finally quiet. A howl of a fox in the distance or the hoot of an owl, and then as if from nowhere Ol Reynard himself (they call him Mikkel Rev over here) comes gliding across the snow, stopping every now and then to make sure the coast is clear......

My missus thinks I'm mad :)

 

 

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Toby,you might have lost some velocity by shortening...maybe ball park 60 fps,though that should per se reduce through and through unless its just on the critical expansion/penetration cusp

value for the MEF bullets,on that species-ditto small foxes.Accuracy should not be much different,if the crown is OK.Have you though of trying some other bullets-or have the MEF a secure reputation on your foxes-sometimes terminal bullet performance is overlooked,when bullets are used on species they may not have been designed for. Small sample as yet,of course-especially if bullet was OK in past seasons.

g

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I think its probably a case of small foxes. Last year and previous seasons 6.5kg has been the smallest foxes shot. The Berger is mustard and has dropped them on the spot before so I dont think that is the issue. Accuracy is still excellent with the shorter barrel. Be interesting to chrono and see how it stacks up against Quickload figures.

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I've been really impressed with my .17RemTikka 595 using the Berger 25grns... around where I live, I can only remember 2 out of 30 foxes since I got the rifle in late 2013, that have moved from the spot where they were shot... and those have only gone 10 and 20m. The rest have dropped like sacks of spuds.

 

But...taking it to Scotland for lambing, we had a couple where the foxes were in the rushes/sedge and the little 25grn caught a bit of unseen greenery and needed follow up shots. A switch to the .243 cured that......we sorted 16 lamb killers.

 

I switch between a Zeiss 6-24x56 or an Ht 3-12x56 and then a Drone Pro 10x after dark... combined with an HD38s thermal it's very effective set-up.

 

I reload using N135 and Federal 205's.

 

Cheers

Fizz

:ph34r:

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Managed to sit out again last thursday. I have two baiting points and try to shoot them in rotation although one is better than the other visibility wise.

One is on a field and the other a clearing in the forest, both with rivers in close vicinity.

I sat at my field baitsite last thursday. Within an hour or two a fox approached the bait from the river. I carefully lit the reticle and slipped the safety off. I aimed for the heart/lung area. At the strike the fox ran off over the crest of the hill nearby.

I was a bit miffed because although I didn't hear the bullet connect I was pretty sure that he would be dead over the hill.

My first shot at a fox from this site was almost exactly the same apart from he was facing me and I decided to shoot into his bib. He also ran off and disappeared over the crest of the hill. Following up next morning showed no blood or fur at the strike site and I followed his tracks for 3-400m looking for signs of injury. Looked like the first miss of 2015 :mad:

So with this in mind I was anxious when I approached the strike site. Yes, blood in the snow. Tracking over the crest revealed the fox dead 60-80m away.

He had run and then bled out and then another fox had dragged him away and started to eat him judging by the tracks.

 

20150206_055419_zpsc3315989.jpg

 

20150206_055534_zpsf2f02437.jpg

 

20150206_055616_zps107ed553.jpg

 

He had been dragged about 15-20m. I always find it amazing that a new fox will 9 times out of 10 approach a dead fox to inspect it. Have several times shot both doubles and triples with the help of their fallen comrades.

 

The 17 Rem is troubling me somewhat this year. I shortened the barrel to 20" from 24" to make it handier and to put a 17 cal specific mod on it. Last year pretty much everything I shot was dead before it hit the ground, this year pretty much everything has run. Also last year very few pass throughs, this year nearly every one although they have been small foxes (under 5 kg).

I shoot the Berger 25 MEF with a load of N150. I will have to chrono it and see the speed, otherwise experiment with N135,140 or RE 15 and see if I can get speed and accuracy. Shooting ranges vary between 50-120m.

 

I love hunting in the snow, it makes things alot easier for follow ups even though it gets pretty cold at times. There is also the general atmosphere, with the moonlight glinting off the snow crystals and the traffic noise dying down and finally quiet. A howl of a fox in the distance or the hoot of an owl, and then as if from nowhere Ol Reynard himself (they call him Mikkel Rev over here) comes gliding across the snow, stopping every now and then to make sure the coast is clear......

My missus thinks I'm mad :)

 

 

 

 

Placement sounds like the issue, shortening the barrel will loose you about 30fps per inch, so 120 fps - 150fps, hardy an issue when you are likely to be driving bullets at 3600fps or more. Driving them faster will make them more prone to surface splash, when perhaps they hit a breast bone front on. First fox I hit and lost was I think hit there with a 20gr Vmax. There are ( or were) 30gr HP bullets in the states ( Woodchuck Den) if not here.

 

I am ( If I can get some) going to work up a fox load for my 17AH using the same 25gr bullet but likely to be running at 3000fps - 3200 fps.

 

A

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For years I've used a load of VV N140 with Berger 25gr bullets and Rem 71/2 primers in my .17 Rem..Great and very accurate load.Another very good powder I've used is IMR 4320.With the N140 load I was getting well over 4000 fps.I don't care what varmint calibre you use on foxes you'll always get runners.Punching fist sized holes through the rib cage running 30,50 yards or more then dropping dead.I've seen this done many times.I use the 220 Swift with 55gr Berger Varmint bullets and have this happen fairly regular.Although I try every way I can to drop them dead on the spot with one shot I still have runners like this.

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Well done! We had three vixens and a dog last night, which brings February's total thus far to 36. I doubt any shooting will get done tonight due to a large rain system that's forecast to move in late this afternoon.

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Given the constraints of where you live, I think you're doing very well! We have the good fortune to live in a place where meaningful amounts of snow are a rare event - that and the fact that we've worked really hard over several years to get lots of ground to shoot over (50,000+ acres now) means that we can move on once we've cleared the foxes from a given area.

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Given the constraints of where you live, I think you're doing very well! We have the good fortune to live in a place where meaningful amounts of snow are a rare event - that and the fact that we've worked really hard over several years to get lots of ground to shoot over (50,000+ acres now) means that we can not only shoot most nights (unless it rains), but we can move on once we've cleared the foxes from a given area.

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I do what I can, but having a job which also involves snow ploughing wintertime can take it out of you as we work all night sometimes and then on into the day after if necessary, gritting or clearing snow depots. I now have two baitsites which means that I can shoot them in rotation or according to activity. The bonus with the snow work is that we quite often get time off mid week which means I can shoot then as well as weekends.I must also mention that I have a very forgiving family :) It has been a funny winter again this year, mild then cold for 3-4 weeks, now mild again the past 3 weeks. 20cm of snow forecast tomorrow.

Foxwise I 've shot predominately vixens, and small ones at that. In previous years both doubles and triples weren't uncommon and in winters 2012/13 and 2013/14 I managed a quadruple from the same baitsite the same night. This year just singles so far. Be interesting to see how the season progresses as it is now until season end april 15th that it tends to hot up. My previous best tally from a winters foxing is 13.

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