Wildlife Callers

Wildlife Callers welcomes Scott Francom’s first guest post. Scott is a field rep for GameTraks callers and has been featured on our site once before after spending a day in the field with Mark Healy of Wildlife Callers.

Scott sent us some photos of his Arizona predator hunting double down day last week, we asked him to share his story with us and he agreed, read Scott’s story here.

Scott Francom - GameTraks field rep.

Josh Ebert and I go calling together about once a month and when we get together,  we generally always have the same results – bobcats and gray foxes.  It’s not hard to understand why our take always includes these two species of predators.  We both have grown to enjoy the terrain these two species share and the unique way in which they both come to the call rivals nothing else in the Arizona desert.

Our most recent excursion had us knee deep in Junipers and crawling up and down large boulders.  Josh had scouted the area previously on a deer hunt and knew there were gray foxes in the area and where there are grays there most certainly are bobcats.  We quaded in on a rough forest road to an overlook with a vast collection of tan boulders and smaller rock formations.

Josh and I separated ourselves on the downward slope and I positioned the GameTraks caller between us on the flat ground.  I sat on the ground,  slipped my shooting sticks over my Savage .17hrm, and pressed the button that began the Johnny Stewart Gray Fox Distress soundbyte on the GameTraks caller down below.  The valley lit-up with the squeaking and raspy growling of a hurt fox.  Five minutes of this and I heard Josh lip squeak to my far right.

Squeaks are used between us for two purposes- one, to alert the other hunter that there is a shootable predator in the area and two, to call the animal in closer to the shooter or from behind an obstacle that impedes a good shot.   In this case Josh was trying to get me on the beautiful bobcat that had perched to his right on a boulder.   Bobcats are worth a good deal of money so there is no sense in destroying the pelt with a large caliber rifle.  If I could find the cat in the vast jumble of boulders below, it would guarantee a small entry and no exit on the pelt.  I scanned for 4 minutes and finally heard the report of Josh’s .223 and the cat was down.  I was unable to find the cat as it sat there unmoving, and Josh was forced to drop it at 150 yards as the bobcat was starting to fidget on its perch on the boulder.

He was lucky as the bullet passed through cleanly leaving minimal damage.

3 stands later and we called in 2 beautifully furred up gray foxes and a desert drifter coyote who was passing some time up at 3500′.  Only one of the grays presented a suitable shot which Josh promptly took with his 12 GA shotgun shooting #4 buck.

We moved on and set up shop at the opening of a canyon. We had changed callers to Josh’s small Minaska Bandit and by this time of the morning,  I was tired of “not seeing” grays and bobcats and was eager to get some shooting in.  As Josh began playing a high pitched mouse coaxer sound, I saw 2 foxes tearing across the countryside making their way to the caller hung in a tree.

This presented a problem as the caller was at the closest edge of some thick bushes that extended out 15 yards into the stand.  The first fox on his present path would plunge into the bushes and shooting it in the thick cover would prove tough for either of us.  I followed the more aggressive fox in my scope and as it weaved in, around, and over rocks my finger began depressing the Accu-trigger on my .17hmr.

STOP-STOP-STOP-STOP, I repeated  in my mind, trying to will the fox to halt, as it drew closer to the thick foliage.  In a last ditch effort I made a loud hissing noise,  the fox instantly froze and swung its triangular-shaped white and gray head in my direction and locked on me as I sat motionless 35 yards away. I touched off a shot that hit the fox in his vitals and he came to rest in a small ravine 2 feet from where the bullet had hit him.  The 2nd fox had doubled back and out of harms way.

Scott and Josh's gray fox and bobcat

At the end of 9 stands we’d called in 5 gray foxes, 1 bobcat and the coyote.

That we hadn’t shot everything didn’t bother us as we knew where they were and we’d be back together next month to give it another go.

Scott Francom

Wildlife Callers wants to thank Scott for sharing his hunt with us, our readers are welcome to share their own predator calling stories with us as well.  If you have a great story and photos you want to share, let us know. Contact us at info@wildlifecallers.com

Thanks for visiting and good hunting!

Marc Reindell

marc@wildlifecallers.com