Putting an end to Groundhog Day

nutherjrfan said:

In reply to Dr. Hess :

Great I looked at some cool BB guns on AMZ including a Sig Sauer and a Gamo swarm.  We're not allowed to own/ship them.  Unless you can go to a Bass Pro and buy one with a DC license which I doubt. 

Here in FA (Free America), we can have whatever we want.  If you are going with the air rifle, then the SIG is the one to get.  I read an article on it recently in Firarms News.  Very good quality (like all SIG) air rifle.  Extremely accurate.  But then, I've become sort of a SIG fan boi.

I once got a coon with a SKS at about 5 ft.  Pretty much busted it in half. And Bubba once killed an adult male coon in his pen, by himself, and didn't have so much as a scratch on him.  But then he is an African Lion Dog.

In reply to nutherjrfan :

They only card you to make sure you're over 18 when buying the air rifles. Wal-mart carries the Gamo and Ruger ones, which is where I picked up my .22 break-barrel for $90 that is easily more powerful than the .22 subsonic rounds.

Even a 22 CB Long is going to be more powerful than any break barrel rifle you can buy, especially at the big box stores.  A regular sub-sonic 22LR is much more powerful than the CB Longs.

Dr. Hess said:

RevRico said:

Even if its legal, relocating it will just make it someone else's problem.

I've caught "city folk" dumping coons in my yard.

 

Robert, if you live in the city, then the answer is a 22 CB Long in a rifle.  If you're outside of city limits, hey, 44 mag should do the trick. Or, go with my newest toy, the 429 Desert Eagle, which is kinda like a 44 Magnum Magnum.  Umm... wear hearing protection.  A lot of it.

429DE?   I guess .41 and .50 were too easy to find.

(Okay  I want one because my first car had a 429, but still)

Dr. Hess said:

Even a 22 CB Long is going to be more powerful than any break barrel rifle you can buy, especially at the big box stores.  A regular sub-sonic 22LR is much more powerful than the CB Longs.

The 22 CB Long.  Does that only refer to ammo or is there also a correlating rifle?

The 22 CB Long is the ammo.  You can run it in a regular 22 Long Rifle firearm.  It does not have enough energy to work a semi-auto, so bolt guns work best.  In a nice old-fashioned 22LR with like a 20+" bbl, it makes less noise than a BB gun.  Like, all you hear is the hammer dropping and the bullet hitting.

Have you seen if Bill Murray is busy? He seems to have a lot of experience with ground hogs

I wish I had groundhogs. Nope, I've got skunks. 

Anyone know the best way to rid yourself of skunks without poison?

Rap Music

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

Please don’t kill it! There’s almost certainly a wildlife rescue group in your area who will trap it/help you trap it & relocate it somewhere safe. If you’re not aware of anyone nearby, please PM me and I’ll ask our rescue if they have any contacts in your area. 

mtn said:

I wish I had groundhogs. Nope, I've got skunks. 

Anyone know the best way to rid yourself of skunks without poison?

Are they a pest?

We have skunks around our neighborhood.  They ain't hurtin' anyone, and they seem to only be out and around at night anyway.

Knurled. said:

mtn said:

I wish I had groundhogs. Nope, I've got skunks.

Are they a pest?

We have skunks around our neighborhood.  They ain't hurtin' anyone, and they seem to only be out and around at night anyway.

We had a yyyuuuuge skunk living in or near our back deck for a couple years.  It got to the point where we would knock on the inside of the back door before cracking it open and asking her permission to come recycle something in the outside bin.  Nobody ever got sprayed.

Duke said:

Javelin said:

Get a cat. They are little murder-fiends and will gladly rid you of your pest problem.

I'm pretty sure mine got into a fight with a hawk the other day...

I know what groundhogs did to my full-grown boxer dog.  A groundhog would rip a cat to shreds in a fight.

[edit]  She won, both times, but it was not an easy fight and not without injury on her part.  One of 'em bit a triangular flap right through her tongue.  That had to hurt.

 

Really!?  I never would have guessed they could fight. My dog must have killed 10-15 of them, never a struggle. Shw did get a nick on her nose when she killed the biggest stinkin raccoon I’ve ever seen. 

