ONE SHOT ONE KILL

The fox story:

Call me Ishmael. Ok Jared is fine too.

It was a dark and stormy night. The air was thick with humidity like a wet blanket laying heavily around one's body.

The previous night I sat in the back of the mini van from around 7:30 to just after nine with no luck. The fox seemed to show up everyother night and we had just seen him the previous night so he wasn't expected but ya just never know. No luck so I packed it in took a long walk through the paddock carrying the shot gun just in case I could flush him out, again no luck so I headed inside. The next night I decided on a different sitting position, after trying out a couple of different ones I decided to set the chair half in and half out of the weeping fruitless mulberry tree that's near the back steps next to the house. I had a hunch of a couple of places the fox would appear and was able to cover all those from my new half hidden position. I placed the Mossburg 12 gauge with a full choke on my right, loaded and ready to go. On my left was the Remington .22, wasn't sure with the close proximity of the fox to the chickens if there would be collateral damage using the 12 gauge so I wanted a second option. The 12 gauge was my first choice but certainly didn't want to kill any chickens if I could help it. As I sat waiting I practiced picking up, aiming and handling the 12 gauge with out making much noise as well as taking on and off the safety quitely. I wasn't planning on having a second shot as the fox is quite quick and skitish. I wasn't too worried about making a lot of extra motion from where I was located but I sat as still as possible, I forgot to put shoes on but figured just sitting it wouldn't be an issue. The coop was about 20 yards away. I was out in my chair around 8pm and as the night wore on I was getting a little tired and was going to pack it in soon...the sun was down but it was still pretty light out at 9pm. Chickens are pretty defenseless and the fox was killing our egg buisness by killing the layers. So I decided to ask God to bring out the fox so I could keep our chickens safe and keep selling eggs. Bible Ref. Mark 11:24 "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours". So I prayed and decided to believe that God would bring that fox out for me tonight. Foxes are welcome as long as they kill natural prey or cats. Sorry Dust Bunny. So I simply waited...the chickens had been out free ranging and were sort of bait and they began heading to the coop for the night...I waited... and waited. Then... I heard some commotion from the hens and saw them running from in front of the coop. Now we have many redish colored chickens and more than once that night they had me second guessing. But this time there was a lot of commotion and when I looked up I saw several redish chickens running from the coop...very odd as it's night night time for the chickens. It was getting hard to see but then I noticed him...during the commotion I was in the process of rasing the gun, I don't remember taking the safety off but apparently I did. I drew up the 12 gauge, now the shells I had in were 3 1/2 inch magnums, size size 4 shot 2 1/4 oz loads. a.k.a super magmo blaster shells. The fox was running from left to right so I had a great shot and as I sighted in the gun on the fox my fear of having some collateral damage with a hen was apparent. It's tough to trap a fox and I figured my chances were going to be slim of this happening often so I was going to aim as far back as I could on the fox. But the hen jumped out of the way and just a second later the fox came to a stop I aimed for his body and a fraction of a second later I squeezed the trigger. If you've ever been outside in the middle of the country 10+ miles from a small city just after 9pm you'd notice it's pretty quiet. Well I'd of loved to have been a neighbor because that magnum shell sounded awesome. And some 20 yards off that fox dropped right where he use to be standing. I guess from the talking with the kids and Kimmy it sounded quite impressive in the house and I was sitting just outside the house when it went off so I can only imagine. So I grabbed the .22 and made my way towards the fox but he was quite dead. Hit him in the middle just where I aimed. I was pumped really pumped. The scurge of the farm was no more. They're beautiful animals but I'd rather have chickens, and so would the fox. Don't have to worry about the chickens getting eaten every night, might keep an eye out for more foxes but they're typically solitary animals so I'm not too worried. So one shot one kill. I'm not sure Bill will ever get his guns back... at least not his shells.