Shooting for a perfect ten
In an easterly wind that slipped through my old tweed jacket like a sharpened bayonet, the last day of the season began for me in an ambush. A fox had been helping itself from one of the feeders and I’d spotted it before dawn the previous day. As Charlie is wont to do when there are easy pickings, he tried to repeat the trick at around 6.15am on Saturday, 30 January. It was to be a fatal mistake, affording a relatively straightforward shot with the .223. I crouched against some ancient round bales in the pre-dawn darkness, regretting my lack of thermals. The fox emerged from cover and began to feed. A single shot dropped it.
“The wind slipped through my jacket like a bayonet”
Charlie turned out to be Charlotte: better still; this was an excellent time of year to get a vixen. Territories are established but cubs have
