Educated Foxes.

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

Educated Foxes.

Post by Elmer » 31 Jan 2021, 6:24 pm

Was out in a scrubby patch sitting in the beast in a spot that has seen plenty of wabbiting.
With my Marlin ss .22lr sticking out the passenger side window I sat there and waited for them to pop their heads out
As soon as i got comfortable the first one appeared at a whopping 10 mts, he had myxo, and was dispatched with a bullet to the brain.
I then picked him up with a stick(as I didnt want to leave my scent on him ) and chucked him on a a cleared track which the Foxes frequently use.
After stting there waiting for a couple of hours , I decided to try to whistle up a Fox.
Tenterfields, reed , Toy squeakers, styro on the windscreen even a youtube vid of a squealing Rabbit......NOTHING, so I put them away and waited.
All of a sudden a Bunny poked his head out at 40yds, I lined up his cranium....Bang... missed :oops:
Then two minutes later a Fox came charging in at 50yds, he located the dead Bunny was about to grab it then saw me and pissed off just as I was about to aqueeze of a shot.
Out came the whistles again....NOTHING, so i waited for more Bunnies... NOTHING :lol:
Then after half an hour, I fired another shot to see what happens.
Sure enough, another Fox came barreling in, he stopped saw me then pissed off so I fired another shot.
The same Fox came racing back in , located the dead Bunny, was about to pounce on it, saw me then stopped.
This time he gave me enough time to line him up and just as I was about to squeeze the trigger , he bolted, grabbed the Bunny and once again vanished into the scrub....My VW for a shotty.
I could not believe how educated the Foxes have become ...Gunfire =free meal.
Not even a variety of whistles would bring them in...just goes to show how smart these little ferals are.
They both would make a nice rug come winter time.
cheers,
Sean.
Elmer
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Re: Educated Foxes.

Post by Bugman » 31 Jan 2021, 6:34 pm

Looks like you have been outfoxed. Happens to the best of us. ;)
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Re: Educated Foxes.

Post by NTSOG » 31 Jan 2021, 7:27 pm

I went out last evening and set up with my caller 50 yards to my left up a gentle slope and I sat under a group of trees where I've sat before and started my Icotec caller. There is a deep creek gully about 200 yards in front of where I sat and the blighters will often come up and out of the gully to a call across the open paddock giving me time to see them and line up. After playing various mouse, rat, hare, bunny noises I played a fox call [Vixen Domination*] I was sent by a Pommy shooter. Sure enough in a couple of minutes there was a blighter sitting inside the paddock gate in the corner about 75 yards from me. The problem was that he was sitting directly in front of the farmer's large electric fence energiser so I couldn't shoot. The blighter suddenly came trotting along the fence line about 50 feet to my right instead of running across the paddock towards the caller to my left. It was heading for the stand of trees where I was sitting which was not my plan. I suspect it was going to come around behind the noise-maker and get the wind. At 30 yards I took a quick shot and missed. The famous Stix would have explained with great tact that all I had done was to educate the animal which disappeared back to the gully. A shot gun would have done the job easily, but I don't have one.

As for Sean's smart fox: "I could not believe how educated the Foxes have become ...Gunfire = free meal."

You've just described Pavlovian or Classical conditioning, i.e. an unconditioned stimulus [rabbit = food] is paired with a previously neutral stimulus [gun shot]. [Pavlov used a bell in his experiments.] So the fox [in your case] associates the gun shot with the food [rabbit].

Jim

*If you do a search for Vixen Domination you'll find a long list of internet sites which feature ladies in leather carrying whips.
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Re: Educated Foxes.

Post by JohnV » 01 Feb 2021, 6:33 am

I have seen young wild dogs turn up after firing shots at a target . It's hard to predict what they will do . If you fire at them they bolt and even just cocking the gun can start them running but a shot in the distance seems to be a dinner bell for some dogs .
Foxes can be very sneaky .
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Re: Educated Foxes.

