Mauser M03 - Works on Foxes

There was a big, fat full moon on Wednesday night. In my part of the world it rose just after sunset and stayed up there until dawn. A perfect full moon. It could have been ruined by cloudy weather but the sky was crystal clear. And to top it all off, the temperature only got down to -1C, which a Landcruiser's heater can easily deal with, even with the driver's window down. However, I will admit to putting a glove on while holding the spotlight out the window, after midnight.

I had a chat with the farmer when I arrived, to get the latest tips on where the pigs had been hanging out. No news on that front, but I was asked to keep a count of how many foxes I saw. I thanked the farmer for the glowing piles of logs in one of the paddocks, which would be handy for warming my bones early in the morning, as well as for heating up a can of food for dinner.  He laughed as he remembered a similar situation years ago, when he'd inadvertently invented the MOABBB - the Mother Of All Baked Beans Bombs.

The first two foxes I saw were in the big paddock below the farm house, where the earth is soft and wet and full of tasty morsels for foxes and pigs alike. To be picked up at distance a fox needs to be looking at the spotlight, which they will curiously do if it's not too bright for them. That's why my first shot was at the more distant fox, at 240 metres, with my Mauser M03 Deluxe, using the 243 Winchester barrel and Kahles K624i scope I'd checked in the previous post. I knew it was bang on. Given the good weight of the M03, there was very little felt recoil from the Berger 68 gn Flat Base bullet. The second fox was further left and down the slope, at only 150 metres. The shot I'd just fired didn't bother it and it didn't move until it didn't move, ever again. That's how we like our foxes here in Australia. The deader the better. I took this photo once the sun was up, with a light frost making its fur sparkle.

Fox no 2 shot with a Mauser M03 with a 243 Win barrel. Berger 68gn Flat Base.

The next two foxes were running around together at the other end of the property, near another of the farm houses. I wanted to keep the noise down (best to ask those who heard the bangs over the sound of the telly if I was successful!) so pulled out my Sako Vixen in .17 Remington. Two foxes fell, east and west of the house. A third one, which was almost the first one, got away just before I was ready. He looked like an old timer who might have learnt that when that bright light turns up and the rumbling noise stops, a loud bang soon follows. I'm out'a here!

Fox no 3, knocked over with a Sako .17 Rem and a 25gn Hornady bullet.

Fox no 4, shot the night before with a Sako .17 Rem.

I slept in the back of the 'cruiser from one o'clock until four, parked above the broad view where I got this big boar last October. It seems the word had got out that it wasn't easy pickings anymore in that paddock. Once I was up and at 'em, a sweep with my binoculars under moonlight, and then again by spotlight, found nothing. I'd been confident I'd see pigs here, but not this time. No foxes either. Hmmm?? :-(

Never mind. The light was soon growing as the moon handed over to the sun and by then I was shivering as I quietly stalked back and forth between two overlooks, each with pig-mangled pasture spreading out below as evidence of these being favourite rooting grounds for years on end. I watched with anticipation as the sun broke over the hills in the distance, cheering on the rays of warmth which were striking here and there around me, but not where I was standing, for some inexplicable reason. My patience was eventually rewarded with the gift of warmth. I'll never tire of standing sentry at dawn over a perfect hunting ground, with a Mauser over my shoulder.

I found a fox with the Zeiss scope, about one and a half kilometres away, still in the shadows and working it's way across the paddocks, vaguely in my direction. It disappeared into a blackberry infested creek line. Ten minutes of me enjoying the sun later, it popped out of the blackberries only 130 metres below me. 'Chances are I'm not going to see a mob of pigs burst out behind it', I thought. Earplugs in, earmuffs on, 270 up to my shoulder, left elbow resting on hip, left thumb under the trigger guard, two fingers under the magazine. Quite steady. The fox didn't stop trotting and was about to be hidden by bushes so I fired and missed. Instead of running it decided to sit, next to a young, forked gum tree and tried to figure out what that noise was, and that new pock mark in the ground. It wasn't there a second ago. Clearly this was not the old fox from last night. My second shot was going to have to sneak between the forking tree trunks. Wobble, wobble, wobble, pull! Got him! A touch too much gun, but needs must.

Fox no 5, clobbered with a Mauser M03 at 120m with a 270 Win barrel and 150gn Berger bullet.