Foxing in Wales: tips from an expert

#Foxing #Hunting #PulsarBrandAmbassadors

Written by:

Mark Lewis, Žygimantė Vakarė Jovaišaitė

Estimated read time: 9 min.

With foxes highly abundant in the UK, their control is an essential task that falls upon the shoulders of local hunters. Mark Lewis, a Welsh hunter, is one of the people who spend lots of time managing the fox population in his local area. Today, he’s sharing his insights on efficient and humane foxing.

Entering the world of foxes

These days, I do various types of pest control here in the UK: rats, corvids, pigeons, squirrels, rabbits. But the main one is the very smart and cunning – the red fox, Vulpes vulpes.

I started my self-taught journey learning from my own mistakes at a very early age, bunking off school to go out ferreting in the early frosty winter mornings and rabbiting or lamping with my lurcher running dog in the nighttime. By the age of 13, I was earning good money supplying fresh, sustainable rabbit meat to the game dealer while helping the farmers protect their crops and livelihood so that they could provide excellent fresh food for the greengrocers and the vegetarian market.

When I was 18, I gained my shotgun certificate and bought my first shotgun, which I used for the odd clay shooting days but mainly for rabbit pest control on walk-up rough shooting days with my Springer Spaniel Tate.

In my early 20s, I applied for my firearms certificate and bought my 1st rifle, which was a .22 Bruno rim fire. This was an absolute game-changer for my pest control. I added a Clulite lamp, which had 3 different color filters – red, orange, and green – for those lamp-shy rabbits and foxes.

Within a week, I shot my first close-range fox, a young vixen. I still remember it to this day.

After a month, I discovered that I needed something a little bigger as I was a little undergunned, especially if trying to control foxes at a longer range. So, I purchased my first center fire rifle, a .223 Tikka T3, which was an absolute tack driver. I bought a bigger lamp with filters and took many problem foxes over the coming years, saving thousands of pounds in livestock. I still use the rifle to this day, but now it’s graced with a Pulsar scope – the Thermion Duo DXP55, which has made the job more efficient, easier and humane.

The things to learn

There is a certain type of skill set you need to have to be a proficient and successful pest controller. Anyone can go out shooting, but to be productive and consistent with good results, you need that field craft, which you can only gain by putting in the work and years of experience. Habitat, time of year, weather conditions, moon phases, wind direction, temperature, noise level, scent, mating and breeding cycles, feeding habits – they all come into play, especially if you want to control this ruthless predator in an ethical and efficient way.

One of the main things you need to know before getting into pest control is the legalities and up-to-date legislation of the quarry that you are pursuing. Then, you need to learn correct quarry identification, especially at night. You must also have an understanding of your quarries’ characteristics, habitat, habits, calls, breeding seasons, and feeding times. And then there is knowing the ground that you will be shooting on – the location of footpaths, backstops, boundaries, residential properties, highways, and so on.

A tactical approach

There are many different tactics used for hunting the red fox in the UK, but the most ethical, humane, and widely used is shooting them with a rifle. That is why I use the best devices from Pulsar. To do the job properly, humanely, and quickly, especially at night, I need tried and tested devices that stand the test of time and are reliable. They need to be hard-wearing, easy to use, and, above all, give great quarry identification and clarity in all weather conditions.

The spotting device I use is the Telos LRF XP50. Lightweight, with amazing clarity and quarry identification in all weathers, and with an 8.5-hour operating time, it is enough to last me all through the night.

The other equipment I use, in addition to my rifle and Pulsar devices, is a fox caller and teaser. This is used out in the field to call the foxes in from a distance. I could play rabbit, chicken, lamb, or pheasant distress. I also use mouth and hand calls when conditions dictate.

Different times of the year and feeding patterns dictate the calls to be used. I use the teaser in the daytime to give added attraction, as it looks like an injured animal. Foxes hunt using sight, scent, and sound, so the more you can give to them, the more confident they will be to come in.

I use scent attractant downwind of me, along with the fox caller and teaser, especially with the very wary, switched-on, hard-to-shoot foxes. And shooting sticks for a good, stable shooting platform are essential!

Other essential things I take with me are my rifle license, permission to shoot forms, emergency first-aid kit, contact numbers, OS map reference and What3words location as to where I will be shooting in case of emergency.

