We really enjoy our free range chicken eggs but to our frustration, chickens, ducks and my prized Birmingham Roller pigeons do not last long. I didn't know if it was dogs, hawks, coyotes or what, but I was starting to take it personal.

Monday morning, when I went out to start the day, I was met with one of our two geese mournfully honking out in the pasture. This pair of geese, Gertie and Floyd, had been together for years and now Floyd lay dead with his head and neck missing.




It was the last straw. I was fed up. I got my trail camera and put it up on the gate of the chicken house. It didn't help my mood when Gertie just kept up her mournful honking.

When I viewed the pictures from the trailcam the next morning, I knew what I was dealing with; a Red Fox. They are very rare in this area. I had never seen one and I didn't know anybody that had.

The photos indicated he had been around the chicken house at 6pm, 1130pm and 645am. This was going to be a slam dunk. I called my taxidermist to see what my options were. I was confident that I would solve everything that evening.



I spent the day preparing for that night’s hunt. That fox was going to pay the rent.

My buddy came over and we put up a pop up camouflage blind on top of the pump house. With lawn chairs and a Big Buddy heater, it was a perfect setup.




I called all the neighbors, told them my plan and to not be alarmed if they heard a barrage of gunfire during the night.

We got up in the blind at 5pm and stayed until about 830pm. I couldn't take anymore of Gertie’s sorrowful honking, calling for her beloved Floyd. After thinking everything over, we agreed to climb back up at 5am. We stayed until after daylight without a sign of the fox. Later the trail cam photos proved he had strolled through at 130am. After the morning session, I realized this wasn't going to be easy.
I was obsessed with that damn fox and it became a chess match. I would sit in the blind for hours and he would skip a night or come around after I left. I could not get a consistent pattern of his movements.

Over the ensuing week, I was losing sleep, ignoring my family, and was becoming irritable, grumpy and frustrated. It didn't help that I had told everyone the fox was as good as dead. My reputation was on the line. That fox had to die.

I still felt that my set up was perfect but I needed to get that fox to come in on my time. If he was in the area, I was hoping he would respond to a cottontail distress call or mouse squeaks but I wasn't very confident in anything after this frustrating week.

After reviewing all the trailcam photos, I decided to sit that night from 10pm to 2am. I was tired but wanted this over. Friends, family and coworkers were constantly calling to see if I had killed the fox yet. It was the hot topic in town. Some of them were saying it was hopeless. That fox was too sly. I was starting to wonder myself. I actually thought about announcing that it was hit by a car on the road and so the hunt was off. NO! I've got to finish this but the pressure was getting to me.



After placing a mouse squeaker call by the chicken house, I climbed up into the blind with a thermos of coffee and a determination to get that chicken killer if it was the last hunt I ever went on.

Gertie was finally sitting quietly in the pasture below the blind and a stray cat walking by didn't seem to bother her at all. About midnight I was sure thinking about my bed but remembered it was a time he had showed on two different nights. It was quiet out but at about 1230am the dogs down the road started making a ruckus. I was hoping it was that damn fox making his way to his dinner table, also known as a my chicken pen.

Around 1:00am, I was jolted to attention by a loud ominous hissing sound. I didn't know what it was at first but when I looked down at Gertie, she was up, alert and never stopped that spine tingling hiss. Man, I knew instantly that it was Game On!

The Browning Citori was across my knees. I saw a flash and then the fox trotted by. He circled the chicken house and started heading straight for Gertie. I knew right then he was mine. The Browning came up and 2 ounces of Heavy Coyote BB shot was on the way. He went down as if he had been hit by a sledgehammer and never twitched.

Relief swept over me as I held the Browning on that fox.

He had a beautiful red coat and the bushiest white tipped tail you ever saw.



I spent the next hour texting and emailing photos to all the naysayers of my quest for the goose killing fox.

Good work!

Congrats!

very cool story and pictures

I would have use a couple of no.2 coil springs and dirt hole sets and slept like a baby.

Good job looks like a nice fox.

Cool story.. Is it just me or is the pic of the fox looking into the camera a little creepy?

Good story & pics, congrats on getting him.

Yo Dog Man,

Waidmannsheil!



Good shooting, popping that Goose Thief.

Very creative your Ambush Outpost atop the Pump House and glad your Goose Killer reputation isn't tarnished, either.

Typical fox behavior; "decapitaing" prey but suprised a Fox that large didn't carry it away.

One spring I watched a Fox from my kitchen window, mousing in a grass meadow (couldn't shoot out the window, across the Barnyard & into the meadow for legal reasons).

After he departed a Vixen showed up about 10 minutes later, so I figured they had a den full of Pups somewhere close-by.

I was out to sit for some Roe Deer later that evening and drove behind the meadow where to my surprise - caught the Vixen in the middle of a forest road with a housecat in her mouth. Seeing my Jeep Renegade she spit it out and did the Dash. Upon closer inspection noted she had decapitated the cat just as neat as if someone had cut it's head off with meat cleaver.

The High Seat was only a couple hundred meters away and hoped I may get lucky but No Cigar. When I drove by later that night after my unsuccessful sit - the headless Cat was gone.

A month or so later my Farmowner Landlady was awaiting my evening arrival; highly distraught as I pulled in the driveway. She'd lost 10 Chickens in the middle of the aftenoon to a "bite behind the neck" culprit who hadn't carried even one of them away. Figured it was a Pine Martin and set two cage traps in the Barn adjacent to the Chicken Coop using eggs for bait; meanwhile hoping I wouldn't find them with a Barn Kitten in them every morning.

To Cut-to-the Chase, on Friday eveing my Landlady was standing in the driveway waiting for me. Now, completely hysterical; related the Grand Total of the last 2 days had resulted in a 3-day 29 Chicken loss - all the same M.O.

I cancelled my Friday night plans and arranged a comfortable spot in the barn loft overlooking the Barnyard with a combo rifle that night; noding on & off next to the bales of hay I'd situated.

At first night on Saturday morning awoke outa one of my several slumbers with a head-jerking start and low & behold here comes a young Fox Pup trotting up the road making a Bee-Line straight for the Chicken Coop.

I popped him with the rifle barrel as he sat atop a fence post into the Barnyard. He was most probably one of the Pups from the litter earlier in the year.

Great story and congratulations on keeping your reputation. I suggest a non-aggresive mount. My friend just had one done in a more inquisitive look and it is cool.

Good for you. The farmer who's property I hunt just lost 6 chickens and some pheasant in a pen he was trying to raise.
After he called me I've been there three times. 1 red down and a couple to go..

Great, sounds like a leopard hunt.

Well done, great story.

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Love it. Great look on your face in the pic!

Super story, glad you were able to get that varmint!!!