Sunday evening adventure........

woody · January 12, 2011

Hi everybody.

Long time since I posted anything, but always find a moment to read the forums during my dull commute to work.

I had a good summer on the foxing front. One evening resulting in nine kills, whilst shooting over 300 acres of stubble.

Anyway, new year so I thought I'd try to document a few to give you guys something to look at on these cold winter days.

This Sunday I was at clay shooting and bumped into a buddy there. We said it was about time we met up for some charlie bashing as it had been a couple of months. Turns out we were both at a loose end that night so arranged to meet at 7.30pm on our farm. Weapons of choice that night were my .223 for charlie and his .17hmr for bunnies. We both have .243 as well but I just love my little .223 and I am more than happy to have charlie at 300yds with it.

The weather was clear and the temperature dropping by the minute. By 9pm, and few bunnies later and a frost was beginning to make it crunchy under foot. The ground is sodden round our way, so rather than drive the polaris around we were on foot and shooting off sticks and carrying lamps. One of our fields is triangular with each side being about 400yds long. We worked our way about 100 yds down the field, into a position where we could see all of the field. I used an old widgeon call and after about 5 minutes of calling we heard the definite sounds of charlie approaching through the woods. A minute more and there he was. 300 yds away at the bottom of the field. I got onto the floor and put the .223 on its 9" bipod legs and gave a few more calls with the whistle. My buddy put the red lamp on him and there he was, 150yds away in the sitting position. I let a 55gn V-max go and that was the end of him. A big fox in good condition. He didn't even get a chance to get out of the sitting position. just slumped forward like he'd gone to sleep.

We left that field to settle down and walked through a couple of fields until we were at a 25 acre field that has been well grazed by our sheep and horses at the end of last year. I lit up a couple of eyes in the red lamp about 175-200 yards away. My buddy took my .223 and again favoured the bipod rather than the sticks. It was a nice shot, where I knew that the bank rose very quickly behind makng a nice back stop. He was dropped with a shot on the left hand side of his head.

So there you have it. Just over a couple of hours. A nice bit of fresh air, and two in the bag.

There seem to be a fair few around again now. I got up on new years day at around 7am to see what the dogs were gruffing at and there was one sniffing around the chicken house. I got my shot gun and tried to sneakily open the door but he ran until about 30 yards away and stopped so I let him have it with a 46gram 4. That made him dance. The second one made him stop dancing.

I'm out again on Friday so will let you know how I get on.

Woody