SmallCaliberCentral

Left home around 10pm last night. Made 4 stands with the 3rd one resulting in a red fox at around 12:30am. We had about an inch of snow yesterday. When I headed out, snow was still blowing about 15-20, but it died down to around 10mph and cleared up by midnight.

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.

B.Or, That sounds like an interesting night out,and well written about. Thanks, Ken.

Great story and initiation for the 204. As for the 45 gr sp's, I have used them on yotes and for the most part entrance and exit holes vary between the size of a quarter and a silver dollar on middle chest broadside shots. Never used any on foxes.

Always fun drawing blood for the 1t time on a new rifle.
WTG!

In Christ,

Song Dog

Baba,
I have the same predicament hunting predators up here. The fox numbers are definitely on the rise, but it would be nice to see more.

I still haven't had a chance to kill a fox with the .204, but I will definitely be using the 35 grainers when I do. The last fox I shot was with a 6mm Rem and a 58 grain VMax... I had to do a lot of sewing on that hide.

Did you take any pictures?

Congrats on the fox!

Thanks guys, I had a great week calling. Went out 5 nights in a row, and tonight will be the 6th. Only that one fox down but another fox I passed on, and a coyote I never got a shot on came in to the call.

I have not looked again for an entry hole on that fox, but more and more suspect he must have turned away from me and the bullet hit the hip, blowing up instantly. (The pelvis was shattered, and his left hind leg was clearly not in a socket.) I try this 45gr bullet again, and see what happens next time.

Related to the bullet issue: I decided that if the 35gr Berger is so well talked about, I wanted to test the 34gr dogtown bullet (I had an odd one in the console of my Jeep, so I chambered it). The only apparent difference between the two is the dogtown has a larger mouth hollow point. Jacket thickness most likely varies too, but I figure if the Berger is so great on coyotes because it deposits all it's energy with no exit, the dogtown should work the same. Well I didn't have to test it on a coyote. As I was walking back from a stand calling coyotes, I spotted a feral cat at 75 yards. I was carrying my Savage 16. I stopped, set my decoy down, and made a free standing shot. The cat dropped instantly. Never even did any death kick. It just tipped over DRT. Upon inspection, I could not find an entry/exit hole. After rolling it around looking for a hole, then picking it up by it's tail it finally after about 2 minutes dripped a couple drops of blood on the snow, and that was it. I've read some saying using the 34gr dogtown would be inhumane on coyotes, yet the same guys say the 35gr Berger is king. Is there some reason the 34gr dogtown should be significantly less effective than the 35gr Berger on coyote sized game? I have a bunch of 35gr Bergers loaded, and don't need to use the dogtowns, but was wondering...

In case any of you didn't notice, clicking on the blue words in my original post opens pictures. I like to post full size pics, but this board doesn't automatically resize them appropriately to display in a message. A couple are also pretty gruesome. The image hoster TinyPic actually deleted one of them. Must have been too bloody. I reposted it there and it's been there since. I figured you can click only if you want to see.

venison_burger wrote:Did you take any pictures?

You posted at the same time I was typing my last one.

Yeah, click on the words in blue for pics. Thanks!

Wow, after making the above 2 posts, I clicked on one of the image links in my fist post, and the pic came up. I hit refresh, and got the "Image missing or deleted" placeholder image from TinyPic.com. Apparently without warning, they delete any images they find inappropriate. Time to find a new image hoster. I was excited to use TinyPic because I heard they never expire and disappear like Photobucket free accounts do. I guess they just doesn't like hosting pics of dead animals.

I'll fix up the links here after I get them hosted somewhere else.

Great pics Mr.O. Thanks for mentioning the blue words. It might just be my 'puter but they are hard to make out if you don't know they're there. Thanks, Ken.

Nice write up. It's interesting how the .204 reacts to larger targets than what I'm used to (sage rats). If I shoot any weight bullet the effect is the same on something the size of a soda can!

Man I love this stuff!