KILLING GROUNDHOGS

[atsah]

When I first moved into my house, I had red squirrels all over the place, I left them alone until they decided to eat there way into my house and it cost me $1500 in new wiring to fix what they ate, I saw a lot of chip monks around, I didn't bother them until they chewed the wiring on my mower, tractor, truck and everything else, I had several porcupines living close by and at night they would proceed to eat my log house, I had snakes living in my sheds by the car loads.

I went out and purchased a 410 shotgun, a 12GA shotgun, a 22 rifle and a 5.56. I am in a constant battle with red squirrels and porcupines, if I left for a month there wouldn't be much left of my machinery or my house. I kill everything I see.. If I see a rodent outside and I leave it alone it's just a matter of time before it's in my house..

People actually trap skunks, porcupines and other things and drop them off near farms in my area, not to bright..

 

[CobyRupert]

You know the Humane Society of the United States is not about animal welfare, but about animal rights, don't you? They are akin to PETA.

The Bottom Line: HSUS = PETA - HumaneWatch

Yes, even animal rights group say "Have a Heart" traps don't avoid "killing things for no reason". They just make people feel less guilty, or less responsible if the death is out of their sight, where they can dream the animal went away and is playing with their friends Thumper and Bambi out in the country.

My (sarcastic) post, and follow up with the link, was to illustrate how cruel, misguided, misnamed "Have a Heart" traps are, versus a quick death via shooting or drowning the animal in a bathtub.
They're for those gutless "I love animals, so kill animals that I eat, or want gone, out of my sight" types. Hypocrites.

 

[Ford850]

Conibear 220. Done.
(Too hard to set by hand? Get a setting tool.)
(Worried about dogs or non target animals? Make a small wire 'basket' to stake over the hole after setting the trap)

Vultures have to eat too. Have a heart, kill a whistle pig, and feed a vulture.

 

[Oldoak]

Ah, here we go. Another degraded thread arguing over points of view that differs from their own without knowing all the details of the opposite side. And of course, there are the same individuals who insist on having the last say. Typical internet armchair B. S.! :laughing:

Well at least it's better than reading the comics while waiting for the soggy ground to dry a bit and firm up.

 

[LD48750]

I live in the country, the groundhogs I trap I take to the city & release.
They have lots of opportunities for food & shelter there.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I dont shoot groundhogs, but i do shoot 4 legged targets.

 

[deanocraft]

I recently shot a groundhog with the .22. I don't want them establishing a colony on my hilly property because of the erosion potential. I don't like to kill animals for no reason, though... My wife googled it and found they are edible, so I cooked him up in a gumbo. It was delicious! I cut all the fat off, then chunked the meat and browned it in butter in a skillet. Then I added it to a gumbo, and voila! a very tasty pot of food. This is the second one I have eaten, the first tasted like a cross between beef and venison. This one tasted like beef. I recommend it, and I don't play around when it comes to food.

I was also really surprised at what a clean beast it was. Ticks were especially bad this year, and when I shot him I figured he would be covered in them. There was not a tick on him. It is also kind of fun to get the rifle out and hunt on your own property!

 

[MossRoad]

Nice! :laughing:

Waste not. :thumbsup:

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I live in the country, the groundhogs I trap I take to the city & release.
They have lots of opportunities for food & shelter there.

I have seriously thought of doing that with coons! Give those citiots something to do on garbage day!

As for eating woodchucks, I have ate them, they eat the same thing a rabbit does, so they should be good.

My dad always took the best meat out of them, boiled it and fed it to my dog... MAN that dog loved WC and was on the hunt for them all the time! lol

He would tree them and then sit there and bark as long as it took, until I came out there and shot it. He knew where HIS meals came from! lol

SR

 

[MossRoad]

I think there's more raccoons in the city than our rural property. I'd bet there's as many racoons as there are squirrels. You just don't see them as much because they're mostly nocturnal. Smart critters, that's for sure.

 

[QRTRHRS]

I had a farm where I used to shoot maybe sixty groundhogs a year. Ruger 77 22-250 with the heavy barrel and a bi-pod loaded with Hornady Varmit rounds. I have not hunted deer since 1973 but I still like to pop the hogs. A friend had discribed a trap made with PVC pipe and some kind of poison that supposedly they cannot resist. Just the ticket for city dwellers like my friend. I will get the update and get back with that.

 

[shooterdon]

I have seriously thought of doing that with coons! Give those citiots something to do on garbage day!

As for eating woodchucks, I have ate them, they eat the same thing a rabbit does, so they should be good.

