GTA
General Discussion To Gateway To Airguns => Hunting Gate => : only1harry November 28, 2008, 05:51:37 PM
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12:15am and I wake up by the all familiar "ding-dong". The infra red heat sensor has picked up something warm by the bait. I 'm thinking to myself it's too early for the coons to visit. It's probably a cat or maybe I 'll be treated by the sight of a possom.
I go to the adjacent room and look out the window but don't see anything. I 'm ready to go back to bed but something didn't look right next to the turkey leftovers and dry cat food I had placed 23 yards out. I 'm thinking it's probably my imagination. I go back to the bedroom but something told me to grab the binoculars to take a closer look. I walk back to the window and now I saw a shadow or like something moving by one of the dishes. I quickly look through the lens and can make out a good size skunk!
After a couple of minutes of contemplating what to do, I thought to myself: "Don't do this, you 're going to regret it..". I get the Condor and zoom in to 8X trying to find its head. It's all black and can't make it out too well. Can't see an eye or ear or anything. Zoon in to 10X, same thing.. Eventually after a couple of minutes I make out the outline of its head by the motion up & down digging into the Turkey skins and some dark meat I had placed out there, and its relation to the blue plastic plate. I aim about 3/4" high almost at the top of its head (gun is zeroed at 30yds so I have to hold over the target a little) and let the 21gr Kodiak fly. I hear a "thwak" and the skunk goes on its side. It kicked 3, maybe 4 times, and then stopped moving after a couple of secs. I 'm thinking maybe I got lucky and it didn't spray.. but not more than 3-4 secs go by after that and I smell that aweful secretion! I shut the window quickly and pace up & down thinking I have to get rid of this critter quickly. I put on an older sweat jacket, grab 2 garbage bags and run downstairs with a small towel wrapped around my nose and mouth. It didn't help. The smell is worse than I thought. My nostrils start burning like you shoved garlic and onions up to my nose.
I take only 2 pics very quickly where it fell and took the courage to pick it up by the very tip of the tail wearing a plastic disposable glove that my wife uses sometimes when she does gardening. I double bag him, throw him in the trunk of my car and drive about a mile away and dispose of it in the woods by the reservoir. I can still smell it on the drive back. It's lingering in my nose! I go home, throw my clothes in the laundry and take a shower. I can still smell it everywhere. My wife is now awake and says she can't really smell anything in the house. It must be still in my nasal pasages. Dang, I 'm not shooting another skunk again. I can still smell it as I 'm typing this and it's very annoying. Anyone know how long this is going to last? :( Would the smell outside be gone in the morning? I wonder how much he dumped on my lawn and if any of it got on the sensor that was 4ft away.
Dang never again!! :-) Oh well on the other hand, I got my first skunk, or I should say I got skunked! :-) Oh and that Kodiak must have went through its head and broken the plate too.. oh well, live and learn. I 'm going to throw some water up my nose now. Maybe I need to smell some cologne or something nice. I think I will light up some of those aromatic apple spice candles my wife bought today at 5am while out shopping (with all the other people at the crack of dawn.. I don't get that..).
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LOL Harry oh great shot and pic's of PEPPY!!!!!!! and that smell is like gum in your hair, takes some doing to get rid of it hehehe.. Hunter withdrawals, you needed to get something but those black critters with the white strip, should have wore BIO GEAR! when handling him. I've had several chances to take out PEPPY! but then I thought about the aftermath of my hunt, trying to get a pic, disposing of the critter. I let him go about his business , move along PEPPY! nothing to see here hehehe. Again great shot and pic's buddy but I don't see your shooter in the pic's lol, it would be a drag to pick up your shooter and smell that every time.:( TOMATO JUICE!!!!!!!!LOL. Ed
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Vey nice shot! When I was a kid, my dog and I got directly spayed, and i swear it took a week before That dog smelled normal, even with a tomato paste bath. That lingering smell in your nostrils lasts a couple day too.
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When I was younger, my father trapped a skunk under the front porch of the house. That devil sprayed and sprayed and sprayed until the ground had literally turn green form the spray. The smell was so bad in the house that we had to move in with some relatives for a few weeks. Every time I run across a dead skunk the smell brings back memories of my father heroic effort to trap and kill that skunk under the front porch. I can only imagine what hell it must have been to go out there and shoot the devil as he flopped around and spayed in that trap.
