This fox was pretty fun. If he hadn't been the first of the year I'd have probably let it go. Their numbers are increasing here. After 10 years of not seeing many, I've been seeing maybe one every few weeks crossing a road here and there, but never planned on pursuing them. I started this stand with some cottontail distress on the Scorpion at ~24. Bumped up the volume in 5 min to 36. Let it run 10 min. more. Switched to LightinJack for 10 min. Nothing yet. FemaleHowls for another 5, then switched to RfoxPup2...
I had parked in an open hay shed on the North side of an East/West gravel road on the south side of a wide valley. The valley floor was a bean field, and was open for about 300 yards straight North of my position. There was a hilltop in the center of the field about 150 yards out. I put my JIB decoy and Scorpion about 60 yards from the hay shed to the NW. The wind was blowing through this valley mostly from the West, but some NW. I stood leaning on the downwind side of a hay mower on the back side of the shed. I was determined to give that RFoxPup2 sound a long time to run, because it had produced a fox Monday night, and a coyote Tuesday night. At about 10 minutes on the RFoxPup2 sound, I saw a fox come from the upwind side of the hay shed (it had crossed the road coming due North) and was heading straight for my call/decoy. Not sprinting, just loping. I lip squeaked just before it got to my caller/decoy, and it trotted right past them, stopping about 15 yards North of them (75 from me) and looked back at the decoy. First shot with the Dtech .204 missed. He bolted just as I shot, and was over the top of the hill. I quickly switched to regular coyote pup distress, but had written it off. I had put my safety on, and had looked down to see where my brass ended up, when I glanced up and saw this fox returning from 30 yards straight downwind of the caller/decoy and closing. I flicked the safety off, shouldered the rifle, again with no rest, and ...click. The bolt had failed to grab the next cartridge, and closed on an empty chamber. The last couple times I cleaned this AR, I didn;t touch the bolt carrier group, because it seemed to slide just fine. Maybe it was a too sticky when cold. I quickly pulled the charge handle, not being careful to be quiet, and the fox stopped. I don't know how I noticed all this, but while I was trying to make my rifle function, I noticed the fox struggling with the decision to go to the call/decoy, or run from me. It turned back down wind and bolted 5 feet back and forth twice in what seemed like 2 seconds, then just stood there like it didn't know what to do. I finally got the rifle shouldered, and fired again. I either made a gut shot, or it entered the chest and blew a 5" exit of shredded guts out the belly. This was a 45gr Hornady Spire Point (lead tip). If I was trying for fox I probably would have gone with a lighter bullet, but I didn't think these 45gr Hornadys with no ballistic tip would blow up like that. It was probably going about 3200fps at 60 yards. Too fast to stay together at that range? I didn't notice an entry hole when skinning, although it seems like there's no way the bullet could expand that fast if it was a gut shot. I'll look for an entry hole again later.
What was left of the fox weighed 15.5 pounds, and there wasn't enough left down there to tell the sex. Looked like it might be a couple years old. Pretty sure those teeth were missing before he met me. It just occurred to me, that I probably should have tracked where the fox was at the first shot, up over the hill, and made sure the one I hit wasn't a second one. There may be another dead one over the hill. The one I hit could have been it's mate coming in to the pup distress looking to help. It seemed awful quick for the same one to go over the hill after being shot at, then circle around downwind that far. Might drive past there this afternoon.
Was a great night to be out. Not sure what to do for a bullet now. Kind of ruins the spirit of the .204 to slow down my loads, but I think that 45gr bullet would blow the same huge hole in a coyote.
