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Quite a long night of eager anticipation.


Scully
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Three of us went out about 7.30pm last night with lamp and rifle to the Lune Valley, a magnificent but inhospitable location of steep rugged Fells and deep hidden gulleys intersected by the M6 and the Glasgow to London West Coast rail line.

Away from artificial lights the display of the night sky was magnificent with not a cloud to spoil the sight and the brisk wind we had back home had disappeared but it was cold enough to chill the fingers.

It's been a while since we last visited as mate no longer farms there but after a quick visit to a relative to inform them we were out and about we set off.

We hadn't even got through the first gate when a quick scan lit up a pair of eyes on a steep hillside, below a tree, so we switched everything off and dismounted. Once in position we lit up the same place and a short squeak was returned by two bright lights (it never fails to amaze me just how bright those eyes are) and despite whispering there was a downed branch laying right across the path of the fox, mate took the shot from about 100 yards away. The fox sprung into the air as if bounced off a trampoline and rolled down hill where it lay twitching while we got through the gate, only to see the fox get up and start to run unsteadily towards a very high drystone wall. Mate threw himself onto the ground and followed the fox through the 'scope, and we all stopped, hoping it would do the same. It did, facing away and obviously searching for an exit, and was immediately hit again, this time terminally. We could hear the heavy thwack as the round exited against the wall.

We had a search of the area where the fox was first hit and discovered in the thick branch on the ground a shallow rough groove where the first round had cut a channel before hitting the fox, and when we examined the fox itself there was a deep gash just above its right eye where the first round had obviously deflected. There was also a piece of the copper jacket inside one of its ears, not as a wound but just laying in the hairs inside the ear. The second wound was devastating.

We can only surmise that the first round, a 55 grn ballistic tip, had started to dismantle after glancing off the branch but the inner core had stayed together long enough to cause the first stunning blow to the head.

Anyhow, with thoughts of a busy night ahead we trundled off up the Fell in complete darkness, but apart from the odd sheep found nothing.

Back to vehicle and onwards and upwards, through some just simply unbelievably twisted and gnarled Hazels and Alders to halt on a large open plateau under a huge sky and.....nothing else. Squeaking revealed nothing.

So back down we came, under the motorway and on to the other side where we lit up another pair of eyes amongst some conifers in the valley bottom below the railway. They glanced, then went out, and we could see it flitting between the trees through the lamp beam; one last quick glance and it simply disappeared. This one wasn't stopping, not even to my squeak.

We followed roughly where we thought it was going, in the dark and on foot, and after rounding a bend in the river we lamped again and were rewarded by just one weakly lit eye peering back through the Larches. Our fox?

We got down amongst the dew and the mud and despite looking up at each squeak that one eye remained where it was. Mate couldn't clearly identify it through the cover so we moved, and got down again. No better. So we got up and moved again; got down but no better. We must have moved half a dozen times, up from the clammy grass and back down into it, and spent at least half an hour doing so, but no joy and no better view through the trees. We came away eventually, deciding it was a ewe. Never mind.

Back to vehicle where we trundled along a single lane track, lamping the looming Fells on one side and the deep bracken covered valley on the other and eventually lit up a pair of very far away eyes way up the Fellside. All stop, a long drawn out wailing squeak and down they came, following the line of a dry stone wall, but disappointingly, we lost it somewhere near the bottom as it dropped from view in a fold in the ground never to reappear.

It was by now just after midnight, and as mate needs as much beauty sleep as is possible, we headed back home. On the way my nephew phoned and excitedly told me he and a mate had just got their first fox. Sorted.

Edited by Scully
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To be fair most of my outings tend to end up with me taking the rifle for a walk and seeing sod all :lol:

We do similar on many occasions. :yes:

We have had many foxes but it is rare (but does happen) that everything goes as we hope it always will.

Our last lamping session was a complete failure. Not for the first time, we lit up a vixen atop a steep banking on our rough shoot, perfectly presented in profile, looking straight back at us, and no backstop, just open sky. She has done this more than once, before sedately trotting off along the fence line, never stopping to squeak or anything else until she disappears into the night.

We then lit up another pair of eyes a hundred yards away or so but couldn't identify the animal. The brightness screamed fox, but without a positive ID it didn't happen.

An hour later we lit up another from the newly sown winter barley, in the vicinity of landowners Mums chicken coop where one of her Guineafowl had recently gone missing. I squeaked and it stopped and looked right back through the lamp and all three of us could clearly identify it. The shooter got down and made ready, and lamper held the fox in the beam. It was a long way off so I squeaked again and in it came. I had by now lost it but the other two could still see it, and in the wind I couldn't hear them tell me to stop squeaking when it literally started running towards us. Apparently it was coming in like a train but I was totally unaware and still squeaking. It came so close mate couldn't wind down the magnification fast enough on his 'scope and when other mate eventually shouted at it, it stopped but was just a blur in the 'scope so he didn't fire.

I hadn't a clue what was going on 'til I heard those two calling me a deaf ****! :)

 

a good honest report and a read, i enjoyed that thank you, the view alone would have made it worthwhile.

 

Maxwell

 

Thank you. You're right, it was a pleasure to be out on such a night, and in daylight is a wondrous place also.

Edited by Scully
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We do similar on many occasions. :yes:

We have had many foxes but it is rare (but does happen) that everything goes as we hope it always will.

Our last lamping session was a complete failure. Not for the first time, we lit up a vixen atop a steep banking on our rough shoot, perfectly presented in profile, looking straight back at us, and no backstop, just open sky. She has done this more than once, before sedately trotting off along the fence line, never stopping to squeak or anything else until she disappears into the night.

We then lit up another pair of eyes a hundred yards away or so but couldn't identify the animal. The brightness screamed fox, but without a positive ID it didn't happen.

An hour later we lit up another from the newly sown winter barley, in the vicinity of landowners Mums chicken coop where one of her Guineafowl had recently gone missing. I squeaked and it stopped and looked right back through the lamp and all three of us could clearly identify it. The shooter got down and made ready, and lamper held the fox in the beam. It was a long way off so I squeaked again and in it came. I had by now lost it but the other two could still see it, and in the wind I couldn't hear them tell me to stop squeaking when it literally started running towards us. Apparently it was coming in like a train but I was totally unaware and still squeaking. It came so close mate couldn't wind down the magnification fast enough on his 'scope and when other mate eventually shouted at it, it stopped but was just a blur in the 'scope so he didn't fire.

I hadn't a clue what was going on 'til I heard those two calling me a deaf ****! :)

 

 

Thank you. You're right, it was a pleasure to be out on such a night, and in daylight is a wondrous place also.

I am glad it isnt just me who has these sort of experiences. Makes it all the more rewarding once it comes together.

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