Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting An odd encounter in the elk woods

While my brothers and I were breaking down my bull to pack out we had a red fox show up and it entertained us the whole time we were at the kill sight. The fox would come grab a scrap and we watched him bury two with-in sight of us. Other times it would go out of sight and be gone for several minutes before returning for more. Eventually it took on a hind leg and managed to drag it 30' away and was still chewing on it when we loaded up and headed out. Was the darndest thing. Have never even seen a fox in the area before this.
IMG_20221030_103909437_HDR by .com/photos/156405073N02/]Tim Richard, on [bleep]

IMG_20221030_104001732 by .com/photos/156405073N02/]Tim Richard, on [bleep]

IMG_20221030_104145376 by .com/photos/156405073N02/]Tim Richard, on [bleep]

IMG_20221030_104009652 by .com/photos/156405073N02/]Tim Richard, on [bleep]

Pretty cool encounter for sure.

Super kool !

Must'a been hungry eh ?

Conglads on the bull

Hunger must've been the driver pushing it to come so close, only thing I can think of. It didn't look unhealthy in any way.

Deja vu for me. I had EXACTLY the same experience about ten years ago on Jarosa Mesa, south of Lake City. We were quartering my bull and a beautiful red fox would sneak in, grab a little piece of meat, run off for a few minutes. Then it would come back and do it again, running off in a different direction. He must have done 10 or 12 times. We figured he was caching it when he’d run off.

I have some pics with it about two feet from my boot. We thought we might be able to get it to take meat from a hand but figured it was smarter not to do it.

Exact same thing happened to a pard and I as we were elbows deep in a mule deer. Grey fox basically eating out of our hand in middle of nowhere...

Coyotes are their mortal enemies. Humans persecute coyotes and coyotes generally flee from humans. There's an association there and also fox tend to be more inclined to be curious ornbefriend humans. I watched an documentary about an Russian domesticated wolf cross and fox was used to get it more connected to humans.

That's just super cool. I've had Magpies, Ravens, Crows, Eagles and Canada Jays come in and take elk parts when I've been butchering, but never a brassy fox!

That's awesome!

Pretty cool for sure. Thanks for sharing

Years ago I shot a moose in Idaho. We had this same thing but with a pine martin. It was after dark and he kept coming inside our lights. We had frozen snow and at 1 point, he came in and grabbed the hide to drag it away. Yeah, right. A 100lb hide frozen down and a cat sized martin was going to take it. He was trying to back away with it and was throwing snow with all 4 wheels. When we finally left him to the bones, he was up on the rib cage shaking a paw at us and yelling "Don't come back you thieves!"

We had a black fox with a white tip on its tail…I dunno their name.

Come in at night and try to gnaw on the deer hanging.

Great post!

Congratulations.

It’s pretty awesome how nature gives us a peek at its beauty sometimes when we least expect it. Pretty awesome experience you had and thanks for sharing.

Todd

Very cool!

Very Cool indeed ! I’ve only ever seen one Red Fox before and that was while mule deer hunting in Colorado. We have plenty of grey foxes here in N TX, but I’ve never seen a red one here.

Had a big grey fox on the front porch the other night that came up to eat some cat food. Never shoot them or the bobcats anymore. Killed plenty of them when I trapped as a kid. I really enjoy watching them nowadays.

That's pretty doggone cool.

Thanks for sharing the story & photos.

Guy

Had one visit me for a minute at 10,000 feet in CO one year just beautiful creatures. Watched a pair of gray foxes hunting a skunk come within 5’ of me in the local mountains- the fox was surprised when he realized what I was but carried on in a few seconds.

We didn't see what it was.
A few years ago, my partner shot a deer 3 miles back. It was warm so we dragged it into the shade, skinned it, laid it on the hide, laid the heart and liver next to it, threw a couple meat bags over it to minimize the flies, and covered it with pine boughs. Then we hiked out to get my llamas. The next morning when we got to the deer, the 1st thing we noticed was both meat bags lying 5 yards away. Nothing else seemed to be disturbed. We pulled off the branches and the deer didn't have a mark on it. However, the heart and liver were gone. It was too grassy to find tracks but we figured it was a fox or a pine martin. Anything larger would have at least chewed on the carcass.

Another place, another hunt. This is greatly enlarged. I'm surprised we ever spotted him.

He looks healthy. We had a run-in with a pine marten about 20 years ago. We had laid some meat up on a big rock while we hauled out the first load. Got back and the marten had done laid claim to it. Feisty little SOB wouldn't budge. The only thing that convinced him to run off was being pelted with a few rocks.