but no quail.

We shot three yesterday in the afternoon without any problems just driving stubbles.

Many are now being burnt too. And there are no quail.

Very few ducks either.

GBB ,
Foxes seem to be enjoying the sunshine here too . Have a mate saw 3 whilst spraying out a tankful of chemical the other day . Went out there a couple of nights later and only saw 6 . Knocked over 4 . Pretty ordinary .

Have seen a fair few foxes around recently myself. As they like sweet late season grapes in the vineyard I will be having a look there for them in the next couple weeks, as I have (unfortunately) had to leave some hanging on the vine, or picked on the ground. Used to shoot a lot of summer foxes hanging around vineyards in the past.

Also left the stomachs of four fallow deer out in a paddock as bait and that will draw them as well.

Nights have started to get nice and cold so hopefully their skins are growing winter coats or will soon.

Sorry to appear ignorant, but are your foxes like the foxes in the US - red or grey with bushy tails?

I hate to even ask this, but what you guys call 'opossums' look funny to me. Our opossums look like big rats.

Australia has the European "red" fox (Vulpes vulpes) ... although colours can vary amongst individuals.

Seems to be quite a few foxes around the Shepp irrigation area as well ... and what a joke the Vic Govt's $2500 for a shooter working in partnership with farmers is. BRING BACK THE BOUNTY!! ... but then we cant have local F&GA members portrayed as the good guys when money raised during fox drives is donated back to local rural hospitals can we??
Cheers...
Con

You shoot them with the Ackley, Bushchook?

The pelts are starting to noticeably thicken up here.

We are going out to a mate's place later to-day as he is burning stubble. That can be good fun for shooting foxes. And it will show if there are any quail around here.

Has rained a bit so things could change.

Dogcat,
Yes same thing but we have just reds, no greys.

Your reds have much nicer tails & fur.
Ours seem a little bigger body wise.

sam.

GBB ,
Yeah took the .243 Ackley .
The plan was to use 55 grain Noslers at 4030 FPS on foxes as I have a heap that I want to use up . Took along some 105gn A Maxes at 3000 for targets that stand upright as have found the 55's marginal . They shoot to a similar point of impact . Ended up shooting 3 of the foxes with the A Max .Seemed to work .
Hard work finding those shot in the stubble and stink grass at the moment .

It just so happens that I shot 2 yesterday morning not 100 yards from the house and not 50 yards apart.
The little 17HMR does a job on them. They simply collpase with nary a mark on them and almost no blood. Certainly no exit holes. Unreal.
I just simply walked them up after taking a break from painting the floor in my workshop. No calls nothing.
I've tried all the calls in the world, Scotch, Stewarts and tin whisltes etc and mainly just manage to scare them off.
I get better results from just walking along quietly from downwind on a sunny morning.

Bushchook, that 4000 fps load would be pretty explosive I'd bet. Do you graze the stubbles over there pretty hard over the summer months?

A lot of cockies do here and the paddocks have what looks like little cover but still hold a fox or two. And you can get at them if you are quick enough.

Some cockies don't graze the stubble and the thick ones can hold a fair few but are hard to drive during the day as they just play doggo.

Different with a fire right behind them though.

We went out to a few different stubble paddocks that were being burnt yesterday. We have shot them this way before and its good fun. Get a fire going as a back burn on the downwind side of the paddock, wait til its burnt 50-100 yards then light up the other end.

The foxes were usually sitting pretty tight until the fire was almost on them then off (actually impressive when three started to run from under a sheoak at the same time).

We waited out between the two lines of fire until it got going across the paddock.

We shot 4 in one 280 acre paddock in very short time. Obviously no time to sit and look at them as the fire was flying along. So we were shooting them then getting away from the fire.

One 320 acre paddock actually had quail in it. saw about ten, whereas there'd normally be hundreds. So there are quail about but damn scarce.





Pretty ordinary smell after being burnt.

And I wasn't real excited about son and the farmer's son wanting to pick up "things" after they had shot them with a wall of flame racing towards us.

We've shot heaps over the years this way.

Yesterday was good fun except for the LC being full of cinders and stinking like-----

(the mind boggles)---- to-day.

But there are some burns on next Saturday and Sunday (weather permitting).

A good reason not to got to Bob and Dawn Meyer's clearance sale.




