1st outing on the foxes for 2019

Friday night saw myself 1 of the mates that went with myself and another mate up to Queensland last October head out to 1 of the places we usually spotlight on for foxes.

The mate also wanted to know if it was ok if he could bring his 16yr old niece along as well as she was keen to see what really happens when we go out.

She had been having a few shots out of my mate's .22 so she had a rough idea of how a gun works but hadn't seen what happens when metal meets flesh especially at 3200fps from a .223(55gn pill) and 3500fps(60gn HP) from my 22/250AI.
We explained that it might not be a very pretty sight especially if it's a head shot as there would be bits of bone and brain everywhere but it would be a very quick death.

We got out to the property just on dark and the owners were very keen to see a lot of dead foxes especially as they expecting lambing to start in a month's time PLUS they also run a very big egg farming facility and were keen to see any and all foxes dead.

They had been baiting regularly for foxes using 1080 so we weren't expecting to shoot many foxes plus the fact that it was also a almost full Moon and a wind blowing. The only factor in our favour was that it was a late rising Moon but the wind was a problem.

The mate and his niece jumped up on the back of my Toyota Landcruiser and she was on the spotlight while my mate shot.

It wasn't long before a set of eyes lit up and the 1st fox of the night copped a frontal lobotomy from the .223.

I drove down to the fox and got out to take a picture and the mate's niece jumped off to have a look and was shocked at the mess a bullet makes. But to her credit she then started asking questions and became a bit fascinated with the wound.

After that she was keen as and actually spotted a couple of eyes that the mate and I missed and was getting more excited to see what sort of a hole the bullet would make on a fox.
The other thing was that all the foxes we shot were this years kits which is a good thing but she was still looking at the dead one's and saying that they were cute and cuddly.
I eventually explained to her that they take a terrible toll on our native bird life and small animals plus they will take lambs as they're been born or attack a downed sheep now worries at all.

Our best record of foxes shot on this place was 10 and this night we shot 12 but missed probably another 5-6 and saw probably another 10 including the 5-6 we missed and all looked like kits.

I shot a feral cat with my BRNO .22 and the mate also shot another cat with his .223 so for the night it was 12 foxes and 2 cats which will make the owners very happy.

For a night when a almost Full Moon and a wind blowing was going to be a possible disaster it turned out to be a great night out and we finally pulled stumps around 2AM and headed back home which was about 10 minutes away.