Foxers need to build their informant network if they’re to succeed, says Robert Bucknell – and that includes not just neighbours but local wildlife, too

Earlier this year we had done a pretty good job of clearing up all the foxes on the farm and had no surviving litters on our own ground.

 With the aid of a thermal spotter you can be confident that you aren’t overlooking any local residents. But nature abhors a vacuum, and that state of affairs was never going to last long.

The crops have grown, offering plenty of cover, and this year’s neighbouring cubs with the odd adult are starting to wander farther afield. Inevitably, foxes would begin to creep in over the boundary. It’s not just the foxes – we’ve had other destructive little predators showing up on the place, too.

Often foxers look on the pre-harvest time as a holiday season and hope for a bumper number of victims as soon as the harvest is off. But as many gamekeepers – especially those who rely on wild birds – know, it is bad news to let any predator have free rein during the nesting season.

 So, just as you don’t shoot a fox sitting in a garden chair, you must cut down on the beers, get out after the barbecue’s finished and see what is about.

Information from farm workers, neighbours, local dog walkers and the like is vital. You can’t be everywhere, and a few venison sausages can pay off in intelligence another day. One success began with hearing that a neighbouring pigeon shooter had spotted a fox just over the boundary on the edge of the big wood.