Habits you need to know

Fox control is greatly influenced by the seasons and the time of day. Foxes are primarily nocturnal, so they are out hunting throughout the night and during dawn and dusk. Most of the day, they will be tucked up, sleeping in their earths, except in the spring and summer months when occasionally they can be seen out in the day when rearing young cubs.

Foxes are expert hunters, catching rabbits, rodents, birds, frogs, invertebrates, and earthworms, as well as eating carrion. But they are not just carnivorous; they are actually omnivores, too, as they also dine on berries and fruit.

However, they do like the thrill of the chase, and that is why, at certain times of the year, they can be a real problem, especially when they are feeding their growing cubs. If food is scarce due to location or weather conditions, they will hunt for longer and take what they can. They are a particular problem around March and April – it’s lambing time, which is when the cubs are born, and the vixen needs more food to sustain her young.

Then, the cubs are weaned in June and pose a big problem in July and August as the parents provide less food for them, making the growing cubs fend for themselves. This causes a big problem for smallholders, chicken farms, and pheasant shoots as these places are easy pickings, and this is when young pheasants are released into the woods.

In September, the cubs are now fully grown and forage for food on their own. By October, the young foxes establish their own territories, ready for the mating. Early morning and daytime foxing are also very productive this time of year and a great way to account for lamp-shy and the elusive, switched-on nighttime foxes. For this method, again, I use the compact and very lightweight Pulsar Telos LRF XP50 spotter to observe them coming into the caller just before or after first light, and they are accounted for with my semi-auto shotgun or rifle.

In November/December, when foxes become highly territorial, the nocturnal vocalization reaches its peak. Then, in January, vocal activity at night starts to decline, and foxes will be heavy on the feed after a busy mating season. By February, the vixen will be seeking and digging out new earths, ready to have her newborn cubs in March, and so it all begins again, a fox’s year.

Important steps to take

My advice to anyone starting predator fox control is to buy the very best devices you can afford from the start. As the saying goes, “Buy once, cry once”! And get good, sound advice and help from others who are already doing it.

Also, keep a record of what you observe and what calls and methods work at what time of the year – this will serve as a guide to the following year. Log times and sightings as foxes are creatures of habit, so if you miss one tonight, it will be there at the same time tomorrow night or the night after that.

Spend plenty of time out in the field studying your quarry. Learn its habits, feeding and hunting patterns, and times because once it’s dead, you will cease to learn from it!

Not just about predators

I also do a lot of other types of hunting – this does not interfere with my fox shooting or pest control, as it is done in the daylight hours. It is illegal to shoot any other quarry during the night in the UK, except for rabbits, foxes, and a couple of other species, but only under strict license.

October is a great month for hunting here deep in the heart of Wales. Not only for its abundance of animals but October, along with camo, is my favorite color. The area that I hunt is alive with activity this time of year. The nights start to draw in, the temperature begins to drop, food starts to become scarce as the arable fields have all been harvested and the grass silaged, and everything else is starting to die off, but the countryside is alive, with its foxes and fallow deer population looking for love and food to pack on essential weight to take them through the winter months ahead.

The fallow deer will be out looking to pack on food to take them through the upcoming rut and into the winter months. As the woods become alive with the grunting of big bucks looking to draw in a mate to their rutting stands, this is the ideal time and the only time that you can call in bucks, and it is a spectacular sight to see.

I normally sit out overlooking a big patch of forestry and wait until I hear the forest come alive just before dark with various bucks calling. Now it is the time to start calling yourself, but you must keep an eye on the dense forest. This is when a good thermal spotter, like the Pulsar Axion 2 LRF XQ35, comes into its own, as these bucks appear very fast! So, the sooner you get a heads up and know that they are there, the better. When they eventually break the cover of the forest, you need to be ready as the action is fast and furious.

Wales, this time of year, is at its best with its crisp, clean, fresh air, glorious scenery, mountains, rolling hills, waterfalls, forests, and woodlands of changing colors. Spectacular sunrises and sunsets are a sight to behold, as well as the autumn salmon run, the flights of wildfowl, soaring high unshootable pheasants, flighty deer, and challenging foxes make for any hunter’s dream that, accompanied with the correct gear, can only bring success.

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