Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Varminting and vertebrate pest control. Small game, hunting feral goats, foxes, dogs, cats, rabbits etc.

Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by xDom » 17 Jun 2019, 7:54 am

Do you have a certain strategy you use when using the electronic caller? How far away do you place it? Do you place it in the open and hide behind a tree?
Thanks for the tip on not playing it too loud, I thought the louder the better!!
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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by flutch » 17 Jun 2019, 6:25 pm

nah mate the speakers always sound unnatural loud, and the other thing is the real thing aint screechin that loud and as the fox gets closer it will know something is suss as the noise will be much louder than what theyre used to. I worry more about the wind and cover when positioning myself with it, dont really have a formula for using it. Just gotta get out there and use it. always put yourself in a decent vantage point and never put your back to where you suspect the foxes will come from, if you use a blind set it up a few days earlier and brush it in with sticks and make sure the sun isnt shining directly into it.
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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by HomeBrew » 20 Jun 2019, 10:04 pm

I've started using a free app (Red Fox Hunting Calls) alongside my Tenterfield and button whistle. One may be good to bring them on, another to bring them in (plus a mouse squeak using my lips). Early morning usually delivers. Other times during the day, sitting over gullies with a tree or rock behind to break up my shape.
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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by xDom » 17 Aug 2019, 6:00 pm

What do you reckon the max distance a .22 mag is good for on foxes? 30gr Hornady's 2200 fps.
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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by Bruiser64 » 17 Aug 2019, 7:51 pm

I would stick to around 100 metres based upon my experience with my 22 magnum.
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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by bigfellascott » 18 Aug 2019, 2:06 pm

Seen a nice Vixen the other morning heading out cutting firewood, she was about 150m away just sitting on a little hill watching us drive in, as soon as we stopped she bolted, ran about 50m or so then stopped and looked back, she was lucky I didn't have a Howa with me, she'd be red mist by now!
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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by NTSOG » 18 Aug 2019, 3:40 pm

G'day, I didn't realise how many foxes there were on and around my small farm south of Ballarat until I bought a small thermal monocular [Nite-Tech 25] and spent some time wandering around from dusk on just watching so as to get an idea of numbers and traffic patterns. Silly as it sounds I went down to the road to a neighbour's farm and sat up a hill near his ewes and lambs using an Icotec caller last night. I saw nothing, not even a skippy, but I know that while I sat watching over the sheep my top paddock [bordering on native bush with pine plantations behind and then Enfield State Forest] is like peak hour in Melbourne from dusk on with foxes travelling from south to north along the paddock. The most I've seen is 6 in 35 minutes, but it's rare that I don't see at least two or more in short order. The difficulty is that that part of the property is wide open without cover for me and am not skilled enough to take shots over 100 yards at the moment. I gather that foxes have regular routes and schedules; the local ones seem to be heading for some new houses on 20 acre blocks to the north and are on a mission - they don't wait around for a novice shooter.

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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by bigfellascott » 18 Aug 2019, 4:26 pm

Yeah I don't think they will respond much to the Icotec at this late stage in the season, they generally ignore whistles and callers etc during mating/breeding season. I've had 8 come out of a hillside which was covered in blackberries to a call on my fox pro, I managed to shoot 2 of em before they disappeared, I doubt I'll ever see anything like that gain in my lifetime, most unusual.
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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by NTSOG » 18 Aug 2019, 5:14 pm

I did call in a pair ten days ago on the same property down the road using a distressed lamb call in amongst the ewes and lambs. The vixen sat out at 120 yards behind a ring-lock fence, but the big dog came into my range and was an easy shot. I figured there was a chance of the lamb call working given the number of lambs around. The foxes I have shot on my property recently were all baited into range over a week or two. They seem to like cheap canned dog food.

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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by xDom » 18 Aug 2019, 5:41 pm

Same boat as you, Jim. Didn’t realise how many foxes were running around in my local, shot out spot until I took out my Night Tech 25.
Very effective in locating the little bastards.
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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by NTSOG » 18 Aug 2019, 5:56 pm

Hi Dom, the thermal spotters are brilliant. I quickly learned to tell the difference between a skippy, hares and foxes by the size of the image and the action of the animal even out to nearly 300 yards and it sure beats holding up a rifle to scan through the IR scope. The dog I knocked off ten days ago was looking towards my caller from behind a small bush at about 170 yards from me, but the colour of his head/face showed different to the foliage of the bush. Since I got the device there have been a number of occasions where I have seen them first and they have walked past me at about 25 - 35 yards as I stood still in a gateway - but no rifle at hand.
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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by bigfellascott » 18 Aug 2019, 7:03 pm

NTSOG wrote:I did call in a pair ten days ago on the same property down the road using a distressed lamb call in amongst the ewes and lambs. The vixen sat out at 120 yards behind a ring-lock fence, but the big dog came into my range and was an easy shot. I figured there was a chance of the lamb call working given the number of lambs around. The foxes I have shot on my property recently were all baited into range over a week or two. They seem to like cheap canned dog food.

