the varmit season has started..........

[rattler]

the dirt rats are starting to wake up and my brother and i went out to my uncles to check out what kinda numbers they are out in. my brother got the first of the season(above) these guys tear up my uncles road something bad and he likes us to keep them out of an area about 100 yards out from the road. no way your going to wipe them all out with rifles and my uncle doesnt poison them so we will never get them all but we keep their numbers at reasonable levels..............

 

[nepenthes_ak]

Great target practice!

 

[Finch]

everyone wins, it seems.

 

[rattler]

the other option is poisoning................my uncle and ALOT of other ppl have been working over the gophers in the couple of square miles around his place for 40 plus years and have yet to come close to whiping them out..................on a good day my brother and i can easily shoot 40 apiece.........by the end of June the grass is high enough shooting is a challenge and targets are hard to find so we give up for the most part.......seems like the best option for population control to me

 

[Clint]

I thought gophers were big like a groundhog.

If I had a pet groundhog I'd name it Boss Hogg.

This one time my dog cornered a groundhog and I captured the groundhog in a box and then I got the neighbor to hold the dog and then I released the groundhog. It got bit by my dog but ran away and I think it's fine.

I sound like a first grader lmao.

 

[flytraplady5]

Excuse my ignorance, looks like a pararie dog to me. I have only seen aboout 2 gophers out of their holes in the 29 years that i have lived here.


JLap Gopher aren't much bigger than a rat without a tail

 

[Jayson16]

Is that a ruger 10/22? We have things called woodchucks and they do all kinds of damage.

 

[wmgorum]

It looks like a prarie dog. I wish I could do that with the squirrels here... oh, the downside of living in the city...

 

[rattler]

flytraplady: its a Richardsons ground squirrel.....bout haf the size of a prairie dog......locally they are called gophers......the gopher your refering to is the pocket gopher, got tons of them too but ive never seen one, just their mounds

Jayson: yeah its a Ruger 10/22 been beating the heck out of that rifle for about 10 years now....its a good on

no wood chucks or rock chucks on this side of the state

 

[Bugweed]

We used to call them "picket pins" around Great Falls, Mt., and hunted them with bow and arrows. Tough to hit, but a great way to get real skill with a bow. Prairie dogs were also on our list and harder to get close to because of their tendency to alert the whole dang prairie dog town. They disappeared quick when alerted.

 

[joossa]

Hey rattler, what do you guys do with the bodies? Do you just leave them there?

 

[rattler]

the buzzards need to eat too....................i dont eat ground squirrels..................in a few weeks when my uncles cows quit calving we will break out the center fires and there wont be enough of them left to do anything with anyways.........a 40 grain .224 inch diameter bullet screaming along somewhere around 3,300 feet per second leads to the term "red mist" :grin: the rifle above is launching a 36 grain bullet at about 1,050 feet per second, usually leaves tiddy looking bodies like above aslong as it isnt a head shot.

now i just need a 204 Ruger which will launch a 32 grain bullet at about 4,200 feet per second...............should lead to some interesting results :grin:

when bordom sets in out comes the 45/70 which launches a 405 grain bullet at about 1600 feet per second.............leads to just a half inch hole through the gopher but it also punches through their mounds which leads to interesting shooting opertunities :grin:

 

[PlantAKiss]

:-(

 

[herenorthere]

Without the red mist and bullets into mounds leading to interesting shooting opportunities and so on, each with its own smilie, even anti-hunters might have left this thread seeing shooting as a good way to control animal populations. When I was in high school, a hunter passed us with a deer tied on his trunk and a red ball on the deer's nose. I thought it was funny at the time, but my father had a fit. The more I think about it, the more I wonder how many anti-hunters were created during that idiot's trip home.

 

[Jayson16]

I dont know about other states but in NY i belive you have to cover your kill wile transporting it.

 

[nepenthes_ak]

I think it would be hillarious to see that, But yea im sure allot of people would be upset, but i think allot of states require youre kill to be out of site

 

[Finch]

Oh i thought you were refering to pocket gophers! lol Dang i was impressed as i had never been able to glimpse one. Guess no one else has, either?

 

[rattler]

Bruce heres the way i see it...............we hunters and gun owners have been backing down to the anti's for alot of years................"maybe if we conceed to this they will stop".........."maybe if we stop doing that they will leave us alone"..............yah know what? F'EM! its gotten us nowhere but more gun laws, more hunting retrictions, us scared to say the wrong thing and affend someone........ and the anti's just want more and more................i enjoy shooting varmits and i will not appologize for it.

if someone doesnt like hunting fine by me i will not insist that they hunt or even read my threads such as this. i am not posting pics of bloody critters.......the pic i posted doesnt show a gophers head blown off(and i could of, several shot yesterday were but i didnt feel the need to even take a pic let alone post it) the pic i posted was for all intents tastefully done. i know there are a number of hunters on this site who might appreciate the discussion of it.

 

[Bugweed]

Discussion, yes. Anti---NO! A .54 caliber black powder Hawken literally blows them apart. Quit using it for varmints! I still like silent kill whenever possible, and usually use the bow. Some compound bows will shoot the length of a football field and then some within a second. Shoot flat too. Ground squirrels around here are toast when I see them!!!!!!

 

[PlantAKiss]

One night I was driving home on I-64 and there was a vehicle in front of me that had something tied to the back of it. I wasn't paying paying all that much attention. Then I started noticing paws. At first I thought they had tied a giant toy bear to their truck but it wasn't long til I realized it was a dead real bear. It was so sad to see that magnificent animal dangling dead. I had to speed up and pass the truck because I couldn't stomach having to staring at the poor dead thing right in front of me. I didn't even know you could hunt bears around here.