My dad always took the best meat out of them, boiled it and fed it to my dog... MAN that dog loved WC and was on the hunt for them all the time! lol

He would tree them and then sit there and bark as long as it took, until I came out there and shot it. He knew where HIS meals came from! lol

SR

Must be a rare breed of WC. Or a **** of a dog that can tree a WC. LOL

 

[MossRoad]

Our neighbor has a very large playful, yet old, yellow lab. A couple years ago he said the dog saw a woodchuck in my back yard, ran over to it, barked, jumped around, and hit it with her paw trying to play with it. It died!

 

[Ford850]

Must be a rare breed of WC. Or a **** of a dog that can tree a WC. LOL

I see them go up trees often, sometimes just to look around with a better view. Years ago I was laying on my belly in a small fencerow along a hay field waiting for one to come out in the field across the way. I was laying right up against a tree, maybe 8" in diameter. I heard something scratching on the tree, and peeked to my side wo see a WC crawling up the tree I was laying against. It crawled up about 6 feet and was looking out in the same field I was, probably looking to see if there was a dang WC hunter anywhere around it. My patience wore out and I slowly tried to roll over for a close range shot from my hip, but it jumped from the tree straight to the hole.

 

[MossRoad]

I see them in our white mulberry tree every summer, up about 8-10 feet. They love those berries.

 

[PAGUY]

A friend and I were small game hunting on a farmer's fields. He happened to have a apple orchard between two fields that were run over with raspberry bushes. We would kick out rabbits and an occasional ringneck pheasant in there. We may also get lucky and catch a ground hog feeding on fallen apples. Knowing what a pest they were to the farmer we would shoot them as they tried to run to their hole. What we would do with the unlucky ones were pick them up and toss them into the brush at the end of a field to feed the foxes or crows. A win-win for everybody.

 

[GLyford]

I have seen a pair of shepherds tree a chuck 25' up to the top of a maple sapling, just swaying back and forth.

Farmer who rented the field across the road growing up had a black lab that would sit by a hole for hours waiting for them to pop their head up.

We had an old farm collie/shepherd cross who was gentle as could be, she loved to just follow the scent trail paths through the tall grass, rabbit, woodchucks, whatever. One day we watched her following one of these paths and there was the WC, who took great exception to the proximity of her nose, and nipped it. So she caught it in the middle, gave it a shake, no more woodchuck. She was a little hurt and mostly happy, and Dad was happy too.

Dad's property was all river clay/reclaimed swamp, and there were several drainage ditches across it. Every 10 years or so the town would come out and clean out the silt muck and grass. Woodchuck holes along the ditches would make the sides slump down into the ditch, making it harder to mow (with a riding mower or cutterbar on the AC-B) so Dad was always bombing chuck holes and filling them in.

But even more unforgivable was the war over green beans. Dad would have either the beanpatch or the whole garden fenced, everything going along great, beans flowering and young beans ready to pick and overnight, there'd be a hole dug under the fence and the whole bean patch would be down to nothing but stubble and there'd be a nice new den dug smack in the middle. Dad took to spending the evenings watching the beanpatch with a scoped pellet rifle. He had a .22 but it would wake the neighbors.

 

[skipperbrown]

One hot August, a buddy and I went WC hunting on a friend's farm. We spotted one in a field a couple hundred yards away and as we moved closer, it ran into its hole. I decided I'd get about 50 yds away and wait for it to stick his head up for a shot. I sat down in the field in 1' high grass behind a makeshift blind and waited in the hot August sun. After 30 min, he didn't show up and I couldn't take the heat anymore so we moved on. The next day I was covered in about 200 chigger bites all over my legs, arms, belly, crotch, back, and even my neck. I was miserable for a week. Never used that strategy again ….

 

[CobyRupert]

Scrolling through these posts I can't determine if there's a geographical explanation (which part of the country speaker is from) as to why people call them "groundhogs" versus "woodchuck".

I think here I call them "woodchucks" 90% of the time, put have probably used "groundhog" a few times, especially around Feb 2nd each year.

Where is it they call them "whistle pigs"?
I don't know, but have used that technique (whistling) to get them to stand up before popping them.

Never seen, knew or even heard about one climbing a tree! I believe, but I think most people around here would ask what you've been smoking if you told them you saw one doing that.

 

[Ford850]

I think Groundhog is the correct name, but the nicknames are more fun. Woodchuck is the most common name for them around here. Whistle Pig is my favorite name, but I've heard them called Ground Beavers too.