The crops were about a foot high, there was no moon and it was cold. I was excited that Dad was taking me shooting on Pop’s farm for the first time. All I had done so far was shoot some targets with Dad.
When we got to Pop’s, Dad started setting up the buggy. Dad was driving and spotting for a while before we saw the first fox about 150m away. He turned the buggy to get in a good position.
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I was feeling a bit nervous, not about shooting my first fox but from Dad ragging me about it if I missed.
“Go for the chest,” was all he said. So I lined it up and squeezed the trigger. The gun went off and I heard the thud. Dropped it on the spot.
That was one of three I got that night. We put it in the back of the buggy because Pop wanted evidence.
We went back two weeks later to have another go. Pop said he wanted evidence again.
We got to the stubble paddock where the ewes were lambing and straight away I got a fox. The night turned out to be a good one: seven foxes in under two hours.
On our way back to the house, Dad spotted number eight in the stubble paddock. So off we went but this bugger was not hanging around.
Dad was trying to cut it off from getting into the little patch of bush. Thankfully, the ewes and lambs are 500m away in the corner of the paddock.
The fox got into the bush so we screamed around the patch of scrub to find it. Dad spotted some eyes in the stubble 60m away as he swept the light back.
“Nail it,” he said. I fired and the bullet struck home, so we went over to have a look.
It was one of Pop’s lambs. I wasn’t feeling very happy. On the way back to the house we saw the fox again and I shot it.
We went inside to tell Pop but he was asleep, so we told Nan.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “You’re not the first person to do that.”
Next morning I got a phone call from Pop, who was laughing his head off.
“You should have gone to Spec Savers,” he said!
By Katelin Cram
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