Great story and wonderful pic - hope you get the smell out of your nostrals soon!
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This is exactly what I am afraid of. I set-up a live trap for a masked bandit, but worry about catching a skunk. The trap is empty this mourning, and will be taken down. My wife would have a coronary if a skunk sprayed the crap out of the side of the house.
Thanks for the great story. Nice shooting Harry. Just head to Macy's if you want to change the odor in your nostrils.
Dan L
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Harry you got guts...thanks for taking one for the team...I will forever let Peppy have his space and I won't bother him (http://../jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-wink.gif)
David
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Thanks guys.. I 'm glad I was able to influence some of you to re-think about trapping or shooting Peppy La Pue :-)
Take my word for it, it's not worth it! Only if you 're out in the woods and away from home with a good light, then go for it, and walk away. Leave him for the possoms or coyotes to clean it up..
I waked outside this morning and it smells almost as BAD as last night. My nostrils are a little better today but I still smell it every few minutes though. My wife says she still doesn't smell anything, only a little when she woke up. Then about 20min. ago she opened the bathroom window like she usually does, and I heard her say from the other room "oh my god", and she closed it promptly! She has unwrapped some huge candle with 2 wicks that she was going to give someone as a present and lit it up! :) That does a pretty good job and I don't hardly smell it much now.. but outside is a different story.
My entire bait area and my sensor have been contaminated for sure. I observed 2 cats at different times walking towards the large bowl of dry cat food which I normally bring inside around 7am, and they both stopped about 8-10ft away and thought about it. They then turned around and left! Oh well, I hope it doesn't take a couple of weeks for that smell to go away. I think maybe some good rain will wash it off or sink the acid poison into the ground. There 's some rain & snow in the forecast for tomorrow so we 'll see what happens.
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When I was a wee one and went along on the trapline we got a lot of skunks. I never got sprayed and I never remember my pop smelling of it, ever. We had a little outhouse shed with reloading stuff and hunting clothes in it that smelled because there was a jar of skunk juice in there. It kinda mellowed out with time though and wasn't so strong as to be really unpleasant. I have fond memories of watching pop load shells in there. The smell brings it all back.
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Yes, the smell definitely brings back the entire experience from last night which was not too pleasant for me from the moment I walked outside, hehehe.
Why would you want to keep a jar of "Peppy juice" in your shed? To keep other critters away?
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For sure Harry you are a brave soul...:) Try some vicks on your upper lip..:)
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AAAAAAAAAHHHHH! It's not so bad. I shoot skunks at work ALL the time! Big ones,little ones....You'll get used to the smell after a couple more. I actually kinda like it! hehe
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Harry, try a mixture of 1 part tomato juice and 1 part vinegar, place in a spray bottl, soak the area and wash any moveable parts with the mixture thoruoghly. Good Luck.
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Thanks, I was thinking of going out there and dumping a quart of vinegar on that area, but now I 'll try mixing it with the tomato juice.
Sam:
I think it's one thing shooting them at work, and another in your backyard. The smell gets into your house and on everything very fast. Most homes are not completely air-tight. I still have the old style windows with the wooden frame and they are a little drafty at times.
One time was enough for me. You are braver than me. It's not worth it to me anymore. I 'll give them a pass like I 've been doing for many years. I had a chance to shoot one last year with my Diana 350 and a couple of times with my .22LR a couple of years before that. I 'm glad I gave them a pass. There is a guy on the Talon forum that gets a dozen or more every year. He said the same thing, you get used to it.
Well I don't want to. For me the hunt is also supposed to be enjoyable. This wasn't and I knew it before I pulled the trigger, but it was something I felt I had to do once, and get it over with.
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OHHH my,,, something smells here Harry... Note to self .. remember this post..
good shot!!! I think???? well congrats anyway...
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Yes curiousity is why the skunk and the condor met with smelly results, but what about your sensor? This is the second posting I've seen about your sensor and you've got my curiousity up. What are you using and how have you got it set up?
