More misadventures in backyard varmint shooting

Reynard meets his demise

Sluiced the first fox of 2009 yesterday. My daughter Sophia had spotted him while she was doing her homework on the kitchen counter. This one was tricky because of the tough angle he initially presented through the swingset. I also had a tough time setting up into position on the back mudroom steps because of my gunshy lab getting in the way.

Finally he moved away from the swingset, and I put a bead on him and fired away. He flipped over, but incredibly came back to life, got up, and started walking away with our less than one year old camper directly behind him.

I waited for him to clear the trailer's tires, with the knowledge he had but five feet to crawl off into the bushes. I figured the bullet would go through him and end up in the ground under the camper somewhere. So then I shot him a second time, and he was down for good.

Unfortunately these Federal Nosler tips do a hell of a lot of damage at 60 yards (or 600 yards for that matter), and when I arrived at the scene of the crime there was fox blood, guts, and tissue sprayed all over the side of the camper. What a mess.

And of course, in the five minutes it took me to get the hoses connected to clean it off, the little bits and pieces of fox gore had all baked hard and dry on the camper walls in the late afternoon sun. I didn't have a scrub brush so I used my fingernails.

What's more, is that of course all of our garden hoses had decided to crack over the winter, leaving me with an intermittently but nicely watered lawn along the hose path and severely depleted water pressure at the hose's end 100 yards from the house. I can tell you now that cleaning dried guts with reduced water pressure is like using a squirt gun to wash three day old dirty dishes.

Twenty minutes later the camper was clean and I was resolved never to shoot a fox in front of the camper again.

kids don't try this at home

Pelt quality issues . . .

the new sniper's nest

Update: on Friday I lost a second fox due to crippling. The fox was moving away from me and I took a 100-yard quartering away deer shot at him from my bedroom sniper's position, but unfortunately I hit him in the hind left leg, and he ran off into the underbrush.

I did send my gun-shy labrador to find him. Aldo rousted him out, and I came eye to eye with Reynard at five yards down on the creek's edge--but alas, I did not take a gun so as not to freak out the dog, and the fox crossed the creek along a log and went down a hole on the other side.

I thereby resolved to shorten the distance and to set up a new position in the shed closest to the sheep pasture. This shed is conveniently missing a single pane in a window at gun rest level.

the view from the sniper's nest:
bait stump at far right

Last night I staked out my red fox bait pile (hey, the regs did say, at any time, in any manner) and sure enough, at the stroke of 9:00 pm two foxes came peeling out of the barn straight to the stump to which I have applied with wire staples various scraps of freezer-burned meat.

fox bait: ethical? sporting? discuss.

At thirty-five yards I missed a completely broadside shot at the first one; the only thing I can figure is that in my eagerness to get "two for one," I jerked the trigger on the first one. Moral of that story: don't count your chicken killers before they're killed.

Then, as both animals circled around the brush pile to figure out where the noise had come from, one poked her head above the grass about 45 yards away. This time I hit what I was aiming at--a clean head shot.

neck-shot fox kit

Here's another issue for you from the animal control world. The pelt of the adult I took the other day (see the picture previously posted) was in fairly poor condition--either the winter coat was giving way to a summer coat, or the pelt was in bad shape following her giving birth to a litter. But compare hers with the coat of the young fox shot last night--there's no comparison. I'm not even sure one could sell the pelt of the previous fox.

So (I'm asking Keith primarily, I suppose, although I'd love to hear from others), how would that factor in to your thinking about full utilization of the resource?