Post by Blr243 » 01 Feb 2021, 12:23 pm

I have also heard of wild dogs turning up at the site of freshly shot red deer. Once, west of Toowoomba I was on a boundary fence .....I had just opened a gate and was pushing my bike thru the gate opening I saw a dog on the edge of the track ahead only 30 or 40 metres away. I stopped pushing the bike and .I pulled the mini14 out of its scabbard and lay it across the handlebars all the time thinking Please just keep looking at me please don’t run..... he read my mind .....I was so excited about shooting the dog that I jumped on my bike and kept riding the boundary without realising I had forgotten to close the gate behind me. ..( up the back was just rubbish forestry cypress garbage country without stock so no big deal) Probably 5 mins after shooting the dog I remembered not closing that gate so I wheeled around to rectify the problem and on approaching the gate I was rewarded with the opportunity to take the dogs mate that had arrived on the scene ....so it was shaping up to be a good morning
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Re: Educated Foxes.

Post by Ziege » 01 Feb 2021, 2:23 pm

doesnt surprise me elmer, not long ago the old man was walking along the edge of the house paddock knocking off some pest birds and as he collected them up for fox baits one was dangling from his hand and a fox came up and grabbed it directly out of his hand...

I have a little entourage when I go knocking off pest parrots here, theres one owl that frequently shows up, a hawk and the old grey magpie from the house yard follows me around. animals know a good thing when they see it go on often enough they obviously figure their life is in no danger and proceed to make their way down to the carrion.
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Re: Educated Foxes.

Post by JohnV » 02 Feb 2021, 7:01 am

One time spotlighting foxes I spotted a fox among some rolly polly and bur bush and took a quite badly aimed shot and missed . The fox darted behind some bush galvanized bur I think . Anyway it never came out again so I whistled and waited and eventually got suspicious and shone the light all around and there was the fox crawling away down range in the shadow from the bush .
If it had gone another 6 meters it would have made cover . I thought what a sneaky fox , then I let it go .
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Re: Educated Foxes.

Post by Ziege » 02 Feb 2021, 9:19 am

geez john you'd be sacked from hunting trips here, letting them go!

I have been out Roo Shooting with the uncle when younger and going over some of the old favourite sites knocking over pet meat, well wouldn't be unusual for me to take a fox with his 22-250 10 mins after firing a shot in a paddock, they get accustomed to hearing a shot then smelling the blood/roo in the air and come trotting along.
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Re: Educated Foxes.

Post by JohnV » 02 Feb 2021, 10:13 am

Ziege wrote:geez john you'd be sacked from hunting trips here, letting them go!

I have been out Roo Shooting with the uncle when younger and going over some of the old favourite sites knocking over pet meat, well wouldn't be unusual for me to take a fox with his 22-250 10 mins after firing a shot in a paddock, they get accustomed to hearing a shot then smelling the blood/roo in the air and come trotting along.

It's only one and it deserved some mercy . I've shot a lot I can assure you . I bet you don't sack the local roo shooter for just taking the big ones .
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Re: Educated Foxes.

Post by Ziege » 02 Feb 2021, 11:24 am

JohnV wrote:
Ziege wrote:geez john you'd be sacked from hunting trips here, letting them go!

I have been out Roo Shooting with the uncle when younger and going over some of the old favourite sites knocking over pet meat, well wouldn't be unusual for me to take a fox with his 22-250 10 mins after firing a shot in a paddock, they get accustomed to hearing a shot then smelling the blood/roo in the air and come trotting along.

It's only one and it deserved some mercy . I've shot a lot I can assure you . I bet you don't sack the local roo shooter for just taking the big ones .



no but roos don't eat lambs and native marsupials and mammals and so on and aren't introduced pests.
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Re: Educated Foxes.

Post by JohnV » 03 Feb 2021, 10:08 am

That farmers lamb survival rate went up 26% after I spent two weeks shooting foxes and took about 80 foxes over three properties ( the two neighbours also ) so one is not going to do much .
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Re: Educated Foxes.

Post by Ziege » 03 Feb 2021, 10:52 am

I dunno about that, I've seen a solitary fox kill over 30 lambs in one weekend. ****** sucked down hard on a nosler partition from the 270 at 400m in the end.
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Re: Educated Foxes.

Post by JohnV » 04 Feb 2021, 9:11 am

Whatever sport .
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