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Thanks Randall. I think it was a great shot too :-) considering the circuimstances and that I could not see much but black hair all over this animal's head and neck. Even when I looked at it up close it was hard to see its eyes but the blood trail come coming out of the back of the eye and up a little - looked like a perfect fuse box shot but I think I 'll have to study a skull picture to see how well I fared.
William: The sensor that comes with a receiver is from Harbor Freight and is very inexpensive. Worth every penny. It works great. I just ordered a 2nd one earlier today. Only thing is it doesn't come with an AC adapter. The sensor takes one 9V battery and the receiver 3 C batteries. I 'm told by the person that referred this great product to me that they last a very long time, several months. I 've had the setup for 3-4 weeks now and so far so good. The sensor has been through rain and snow and it still works perfectly. It's an infra-red heat sensor. It senses heat and it's supposed to have a detection range of 30ft depending on how high up you mount it. They recommend 4ft up for driveway detection to get the full range. It's called the "driveway system". I just have it up off the ground about 9-10" and 4-5ft from the bait on the ground. I have also used it on the ground and it works great there too, but the coons the other night, which I forgot to mention, picked it up & started playing with it but lost interest in it quickly and dropped it. I now have it taped up with duct tape around a log because I lost the screws that came with it. It even picks up small birds like sparrows and chickadees. It's also perfect for RATS! It detects a critter right away as soon as they come into range. The sensor supposedly can notify the receiver up to 400ft away. My receiver is about 80-85ft away and it works great even under the bed or if I cover it with a towel, a sweater, etc. It has a low & high volume (low is recommended, high is too loud), and the sensor has a red light that comes on when it detects heat, so you can test it outside with your hand when positioning the bait. Here 's a link where you can purchase it on line or visit a Harbor Freight store if you have one near you.
http://ww2.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=93068
if this link doesn't work just search by item# 93068.
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lol your post had me in stitches man! great hunt/post/story you are one deadly man!!
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Harry,,,, great shot on the stinker and I have to tell you I haven't laughed this hard in quite some time :)
Jeff
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sorry harry but this is FUNNY!........i thought i was the only one (other than timmy) that got into these situations....ha!....it will kill you grass but you may want to wash the area with bleach....
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Harry,,,,
Just got done ordering one of those sensor units,,, thanks for the link. I'm still trying to nail the raccoon that raids my garbage cans,,, the little bugger hit again last night :(
This sensor is gonna be the nail in his coffin :)
Thanks again for postin that link buddy......
Jeff
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thanks Harry, I'll look into one. I was looking around at cabelas and that sure beets $180 of their system
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Well guys it was meant to be funny, and also to serve as a warning not to shoot a skunk in your backyard. Anywhere else is fine, but not outside your own house :)
I don't care about the lawn at this point. I just want the smell gone. I was told by a couple of people to also dump some baking soda to the area mixed in with Peroxide. I also have suggestions of tomato juice, vinegar, and a couple of other anti-skunk-juice home remedies :) I 'm on my way to cleaner air tomorrow! hehe
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Jeff & William: glad to help. I have received several PM's and e-mails about my Harbor Freight "driveway-alert system" in the last week or two. It looks like half the board is going to be using it very soon :)
I made up my own little saying: "Night critters be ware, we 're using hi-tech everywhere!" hehehe. Hey while I was exterminating the day critters, the night critters were having a ball. Time to tend to them for a change :)
This driveway alert system should come with a caution that reads: "may lose some sleep at night" :-) because depending in your area, it may be going off a lot! especially if you have lots of cats, hehehe but you will get what you 're after eventually. Just remember to turn on the receiver at night and you will see creatures you never thought you had.
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yea that would suck I can't believe you picked it up! lol
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I don't believe I picked it up either! but I had to so I can put it in the garbage bag. I was thinking to myself when I did that, "what the hek am I doing out here holding a smelly skunk in my hand!?!?" I think I need to stop talking about this for a while. Otherwise I just keep re-living those horrible moments over & over :-) It's something I want to forget.
