another pa night hunting story

[bigben]

I allways throw out a invite to anyone to tag along for a hunt mainly for fellowship at the beggining of the season.  well a fella that I had ground hog hunted with wanted to head out sometime and go predator hunting with me.  he is a college professor and had thanksgiving week off.  so I sent him a email saying the days I had off.  he picked friday after thanksgiving.  needless to say I was a bit nervous when I looked at the weather report and seen no clouds and a full moon.  I was even more nervous because paul had just drove 3 hours to get to my house.  also paul had confessed to me that he had not killed a fox yet and maybe we could break the streak tonight.  so here is the story. 

met paul at the bottom of our driveway and we decided one vehicle would be better then two. paul offered up his rav4 so I loaded my gear into his vehicle and we went to get something for supper first. after some discussion on how I setup and some warm grub in our bellies we headed to the mountian. went to my honey hole where I killed my coyote at. I had a felling that this would be the best stand to kill something. we setup with paul in the treestand and I was sitting directly below him. turned on the call and about 5 minutes went by of misc bird distress. turned it to the deadly grey fox pup. about that time heard something slowly making a aproach below us. he was crossing from behind us to the front to a little rock ledge that runs the whole length of the mountian from top to bottom. he was still messin around so I turned on the GFP and coon fight and here he comes I seen him about 50 yds out I cocked the hornet and hoped that paul had seen him. about that time he is directly in front of us on a log running to the end hopped off and ran straight toward us. at about 8 yds from me paul dropped the hammer and he scampered out of there as fast as possible. in pauls defense if was very dark and we should have had head lamps at that time. the fox showed at around the 15 minute mark and then came back and cussed us out at about 50 yds away in the thick brush. we crawled down the mountian and back to the vehicle to head down into the bottoms to get others.
the next stand was dry and we went home to fix my head lamp real quick. drove to another stand and called my first pantry puma on that farm. gathered our stuff up and went to another stand. as bright as it was we were trying to stick to the dark parts of the shadows. turned on a bird distress and sure nuff here comes a red bebobing down through the field. so I get ready and about that time it spooks. the farmers lane is right behind us and the farmer was coming down the back entrance way. we called across the road and produced nothing. one red spooked and one big grey missed.
went to another stand and it was dry grabbed a dew and some jerky at the local quickee mart and headed to the next stand. as we were walking out I was telling paul that I have called this spot twice this year and both times produced a grey. so be ready. we get out there and start vole squeek and turn to the deadly GFP distress again. surenuff a grey shows up about 75 yds out. I am going to start calling this fox the shy grey. each time he has shown himself he tends to stick to the brush and will not come out. I attempted a standing shot off sticks and failed. now we are up to two greys missed and one red spooked.
so the next stand I decided to call right on our back driveway. I knew there were greys in the area but I needed to watch because the farmers cats was everywhere.  I had seen two pups in our backyard on the grape trellis eating the grapes off once they were getting ripe.  I started out calling with a vole squeek again. I stopped and wailed on a critrcall standard a few times and a set of eyes appear and then dissappear. I called rabbit in distress for a bit and then turned on the GFP distress. there the eyes do the same thing only he climbs up on the road and turns away from us. paul got ready for the shot and I said hold on. stay ready. next thing I know I hear leaves russling above our right side. on our right side there is a cliff type thing that is about 30 ft tall from cutting the back drive in. there he is looking down at us. he started playing peek a boo. allmost like whack a mole. he would just peek over the edge enough to see me and then back up. he did this 5 or so times till paul shot and that was it. by then it was getting late and paul still had a 3 hour drive home.  final tally three greys called and missed one red that was a missed oportunity and a heck of a good time. 

I did learn that I could see eyes paul could not even if he was less the a few feet away. I am used to hunting by myself and not with a partner. I guess since they hear the sound source coming from me they do not look else where. It was probably the most fun I had hunting at night. and I am glad that I could put some fox in front of paul. I just hope next time we can kill some critters.  another thing that I also noticed with all the greys they came in after atleast 5 minutes of calling.  I am not sure why but I allways keep hearing of people calling them in within a minute or two.  this year I have stayed atleast 10 to 12 minutes each stand and my callin ratio is much better. 

thought you guys might enjoy the read. 

[songdog]

            Sounds like you had a heck of a night..Think if you would have taken all of those greys, and that one red..I bet your partners eyes would have been as big as basketballs... :shck: The main thing is that you both had fun, after all, thats what its all about...   good hunt

[HaMeR]

Thats a heckuva night Ben!! I bet you made a good friend & hunting partner out of it too.

Just a thought then I'll go away. Well maybe!!

If you can stand behind your partner & call then he can see the eyes too. I read something along these lines in ,, I think ,, Predator Extreme magazine. An older fella would stand behind the shooter who sets in a swivel chair I think it was & they turned back & forth together. Might work.

[bigben]

I was standing behind him when the one was playing peekaboo.  but at the angle that we were looking up the light was about a foot and a half above the shooters head.  the same thing when the grey was on the ground.  the shooter was kneeling and I was standing.  I could see eyes and he could not.

[HaMeR]

OK. Just thought I would throw it out there. I'm sure you'll have it figured out for next time tho. Good Luck!!

[bigben]

i sure hope so soon.  this stuff with calling something in and not killin is gettin old now.

[Bluesman]

Good post.  Thanks for sharing.

[sdLBLhunter]

I really wish we had greys like that in LBL....my roommate and I killed one last fall on our first outing, we drank to that for a week straight!   Are foxes generally more nocturnal?

[sdLBLhunter]

Heres something Ironic....on the way home about 5 minutes after leaving that last post, I drove past a road kill grey fox....

[bigben]

some say they are.  but the other day while deer hunting I seen two reds and gray at 9 in the morning.  I have been calling them recently from dusk till around 11 at night.  I think once it gets cold you will see them move at any type of distress call.   

[studabaka]

There are greys at LBL.... I had one walk 15 foot in front of me on one stand last year in the hardwoods.