First Lamping session since knee op

kip270 · November 20, 2013

A text to my mate, asking if he fancied a Lamping session, "it's a full moon and crystal clear" came the reply, "but we won't see anything sat on the sofa", so a session was on.

Last night was the first time I've headed out since my knee-op back in March, I've been out with the 25-06 to zero it after fitting a PES T12, and have been beating a few times but still taking it careful.

We had a team of three, Dan was the lamper while Gus & I would take it in turns to drive while the other would be shooting.

Heading off to our first part of the farm, we approached a gateway and there was a fox roughly 160 yards in front of us, but as the vehicle stopped, dan had the lamp on it but the red filter moved as he tried to switch hands, the white light hit it and it was off........not the best of starts.

We had a few stops and tried calling, but nothing so headed off to the other side of the farm. Within 100 yards of driving into the field we spotted a fox around 130 yards, just mooching about and not spooked by the lamp. I settled down behind the rifle and told dan to give me some white light, "Oi" the foxed stopped I settled the crosshairs and squeezed off my shot, but bloody pulled it, the fox made off, and we were off after it. Dan spotted it off to our left trying to head for cover, we signalled for Gus to stop and I was ready, "Oi" the foxed stopped and took a last look, big mistake as I made sure my shot was true. A healthy vixen taken care of.

Now for me to drive, and see if we could get another, we covered a lot of ground and not a sign of anything, so off to a final spot before we headed back to the farm.

Pulling up at the gateway we switched off and had a sweep around with the lamp without seeing anything, so i gave a few squeaks, dan spotted a fox coming into the call, but i didn't see it and carried on calling. "Shhhh dad ones coming in" with that the fox turned and was making off. It made 195 yards and we shouted, it stopped to look and Gus squeezed off his shot, dropping it on the spot, a heavy dog fox. We were all really chuffed, this was turning out to be a good night, and having not been out for so long I was chuffed.

Change of driver and shooter, and we headed back to the farm, then we spotted another fox in a Kale field, but no matter on what we did we couldn't get a shot, so decided to try and do a loop to see if we could get a better view.

Scanning all the fields we drew a blank a few hundred yards later then to our left there was a fox sat up sniffing the air, we signalled for Gus to stop and I was ready, dan was on it, so I asked for a little white light, I was settled on its chest and saw it slump at my shot, another nice dog fox.

So nice to be out again and giving the pheasants some protection, looking forward to the next session.