Tuesday 17 April 2012

Fox control with NiteSite NS200

This adventure starts with a phone call from a building site manager in London. He is put in touch with me through a friend of mine that works with him. He has been having trouble with the foxes defecating (having a poo) inside the prestigious venue that he is responsible for while the restoration is completed.
I was asked to arrive with a covert kit as this was a job on a building site bordered by a residential area.  In this blog I will be talking about our third visit to the site where in just an hour and a half Dave Welham and I took two more of the defecating offenders out of the game.

Before we get on to that I guess I should take take us back to the beginning.

When we first heard about the job Dave suggested that we should use the .22 Walther Long that he has owned since 1976. This is a superbly accurate and lightweight stealthy hunting rifle capable of sub 1inch groups at 100yrds. I had recently bought the Pulsar N550 digisight and a cheap recording device purchased on eBay. As you can imagine I was keen to see this in action and capture some footage for the channel. Dave kindly mounted and zeroed the N550 on his 22 and the next night we were on our way to this strange venue for a night of pest control in London. In the first video link you will see Dave using the Pulsar N550 digisight to good affect. We shoot five fox over the space of two short evenings. It was great to shoot in such a different environment.



So we already knew that this venue had a fox problem and with little or no control of them in the local area we would have an endless supply of fox to shoot at. It went quiet there for a few weeks apparently but then the foxes started getting into the buildings again. We visited the site a few times taking out charlie with the Pulsar. This time though I had some new night vision kit that meant Dave did not have to dismantle is beloved Walther .22 and Zeiss 6 x40 scope combo. I had purchased the NiteSite NS200 night vision add on system. I had used it a couple of times with 100% success rate but was keen to see how it coped in this demanding situation. We arrived at the venue about 21.30hrs at took a little look at the shooting position as this had changed since we were last there. Once satisfied we had a safe position to shoot from Dave and I fitted the NiteSite NS200 to the .22 and got ourselves in position. It wasn't long before the first fox arrived and as you will see in the video things did not quite go as planned. A little while after shooting fox number one and being visited by a Tawny Owl we only had to wait about 40 mins for our second and final fox of the evening. This time all went like clockwork and another two of the local trouble makers had been taken out of play. In this entire video we did not use the Infra Red of the Nitesite as the ambient light was enough for the unit to work flawlessly.



 Look at the difference in quality from video one (Pulsar N550) and video two (NiteSite NS200) 

The footage in this video was recorded using the Lawmate PVR500 Evo 
It is not the cheapest solution by a long chalk but it is worth the extra money. This thing is packed with goodies. Look out for a full review of the recorder coming up soon on the channel.

Have you seen or used the NiteSite NS50 or NS200 night vision units yet? If not look out for a demo evening at one of your local gun shops or clubs as they are holding these all across the UK. I will be attending the one being held at The Shooting Ground (formally known as Broomhills)