Master Bedroom Woodchucks!

[nicholasjohn]

I have been known to take a slug gun coyote hunting a time or 2, also shot my fair share of coon with big rifles.

Both of those animals are known to bite back, so it's never a bad idea to use a stout club. I've shot a few 'yotes with the slug gun, especially on the northern Minnesota deer hunt where my buddy has his adventure with the wily woodchuck. The best gun to shoot a coyote with is the one you have in your hands when he shows up. A 1-1/4 ounce slug will definitely spoil a coyote's whole day. If a coon had happened by when I was so armed, he would have encountered the same bad experience as the coyotes. They just don't come around as often during daylight hours.

 

[YZ-80]

Well, I got the sucker! Changed up the game a bit and moved over to the family room cause the boss was asleep! Grabbed the Cooper Custom Classic in .243 with an 85 grain Sierra and got the job done. That little bastage had a mouth full of my clover! Here he is with a view back to my ground blind!

 

[Deputy819]

Well, I got the sucker!

YEAH!!! Still has a mouthful of evidence, too!! Right On!! Nice job, Sir!

 

[YZ-80]

YEAH!!! Still has a mouthful of evidence, too!! Right On!! Nice job, Sir!

The Custom Classic gets it done in style! I love that rifle! I just wish there was more chucks and more time to eradicate them! Here's another one from early last fall from Lizzie's upstairs bathroom!

 

[Deputy819]

Yep, that's 'purdy' right there...

 

[74honker]

BOOYAH! Awesome job YZ-80 and beautiful blind BTW. Just got to love it when a plan comes together.

 

[74honker]

Obviously you have a great Mrs but guessing you got the same thing I would get under the same circumstances. The *** are you doing and then the head shake, eye roll, sh#! eating grin all at the same time lol. Mine hunts and shoots also but I still get that cause she knows I just can't help it when the redneck comes out sometimes lol.

 

[nicholasjohn]

Obviously you have a great Mrs but guessing you got the same thing I would get under the same circumstances. The *** are you doing and then the head shake, eye roll, sh#! eating grin all at the same time lol. Mine hunts and shoots also but I still get that cause she knows I just can't help it when the redneck comes out sometimes lol.

You could probably avoid some of that if you just remember to wipe the ring off the windowsill where you set down your coffee cup to execute the shot.

 

[74honker]

You could probably avoid some of that if you just remember to wipe the ring off the windowsill where you set down your coffee cup to execute the shot.

Nicholasjohn, I get that reaction several times a day lol. It's just a normal term of endearment for her towards me. Usually when I do something not well thought out. Surely I'm alone on that one...... right?

 

[wv270wsm]

I don't think that is what has depleted the chuck population. When I was growing up in western PA, everybody shot them all the time, and they just bred faster to stay ahead of the threat of extermination. They can hide from shooters so well that you can never kill them all. What they can't hide from is coyotes. In those days, the red fox was the biggest predator they had to deal with, other than the occasional barn-yard dog. A fully grown red fox would have his hands full if he grabbed a ten-pound woodchuck, and only the babies were really vulnerable to ol' Reynard. Bobcats were rare to non-existent in that area, so that wasn't a factor. Now, though, things are different ….. coyotes are EVERYWHERE, and they are big, nasty and hungry all the time in that region. I think that is why the chuck population is struggling. Even the coyotes, though, can never kill them all. They do have the population pared back to where the dairy farmers don't have to poison them as much anymore.

I agree whole heartedly! The farm I use to hunt chucks on from 98-04 I could kill every year 80-100 of them from March 1 st to the end of sept every year. That old farmer loved me dearly.
Once we started getting reports of a few trappers catching coyotes around our area the next summer the groundhog killing went down quite a bit. The following summer I only killed right around 20 and that was it no more to be seen. Did however connect on 3 separate coyotes. Those suckers can adapt like nothing I've ever seen. The first 2 I killed were before the hay got up very high that spring . Same as the chucks . The one was actually laying flat on its stomach like a cat ready to pounce just above a chuck hole . I'm guessing waiting on ol mr whistle pig to stick his head out.
After I killed those first 2 totes we'd catch glimpses of them trotting in the hay but never could see them enough to shoot.
I drive by that old farmers place and stop at least once a summer to check in on him. He still to this day laughs about all the ground hogs I used to kill there. He told me last year he'd been seeing one over at the barn but figured he'd let that one go . He has killed several coyotes though. And invites me down to try to kill some anytime I get the chance

 

[nicholasjohn]

I agree whole heartedly! The farm I use to hunt chucks on from 98-04 I could kill every year 80-100 of them from March 1 st to the end of sept every year. That old farmer loved me dearly.
Once we started getting reports of a few trappers catching coyotes around our area the next summer the groundhog killing went down quite a bit. The following summer I only killed right around 20 and that was it no more to be seen. Did however connect on 3 separate coyotes. Those suckers can adapt like nothing I've ever seen. The first 2 I killed were before the hay got up very high that spring . Same as the chucks . The one was actually laying flat on its stomach like a cat ready to pounce just above a chuck hole . I'm guessing waiting on ol mr whistle pig to stick his head out.
After I killed those first 2 totes we'd catch glimpses of them trotting in the hay but never could see them enough to shoot.
I drive by that old farmers place and stop at least once a summer to check in on him. He still to this day laughs about all the ground hogs I used to kill there. He told me last year he'd been seeing one over at the barn but figured he'd let that one go . He has killed several coyotes though. And invites me down to try to kill some anytime I get the chance

Back when everybody figured we'd all be taken out by a nuclear holocaust, an old gent I used to know told me that when that had come to pass there would be two things left ……. the cockroach, and the coyote. Hopefully we'll never see the day, but I suspect he's right. They are VERY adaptable.

 

[wv270wsm]

Back when everybody figured we'd all be taken out by a nuclear holocaust, an old gent I used to know told me that when that had come to pass there would be two things left ……. the cockroach, and the coyote. Hopefully we'll never see the day, but I suspect he's right. They are VERY adaptable.

Don't forget rats

 

[nicholasjohn]

Don't forget rats

Good point !!!! They're survivors for sure. I think my old friend who told me that had probably never even seen a rat. He had an old one-eyed dog that killed and ate EVERYTHING. I'm sure that dog kept the rat population in check, and NOTHING came into the yard and left alive. Coons, skunks, possums, woodchucks, you name it. Feral cats were its favorite, but it didn't eat them. I think it was happy to just kill them, and once they were dead, it just left them. Maybe that's how he lost that eye, and he just hated them. He also was hard on red foxes, and there were no coyotes in that part of the world in those days. Good thing, because this dog was only about a twenty pounder. He would have been in way over his head with a 'yote. In fact, what finally did him in was big boar coon that probably outweighed him by at least 100%. My buddy shot the coon, but the dog had already gotten pretty badly torn up. Oh, well ……...

 

[YZ-80]

Obviously you have a great Mrs but guessing you got the same thing I would get under the same circumstances. The *** are you doing and then the head shake, eye roll, sh#! eating grin all at the same time lol. Mine hunts and shoots also but I still get that cause she knows I just can't help it when the redneck comes out sometimes lol.

Oh yeah, she thinks I'm out of my mind but she's been dealing with my shenanigans for 30 years. She comes from a family of hunters so she knows what to expect!