Ground Hog Dilemma

[Oh Shoot]

I also was confronted with a possum that had to die ..... It took three shots to the head with Stingers from a 22A at about five yards to do it in. ...

Which shows how overrated the Stinger is. Hyper velocity light bullet disintegrates into shallow wound.

To echo DM, don't pass up a good meal once it's finally dispatched.

- OS

[Guest GunTroll]

Ordnance this ordnance that. Why have we let our country get to this!? Wrong forum I know. Guess your left with no other choice but the Rambo/Dundee knife if that don't have an ordinance for that too! "Mano a mano" if nothing else! Get some!

[Deerbnb]

Never heard of a "groundhog" living in an Oak tree. Do we have the right critter here?

but it looks as if you have a BOARhog living in a tree wd-40. (sorry couldn't resist)

[Guest lostpass]

continually amazed about how concerned gun owners are with animal suffering. What "they" told me I'd hear was a bunch of people who would gut shoot rhinos and white tail deer just to watch them suffer. After checking into it the only thing I hear is "kill it cleanly and quickly" I've been lied to somewhere along the line. Turns out gun owners and hunters aren't the psychopaths everyone tells me they are.

[ShaunM]

Check state regs, I think relocation (i.e. trap then release) of nuisance widlife is not permitted. They have to be destroyed & disposed.

you may be correct but all you would have to do is call TWRA.

[DaveS]

but it looks as if you have a BOARhog living in a tree wd-40. (sorry couldn't resist)

Hmmmm.......I'll look into that and get back with you ASAP!

[Motasyco]

continually amazed about how concerned gun owners are with animal suffering. What "they" told me I'd hear was a bunch of people who would gut shoot rhinos and white tail deer just to watch them suffer. After checking into it the only thing I hear is "kill it cleanly and quickly" I've been lied to somewhere along the line. Turns out gun owners and hunters aren't the psychopaths everyone tells me they are.

We've all been lied to. Some of us just recognize BS quicker than others. Some never recognize it.

[The mailman]

Just shoot it with a 12 ga. and then run back in the house real quick. Or maybe a live trap.

[R_Bert]

Just shoot it with a 12 ga. and then run back in the house real quick. Or maybe a live trap.

Don't shoot your live trap with a 12 ga. It bends up the metal, and makes holes big enough to let the next critter out.

[JAB]

I bet the chickens were more disturbed by the gunfight than the possum !

Nah, they were already dead. My coop is subdivided into three, separate sections and that section held a pair of bantams that were (unlike the full-sized chickens in the other two sections) more or less pets, to me. Something had killed them the night before which is why I was on the lookout for the culprit to return. Being there was no visible way for it to have gotten in (as in no hole dug in the ground under the coop) I figured than any critter who knew how to get in there was probably the killer. Finding the possum in there the very next night I decided I needed to take it out before it did get to my other chickens.

Which shows how overrated the Stinger is. Hyper velocity light bullet disintegrates into shallow wound.

To echo DM, don't pass up a good meal once it's finally dispatched.

- OS

Not long afterward I bought a 6.5 inch barreled Rough Rider so I could use .22 WMR for such tasks.

I didn't make a meal out of the possum (blech!) but a few years later I had some more chickens killed (again, some of my bantams - why can't they pick on the bigger chickens that I don't think of as 'pets'?) That time the killer who returned to the scene of the crime the next night was a raccoon. Once dispatched, I figured it had eaten my chickens so I would return the favor. I cleaned/processed it, boiled it a little to remove the fat (although there really wasn't much) and put it on the smoker over some red oak and cherry. Made a nice, homemade barbecue sauce and had some 'coon sandwiches. To me, it tasted a lot like barbecued beef but the texture was different. I took some in a ziplock bag to see if my sister, brother in law or any of their kids wanted to try it and my youngest nephew (was about six at the time) ended up eating every bit of what I took them, straight out of the bag with no sauce or anything. He loved it.

continually amazed about how concerned gun owners are with animal suffering. What "they" told me I'd hear was a bunch of people who would gut shoot rhinos and white tail deer just to watch them suffer. After checking into it the only thing I hear is "kill it cleanly and quickly" I've been lied to somewhere along the line. Turns out gun owners and hunters aren't the psychopaths everyone tells me they are.

There are jerks and bad people involved with anything. For the most part, though, I believe that an animal that lives its life in the wild and meets an end through ethical hunting practices has it a lot better than many or even most animals that are raised/butchered by factory meat farms and processors.

Check state regs, I think relocation (i.e. trap then release) of nuisance widlife is not permitted. They have to be destroyed & disposed.

you may be correct but all you would have to do is call TWRA.

Just for informational purposes only, my grandfather in law did call TWRA about some raccoons that were destroying his garden and scattering his compost pile. He planned to trap them in a live trap and wondered if TWRA had some sort of relocation program. He was told that TWRA does not relocate and that it would be illegal for him to do so. The advice he was given was to trap them then kill and dispose of them. That isn't to say that others shouldn't call, too, if even just to have a date/time/name of TWRA personnel from whom they received the advice, just in case.

Edited August 17, 2011 by JAB