Jim


Wish they were that keen to come in around here, soon as they hear or see ya they are gone. :silent: It's normal for em to be like that at this time of year as a rule, not sure exactly what that is but they seem less inclined to come to the whislte etc for the most part, I like dragging a rag with tuna oil on it around behind the ute, then park up and wait for a bit, wack the light on after a bit and see what's around. :D
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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by xDom » 18 Aug 2019, 7:17 pm

Righto, I’m going have to try some of these baiting tactics on my next trip to farm in mid September.
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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by NTSOG » 18 Aug 2019, 7:25 pm

I suspect the foxes around my place are fairly complacent as they haven't been hunted for about 18months and then only with a spotlight. I'm using an IR night sight and being very careful not to educate them with overly ambitious [read: stupid] shots; I figure that I have all the time in the world to get them as I live on-site and can bait them daily. I also see the odd one strolling through the paddocks when I'm checking the cattle of a morning and I'm in amongst the cattle. I'll remember the tuna oil trick.

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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by NTSOG » 18 Aug 2019, 7:40 pm

Dom: ''Righto, I’m going have to try some of these baiting tactics on my next trip to farm in mid September.''

It's working for me. Those large tins of very cheap and nasty dog food seem to be very desirable. I grab a spoon and dig into the ''food'' chopping it up into tiny pieces and then flinging it in the general direction I want them to go for safe shooting. [Over two weeks recently I recently moved one fox off a crown road and well into my property to where he could be safely shot by gradually moving the feeding ''station'' 50-75 feet each night.] I make sure that the pieces are very small as my trail camera pictures showed that large pieces attract magpies and crows which would come in and knock off the pieces. Essentially I just want to give the foxes a sniff and a tiny taste. Off course I do have the time, living on the property. One of the good things about baiting for me is that it gives me lots of time to set up shots as the blighters search around in a smallish area for bits of food. I'm not up to shooting moving targets at present.

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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by xDom » 18 Aug 2019, 7:43 pm

I’m only on this trip for four nights, not enough time to bait like that then?
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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by NTSOG » 19 Aug 2019, 6:43 am

If people on the farm know where foxes have been travelling you could still throw some bait out in those areas. Of course knowing what time they come to dinner helps, that's why I am using a trail camera. My past neighbour, who shot on my property for several years, was of the opinion that foxes do have schedules and fairly fixed travel routes. For instance there is an unmade crown road on my southern boundary and we realised the blighters travelled up that to get to the back of my property, hence I laid bait for a while to bring one into shooting range. I've also noticed that they will travel along the fence lines between two quite large and open paddocks as well as the edges of double-fenced tree lines. In other words they travel on the edges of structure a lot until they find or smell something out in the paddock that inspires them to move out into the open. Many years ago I was an avid spearfisher in Westernport. I never hunted open sand flats, but always along the edge of structure, e.g. reefs, and changes in structure as that is where the fish were. I have approached fox shooting with that in mind. The many foxes I have seen in the open on my paddocks are always travelling and quite fast at that. They are on a mission and clearly going some where. Sometimes even tasty bait seems to have no effect: four weeks ago we killed a steer for the freezer. I staked the head out behind my tractor shed within my shooting range and dumped the guts at another spot near the tree-line and close to a gateway which offered me cover from which to shoot. Two nights later I used my thermal viewer from the gateway behind the house and watched a fox travel 270 yards southwards down the fence-line between two large paddocks. He turned uphill towards the steer's head and looped around it without stopping - to my great surprise. He walked, quickly, and went up to the tree line to turn north and walked to and then past the pile of offal without stopping and back down the hill into the trees. So even the best baits won't distract a fox on a mission. I was stunned that a fox would not take such delicious bait!

I'm continually told foxes are quick to learn and I shouldn't educate them by taking impossible shots and scaring them. The other side of the coin is that they also learn quickly from positive experiences such as finding some fresh bait even a couple of nights in a row. You have the thermal viewer and will spot foxes your first day/night at the farm and could lay bait with some chance of success in following days.

Jim
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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by bigfellascott » 19 Aug 2019, 7:17 am

NTSOG wrote:Dom: ''Righto, I’m going have to try some of these baiting tactics on my next trip to farm in mid September.''

It's working for me. Those large tins of very cheap and nasty dog food seem to be very desirable. I grab a spoon and dig into the ''food'' chopping it up into tiny pieces and then flinging it in the general direction I want them to go for safe shooting. [Over two weeks recently I recently moved one fox off a crown road and well into my property to where he could be safely shot by gradually moving the feeding ''station'' 50-75 feet each night.] I make sure that the pieces are very small as my trail camera pictures showed that large pieces attract magpies and crows which would come in and knock off the pieces. Essentially I just want to give the foxes a sniff and a tiny taste. Off course I do have the time, living on the property. One of the good things about baiting for me is that it gives me lots of time to set up shots as the blighters search around in a smallish area for bits of food. I'm not up to shooting moving targets at present.

Jim


They love KFC chicken Bones too :D

You might want to invest in some foot hold traps for when you are out there, :thumbsup:
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Re: Best time for Rabbits and Foxes

Post by Elite_Sniper » 07 Oct 2019, 2:54 pm

For rabbits, I've got 6 beagles that will jump & run a rabbit back in a circle to the approx. area he jumped from. If you don't have beagles, that means you've gotta jump shoot them. If it's super cold, they're often underground but if they're not, they'll be in the thickest, nastiest cover you can find. Lap/brush piles, briar patches, under downed trees, in thick overgrown fields/cutovers, etc.
Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you want
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