[Music]
It's going to be tough to keep the golfing references to a minimum but we'll try: well-known
falconer Roy has left his birdies at home, well the eagle anyway, so we can knock some
holes in the local fox population.
They're making a right mess of the greens, fairways and the benches, and it's Roy's job
to clean it up.
Many people would think that if you have a golf course you would want as many foxes as
you could possibly get to keep the rabbit population down.
But in actual fact the foxes can still cause a lot of damage by digging up the greens defecating
all over the place and they are actually jumping up on the benches and pooing all over the
benches as well.
Not ideal for a day out with your clubs.
Personally that wouldn't really bother me because golf is certainly not my game and
I really don't quite understand it.
We will kick off and end up on the 19th hole old chap.
We start with the front nine holes - We have to be careful not to make more mess than the
foxes so we drag along Darren and his gator.
We had wanted to have some fun in the golf buggies but they charge up over night and
the club doesn't want members cutting up rough in the morning about flat batteries.
Cutting up rough - see what we did there.
The foxes shouldn't be lamp shy so we've got a couple of Nightmaster 800s with the red
and green LEDs.
The beam travels as far as we can see, but unfortunately we don't see much.
A couple of likely spots deliver nothing.
The champion bogeys holes 1, 2 and 3.
The Western Rivers call is taking the strain again tonight and finally a fox takes the
bait, but only as we start to move off.
There are actually two of them around and with the call already back in the gator Roy
uses the Silva Fox call.
It's hard work but a shot presents itself and our evening suddenly starts waking up.
We have just come over the top of the rise and we have just see a fox disappear into
the wood here.
He came out of the bottom but as soon as the lamp was on him he tucked back in and then
he was starting to work his way back across.
Luckily he stopped just long enough for us to get the shot.
We know there is another fox which came into our right hand side just above us.
I am hoping he has just worked his way over to the other side of the course and hopefully
we will catch up with him in a second.
For our next stand - Roy mixes it up a bit and starts with the mouth call.
Low and behold a fox pops out for a look and Roy has his chance.
Change of tactics we reverted straight onto the mouth call and straight away we got a
fantastic response.
Just came straight out of that wood there.
Number two in the bag.
I think that is what we might do just have a bit of a trawl around and a few more mouth
squeaks and see how we get on.
I will just carry on a second just in case.
Here we go another one is coming in.
Have you got it.
Yes.
Sometimes one call works, other times another call works.
You never know so it is always worth having a run through.
Because we actually called previously on this spot and gone through a hole plethora of different
calls on the electronic caller with no avail, but I really thought this area was quite foxy.
So I just wanted to give it another go so we gave it another go with one of the mouth
callers and all of a sudden everything started to happen within a few seconds.
So you have always got to change your tactics and just be prepared to change off the course
of what you have decided to do and experiment a little bit.
Another night it could have been one of the calls off the electronic caller that worked.
So you never know.
That is what is fun about it because all of a sudden the action kicks off and within seconds
we have got two more foxes.in the bag.
Darren retrieves the foxes.
Once again they are adults.
So where we are on this site here we actually surrounded quite heavily by housing and by
the looks of it the foxes are normal customers that we would find in the fields and what
have you.
But they definitely look a bit more urban.
Their condition is nowhere near as nice and the fur condition is not so good, but the
most interesting thing so far is we haven't even seen a cub.
It will be interesting to see what goes on once we have had the harvest.
Whereas normally when we are doing that sort of squeaking at this time of year we would
be getting an awful lot of interest from cubs coming about.
Are you wearing guy liner?
Guy liner?
Does it look like I am wearing guy liner.
Thank you darling.
Does it mean I am looking incredibly handsome tonight?
A bit further down the fairway we spot a fox in the scrub.
Roy sticks with what he knows and lets loose with the mouth call - from hundreds of meters
away the tell tale eyes come bobbing towards us.
This one needs a bit more careful management - finally Roy is happy with the shot.
A little bit puckered.
It is certainly turning on now.
That wasn't the original fox that we saw.
It just came over the rise and there was a fox sitting right out in the middle of the
green there but he disappeared off and I just tried to call that one out and we are probably
not more than about 100 to 200 yards from where we were first calling a minute ago where
we had the other two and carried on calling for a little while and another one started
coming in from probably a good 500 yards away.
The last little bit he wasn't quite sure because I think we are sitting on top of the bug at
the moment we are a bit skyline.
When he got really close he panicked a bit and went back a touch, but just managed to
pick him out in the trees.
I think the way we are going now we could start to pick up a reasonable bag.
What are the teeth like, worn out?
No, she is not an overly old child, but certainly not a youngster though.
In the words of John Paul Sartre, as anyone who has seen Caddyshack known, "Au revoir
foxy".
We're now on a charge.
The next hole delivers a youngster- soon followed by another -
Roy has to work this second fox harder by using a more delicate touch.
We knew we had a questionable back stop calling with that wood to our right.
We were hoping that the foxes would come from the wood to our left.
So we actually carried on squeaking.
I actually changed the squeak.
I really toned it down.
We went to a little mouth squeaker from Best Fox Call which I think is a willow grouse
call and that was just enough to regain its interest as it was sitting there and luckily
instead of coming following the contour of the wood it decided to come out to the left
of the wood.
So again we had a fantastic backstop on that one because we have got rising ground there.
So again no more than 40 - 50 yards off a perfect shot.
Put them both together.
I would say youngsters.
Yes they are.
Double vixen from the same litter.
As we travel to our final hole Roy explains the need for the Nightmasters.
It is just a lot quicker you can cover the ground have a good scout around.
See what you have got.
It allowed us to get a number of foxes relatively quickly and now we know pretty much where
the foxes are that are lamp shy.
We can come back with night vision and clear those up another night.
Our last customer is another long play.
The fox comes from the woodland on the far edge - before it's too close, Roy knocks it
over.
After a slow start it's been a really satisfying night with some lovely shots from the rough
and across the green.
Nicely put, put - get it.