Red-hot flames eat up a patch of cumbungi as Dads' Army watches on, adjusting its guns and sharpening its senses.

Dogs meander through the burning weed; one catches the scent of a fox and is off like a rocket.

Shots sound in quick succession and in less than a minute, the quarry is retrieved.

A female red fox with swollen nipples.

"Five for the price of one," Kyabram Field and Game Club hunting officer Bill Emmett says with a hint of achievement.

"Once we've done this we'll go around to all of the dens and get rid of the next generation."

Nicknamed Dads' Army by a member's daughter who thought they looked like a pack of dads, the Kyabram Field and Game Club has shot scores of foxes this season.

"I was a bit younger then, but it kind of stuck; everybody liked the name," Mr Emmett said.

"Most farmers ring us, there's a few that we go and ask."

About 15 Dads' Army and Shepparton Field and Game Club members scoured Undera's grassy patches for foxes last Wednesday, where they shot about 14 red foxes and 15 hares.

The men enforce safe hunting practices by wearing fluorescent orange clothing and communicating via radio.

Mr Emmett said before the Victorian Government brought in the last bounty, Dads' Army was shooting 300 foxes a season, just on their Wednesday shoots.

"After the bounty numbers were down to 160 the first year, but now it's getting back up to 300; in the last three weeks we've gotten 70," he said.

"They didn't give the bounty a chance."

Mr Emmett said the bounty was effective because it encouraged people other than field and game club members to shoot foxes.

"Now it's just up to the field and game," he said.

Mr Emmett said the government's $2500 cash prizes for shooting clubs trivialised what was a serious matter.

"That Foxlotto has annoyed a lot of us; it's degraded what we do. It makes it sound like a kindy competition," he said.

"It's not a game, we put a lot of time and effort into it."

Shepparton Field and Game Club president Terry Eldridge has been shooting for about 45 years.

"I just got into it because of family tradition," Mr Eldridge said.

He said about 13 foxes were recently shot at One Tree Swamp - a place where brolgas nest.

Mr Emmett said brolga numbers in the Timmering Woolwash Depression area had dropped from 113 to 22.

"We usually get two eggs from them and usually the survival rate is two, but with foxes it's lucky to be one," he said.

"What we're doing here is getting rid of an introduced species."

nonie.stava@mcmedia.com.au