No deer, but a consolation prize.

[maximus otter]

Note: I am a small-scale deer stalker, not a varminter. My kit consists of:

Sako 85 Finnlight in 6.5 x 55mm

ASE Utra NorthStar moderator

Z-sling

Ammo: Norma factory rounds using the Nosler 120 grain Ballistic Tip (2775 fps out of my rifle, IIRC) zeroed 1.6" high at 100 yards. It'll group into ½ MOA off the bench, so why reload?

Schmidt & Bender 3 - 12 x 50 Klassik

Leica 8 x 42 Ultravid binoculars

Leupold RX-600 rangefinder

Southwick quad sticks

"I arrived on the farm at about 0430 after a miserable night's sleep on a hot night. The car thermometer read 17°C even at this hour.

The weather was fine and unseasonably warm. The wind was ideal: gentle, from the west.

I saw not a hide nor hair of anything on the stalk out.

When at 0520hrs. I reached the spinney beside which my farmer sets out cover crops for his game birds, I noticed a likely stump of branch protruding from a trunk which would make an ideal site for a suspended gralloch. I was examining it more closely when I noticed something dark farther off to the west towards the main road.

Target location arrowed.

A look through the Leica Ultravids revealed the object to be a fox some distance away and slightly below me. It was facing directly away from me, peering intently toward the west. Subsequest laser range finding showed the distance to be 132 yards.

A closer view showing my rifle leaning against my quad sticks.

I had time to set up the sticks and dial the Schmidt & Bender 'scope up to 8 from its default 6-power.

I aimed for centre mass and squeezed the trigger. TIiish-pok! The fox vanished.

I reloaded and walked down to find a tidy youngish vixen shot cleanly through the neck. The bullet had exited a couple of inches below and behind her left ear. She was in good condition, and had dropped in her own pawprints.

You need to work on your situational awareness!

What she could have seen of me. (I was just to the left of the trees).

The walk back to the car was uneventful. I saw the day's only deer briefly as it flitted across a 50' gap between

fields of crops. I believe it to have been a roe doe, so out of season anyway.

Near the car I was serenaded briefly by a skylark. A delightful interlude which made me feel quite Ralph Vaughan Williams-y!

I left at about 0635hrs. The car thermometer read 20°C as I drove back. Yuck.

maximus otter

[gbal]

Klassik Kit

Fine Fit

 

gbal

[Nick 53]

Nice bit of shooting, rifle set up sounds great.

[GT3_richy]

I've been out before sunrise quite regularly over these last few warm weeks, not bothered going to bed a couple of times as I'm a terrible sleeper normally - add heat and its pointless trying. Not much to better wandering about this beautiful country as the sun comes up with a rifle over your shoulder.

 

Nice write up chap. My last outing was quite similar - I was in a t-shirt all night and by the time I left for home at about 7am it was already 22 degrees according to the Landy. Shot a couple of crows but for the most part spent the morning eye balling with Roe does - who clearly know when they're out of season!

 

Here's to more of the same

[froggy]

Well done maximus otter

 

Please forgive me for semi hijacking your post and in no way am I trying to criticise you in any way, but I feel that in relation to the excellent photographs you took and your joke that the fox needs to work on it's situational awareness it's to good an opportunity not to highlight to less experienced members the importance of where you can sometimes set up a shooting position, especially a highseat.

 

I was very lucky in being guided in my early stalking days by a very experienced gamekeeper who after letting me put up my own highseat in an area always visited by deer he told me that I had positioned it in the wrong place. I explained that I had considered the backstop, the tracks leading deer and foxes into the clearing and my path of arrival, and I couldn't work out what I had done wrong.

He agreed all that I had stated but told me I hadn't considered the sun, and that as my stalking would be done mainly in the morning, I, just like your dead fox would be looking directly into it. He went on to say "there are morning highseats and evening highseats and animals are just like ourselves, they don't like looking right into direct sunlight".

 

Seeing the view from your dead fox looking back towards your shooting position reminded me of my early stalking lesson and one that has helped me many times over the years, in that even when there is no cover at all it's still sometimes possible to get into a shooting position and get a result.

Good luck in the roe rut.

 

Cheers

Froggy