Night Vision Diaries: Up and Downs

My good friend and professional gillie, John Young, recently called me about a night’s foxing up in Perth, which is about 45 minutes north from my place in Fife. John and I meet once a fortnight on his ground for a night of foxing and a general catch-up. The local farmer who rents fields from the local estate had mentioned to John that he had seen foxes cutting about when he’d been working the ground, during evenings and mornings. This gave us a few points of interest to look over with the thermal spotter to see if anything was going to fall prey to my thermal imaging equipment and John’s knowledge of the estate.

Clear Fields

I met up with John at our usual spot then we began our pre-planned route. This time all the fields had been cut so it made things that bit easier to detect the foxes that had been previously spotted by the farmer. We drove around the edge of the first one where Charlie had been spotted and picked a good high vantage point to stakeout for the next hour or so. Fifteen minutes into the wait and an old vixen started walking towards us from our right-hand-side, and it wasn’t even dark. I moved onto the bonnet of my pick-up with the rifle as quickly and as quietly as I could.

Then took aim using the Apex XD75’s picture-in-picture view and that was fox number 1 in the bag. I’d like to note here that that was the last shot I ever took off the bonnet of my Hilux pick-up. All will become apparent later in the story.

John and I picked up the quarry then went back to the pick-up and started spotting again from our vantage point, as it was still early and not even dark. Away down the bottom of the hill, around a thousand yards away, we could see three things moving around at the fence line that looked a bit like hares but once we saw the movement again it was clear that it was in fact three foxes. As we moved down the field to get closer to them, the lay of the land worked in our favour as there was a big long dip, which kept us out of sight till the last minute. John stayed back a bit as I crawled over the summit of the hill to see the three foxes raking around; two in the field and one on the other side of the fence in the opposite field. The first fox was a straightforward shot at 160 yards, which came off perfect. That left the one in the other field over the fence, which on hearing the shot took to its heals and made for cover. The third was still in the field where I shot the first one. It ran to the fence but then sealed its fate by stopping for a look back. So that was fox number three within just a couple of hours.

Number 4 Down!

We moved back to where we had met earlier that evening, as there were a few fields in stubble, so we decided to check them before we called it a night. This time John was on the rifle and I was spotting for him. The clarity of the Pulsar XQ38S thermal spotter was dwindling due to the dampness in the air, but I picked-out about 15 hares and six roe deer. The change in weather made it very difficult to get a proper identification through the spotter and the thermal scope. However, I located a heat source sitting still and not moving. To me it looked just a little too big to be a hare, but until it moved I could not be sure and neither could John. We had to sit it out and wait on it to move.

Ten minutes or so had passed and the heat source decided to walk away to the right. At that point it revealed its bushy tail and its true identity; it was indeed a fox.

When we were watching it, it was watching us and we weren’t prepared to take a shot until a positive identification was made. It really isn’t worth the risk and it’s better to be safe than sorry because once you pull that trigger there’s no going back. We started walking back to the pick-up scanning with the thermal all the time. Then I spotted a fox cutting across the field we were walking through, so John laid down in the stubble and waited on it presenting itself in a shootable position. Almost straight away the fox started digging at something on the ground, broadside on. John took the shot and that was number four down.

Time For Bed

It was half-past-midnight and I had an early start in the morning, but when things are going your way with the foxing, it’s sometimes difficult to call it a night. John and I decided to have one last look around the estate across the other side of the road. But after an hour or so of scanning the fields there was nothing to report, so it was time to drop him off at his van and for me to head down the road as I had a 45-minute drive ahead of me. I was 30 minutes into my journey when my world was turned upside down… literally. One minute I was driving along the road, heading home to my bed, and the next I was rolling side-on in my Hilux through a fence then into a field. The next thing I knew I was hanging upside-down, held-in by my seatbelt, wondering what the hell had just happened. Survival instinct had quickly kicked-in and I looked for ways out.

I managed to unclip the belt, and then fell onto the roof. Still dazed and confused, I managed to crawl through a broken window and out into the silage field. At this point I remembered a big object coming through my windscreen then felt the pick-up going out of control and the loud impact of the truck hitting the banking on the opposite side of the road. Once I composed myself, I tried to find one of my Night Master torches but to no avail, as everything inside the cab had been thrown out into the field because the pick-up had rolled six or seven times. The only light I had was the flashlight on my phone, so that was better than nothing. I followed the marks in the field back to the road then started heading back down the road the way I had come to see a load of blood, guts and intestines laying around. It was then I saw a broken antler and a roe deer on the verge. It had jumped off the banking and landed on the bonnet, smashing the window. This had distorted my vision and the rest is history!

Inevitable

I had always seen deer laying at the side of the road and wondered why, in all the years that I had been driving, I had never hit one or even had a near miss with, especially being out foxing all hours and on my way to work early morning. But I suppose it had to happen at some point. I’m just glad I had remembered to use my seatbelt. Sometimes we shooters can forget to use it because we’re used to not wearing it when out on private land as we’re in and out of our vehicles all the time; opening gates, spotting, shooting off the bonnet, etc. I’m also very happy with my choice of vehicle. The Hilux’s (mine was in a 2004 reg) are amazingly well made.

A week later, after feeling better from being battered and bruised, I met with another good friend of mine, and gamekeeper, Willy Bain. He kindly came down from his estate in Perth and picked me up for a night’s foxing, as I didn’t have a motor (the Hilux was a total write-off). However, we never got out shooting because the heavens opened-up and it stayed like that all night. We decided to call it a night and go home. About 10 minutes into the journey back to my house and Willy’s luck changed. For over 30 years he’d managed to avoid a deer collision, until that moment. As the roe deer struck the front of his truck, it damaged the bumper, which was hanging off. Needless to say, I got called an effing jinx. Willy doesn’t mince his words, and he threw some other choice words in for good measure. But this perfectly illustrates the need for deer control, as they have no natural predators.

The only predator they have, since the wolf was eradicated, is man!