Heard it all before

I only see those yellowy grey foxes, both outwest and in town, I saw one bolt across the road in front of me the other morning on my walk, I saw 2 having a shag in town one morning at about 2:30 am on my way to work. I see some with the most shocking mange out west where I shoot. The absolute most mangey specimen I ever saw while working there would come right into my camp in the machinery shed, I tried to nail him with the Brno .22 but he was too wiley. I had a perfect shot at him once, but he was playing ( I swear it`s true ) with the station cats! The owner had never heard of it either. But mange! from the shoulders back he looked like he had brylcreme and had been combed.

Mange is really uncommon amongst the foxes here. It does occur but not often.

Have heard of foxes playing with cats around farm buildings around here too.

GBB, I see them in western QLD. The really mangey one`s are weedy and small, I wonder if they get it when they are quite young. It eventually makes them as mad as a cut snake. I suppose it also makes them more prone to just walk about as bold as brass, they don`t care about anything anymore, and they can`t hunt as well so they lurk about the station. When I saw that one I mentioned, I also saw one when I was collecting my cray fish traps from the bore drain that was quite easily the best fox I ever saw. All I had was a torch and 2 opera house traps, we stood about 15 feet apart looking at each other. The lil smart arse knew the score too, I reckon if he could have laughed at me he would have..

Foxes are a smart animal. They definitely figure out which cars to avoid, which ones are no worries, who carries a gun, what a fox wistle is. Often see a pair of foxes near the lake oposite our house here in town and they stroll around in daylight. They know where aren't ment to shoot within the town limits. One evening a 40 gn subsonic may surprise them.


Opera houses are a very good way to get a feed of yabbies, I reckon. Although we never got many this summer just gone as overdid it the previous year and didn't really feel like a big feed of them. When you say "crayfish traps", are you after yabbies? I wonder whether they are the same as the ones we get in dams and channels?

Lake Albacutya filled about 20 years ago and it teamed with yabbies. Supported about 5 pros for months. Every lift of a net and you'd have half a bucket. it dried out about ten years ago. A contractor had to dig a trench in it about three months ago, and apparently about 15 foot down, they was a layer of yabbies over a foot thick. Live and laying dormant and waiting til the Lake fills again.

Blue Yabbies. Some states have differing opinions on the name. But yeah, blue claw yabbies. The bore drains are lousy with them. Roo meat works best for me, under a bit of shade, or just behind the owners house where the drain runs buy is good. I`d have thought pig meat as bait would have been the go but I hardly got one using it. Although, where I go they are going to cap the bore, and the water is piped in now. The drain will run dry eventually, its going to be very interesting..
I must add, when I was a kid and first went out west desilting dams, they were full ( or atleast had an amount of ) Yellowbelly.. next time I went out a few years later, the carp had fully taken over and you`d pull tons of the useless crap out of a dam.. Sad...

Ours don't have the blue claw here so must be different.

We use liver when we want heaps. Or any meat that really stinks.

The absolute best bait for yabbies/marron et al is dry dog food pellets.
Try it and you'll agree.

Just tie a handfull up in a mesh bag and they will come from miles to get at it.

A lot more pleasant to use than stinking meat too.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Avatar:
The absolute best bait for yabbies/marron et al is dry dog food pellets.

When we first went after Murray River crays thirty years ago, everyone had their own best bait. A long term mate from Red Cliffs (where are ya, SmleKid) was absolutely sure sheeps heads were the bee's knees when it came to bait. And it caught us heaps.

Then, I was craying near Goodnight about 20 years ago (and you'll never get in there now!), we were hard up for bait and shot a wild pig. Put heaps of offal in different onion bags which we usually used to keep the cooked crays cool, and we caught heaps.

All of the crustaens (sic) seem to go on different bait at different times in different places.

We were craying near Murchison once on the Golbourn River near Murchison and getting nothing until we put a couple of legs of mutton in them and dropped them down stream off big rock ledges in the river.

It was a case of reading the water for where the ridge started then ended and dropping them into the real deep water on the down river side and being used to the idea of playing out up to 35 foot plus of cord.

Biggest Murray Crays I have ever caught.

Some were near two foot long. Including the claws. I have some photos somewhere.


But it also depends on how hard an area is (cray/ yabby) fished as well, I think.

Avatar, a mate also used Velvet soap in his shrimp nets but good results. So I can well believe dog pellets.