Duke said:

Knurled. said:

mtn said:

I wish I had groundhogs. Nope, I've got skunks.

Are they a pest?

We have skunks around our neighborhood.  They ain't hurtin' anyone, and they seem to only be out and around at night anyway.

We had a yyyuuuuge skunk living in or near our back deck for a couple years.  It got to the point where we would knock on the inside of the back door before cracking it open and asking her permission to come recycle something in the outside bin.  Nobody ever got sprayed.

 

This guy thinks that they're the devil. Tried to bring one into the house after he killed it a few years ago. 

On any given night around 8PM, I can go out on my front lawn and count at least 4 of them within 3 houses on either side of the street. We literally cannot walk our dog past sunset because of the skunks (and by cannot, I mean that we'll come across 5-6 skunks on any given walk). 

Garden hose in the hole and turn it on - flood city.

Ashyukun (Robert) said:

In reply to KyAllroad (Jeremy) :

I'm pretty certain she'd quite freak out if I were sitting out on top of the hot tub with my .22 waiting to shoot a groundhog- not to mention that I imagine firing a gun as close as we are to two schools would NOT go over well.

Were you in Dekalb County? Or was I thinking of someone else? Reason I was asking is that Dekalb has a law against firearms hunting, but air rifles are allowed.

iceracer said:

Farmers hate ground hogs,  they dig holes and livestock could step in it and break a leg , needing to be put down.

They would freely give permission to eliminate them.    22LR were the answer.    You had to be patient.

Kids up near my cabin used to make spare cash helping farmers with their groundhog problem. Would sit in the corner of a field and pop them with a 22LR. I always assumed they went on to be scout snipers because the were damn good at 10 years old! 

Nooooooo!

In reply to Dr. Hess :

Sounds like that would work really well in my bolt-action Savage 22LR... if it weren't for the whole 'schools on two sides of the house' issue as well as the wife certainly freaking out.

Dumped a bag of used kitty litter & nuggets down the big burrow entrance by the garage wall- haven't seen the groundhog since, but I'd also only actually seen it once before. Dog has been a bit less agitated when out, dunno if it decided to leave or is just being more cautious.

In reply to NGTD :

Actually from what I read they build their burrows such that they won't flood, so all that would do would be flood the yard...

MadScientistMatt said:

Ashyukun (Robert) said:

In reply to KyAllroad (Jeremy) :

I'm pretty certain she'd quite freak out if I were sitting out on top of the hot tub with my .22 waiting to shoot a groundhog- not to mention that I imagine firing a gun as close as we are to two schools would NOT go over well.

Were you in Dekalb County? Or was I thinking of someone else? Reason I was asking is that Dekalb has a law against firearms hunting, but air rifles are allowed.

I'm solidly in the Lexington-Fayette limits. Our cabin is another story- but we'd likely not be worrying too much about groundhogs out there, hard for them to dig in solid rock!

In reply to Dr. Hess :

Have you tried the CCI Quiet 22?

So, the Dancer apparently saw a black rat snake in the yard today... maybe the snake & groundhog will fight it out and both either leave or die...

If you go with a canine solution to your problem, don't get a hound.  For five years, my beagle-basset mix has tried and failed to catch the groundhog whose tunnel entrance is under our shed.  (I love the dog, but to quote Rosco P. Coltrane, in a one-dog race, she'd come in last.)  We haven't seen the groundhog for a couple of months.  I'm hoping it died of old age.

Woody said:

In reply to Dr. Hess :

Have you tried the CCI Quiet 22?

No, I haven't.  I think I saw some of those at wally world, but I'm still pretty fixed for rimfire.  And living in the woods, I can just shoot full power.  With wally world going PC and stopping ammo sales, hard to say what they will carry.  Oh well.  That's good for the local gun store, and the big mail order houses.

I have some Remington subsonics, and they are less than a full power but more than a CB Long/short.  Seem to have less power and noise. 

In reply to bluebarchetta :

My hound dog wouldn't have a problem.  He is getting a bit old now, but in his prime, no problem with anything. A bit bigger than a beagle, though, and bred to hunt lions.