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What I can't believe is that you actually put that thing in your car trunk..... LOL
I guess you had to "get it out of town" and there was no other way,,,, but DANG... LOL
You the man Harry :)
Jeff
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Jeff: I very reluctantly put him in the trunk. Trust me, I knew it wasn't a good idea but I had to get him outta the neighborhood fast. I tied the first trash bag really well and then I put him in a 2nd bag and tied that up... That usually works well with the G-hogs :-) BUT.... yesterday when I got in the car the skunk smell was more pronounced than outside! So I learned a lot of lessons from this experience :)
I thought about walking down the road about 500yds where there is an open field just before the reservoir, and dump him there and walk back. But then I thought about walking on this winding country back road with no shoulder, no moon light, with a stinky package, and possible drunk drivers out there on a Friday night, and chose the safest & quickest way to my destination. Trust me I did a lot of thinking pacing up & down my driveway at 1am.
Anyway I left the trunk open yesterday for about 4-5hrs to air it out. We 'll see if that made a difference today, I doubt it. Maybe another skunk climbed in it because I didn't close the trunk until 10pm and did it from the side of the car, so who know what's in there now! Maybe the smell in the trunk made it a skunk magnet? hehehe
I actually had a skunk locked in the garage overnight about 2yrs ago. I came home from work the night before around 8-9pm and found the garage open which my wife makes a habit of leaving open when she carries groceries into the house. Unbeknownst to me, the skunk was hiding somewhere behind one of the boxes or race tires I store in the garage (racing is my other hobby) and I walked right by it to get into the house and I pushed the button to close the garage door. The next morning I open the inside door of the garage to go to work and see a skunk running straight for me! Caught me completely by surprise but I reacted fast and stepped back and shut the door. Every time I opened that door he 'd make a run for it towards it like he knew that was another way out. To make a long story short I walked out the front and got the remote opener and opened the garage door. I saw him hide behind a box when the door was going up, probably scared from the nosie. He ran out after a minute or so. I wonder if that was the same one I shot, but see? I do use some common sense now and then :-)
I 've even had big bats flying around inside the house, and I igonred my son for 30min., 4-5yrs old at the time, when he said like 20 times: "daddy, bat!" and I 'd say to him "yes Mr. Count counts the batty bats.." (from Sesame street).. But that's another story..
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that "Fabreze" stuff smells really nice and is supposed to work well at eliminating odors,,, might be worth a try.....
We have some skunks here,not many but a few,,, and believe it or not the in my neighborhood they are mostly albino. Pure white with a black stripe going down the tail,,,, it's the weirdest thing. I used to see them all the time during the wee hours of the morning when I was at work and patrolling the neighborhood. If there was a "safe" way to shoot one and not have to go through what you're experiencing right now I might pop one and get it mounted,,,, but after reading your post I think I'll just admire them alive in the wild :)
Jeff
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Come on Jeff. Where is your sense of adventure. Put that Talon to work on an albino skunk. The GTA family really wants to see one.HEHE Like Harry you might also have a great(if not smelly) story to tell for the rest of your life. I wonder if you (Jeff) were to hit the skunk in the spine right at the base of the head. He might not spray at all.
Just messin with ya. I wouldn't shoot one either.
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Good shooting at the skunk. I have heard that eating a skunk makes you have "hotter" blood which makes you less suceptible to catching a cold in winter......
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Aren't you supposed to shoot stinkers in the BODY and not in the head?
You need to breath in some good ole vinegar fumes. Should help kill that smell in your head .
Sure would make a good looking hat, that LePew pelt.
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Maybe Jeff or Ed might be brave enough to eat one of these critters one day, that is if they have the cohones to shoot one! ;)
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Once when I was in high school, I popped off a round of 12 gage 00 buck shot at a skunk. One of the pellets hit the skunk about in the middle. I had a wounded skunk on my hands. This is something I willl never do again! Its head shots for me from now on.
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Funny you mentioned that Harry I watch that " MAN VS. WILD" show regularly and he had setup a snare to catch dinner, guess what was in the snare lol. It was still alive and had sprayed everywhere so he uses his jacket to to grab it lol lol. The meat wasn't that great and everything including him stank to high heaven, couldn't even get some sleep do to the smell waking him up. With no other choice, no other critter around to eat and starving I would dine with "PEPPY" but I would sure try with any remaining energy to get something different.:) Ed
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LOL...
When I was a boy I worked at a marina on a river in Virginia, the Chickahomany river, Lacy Allen's Camp Number Two to be exact. One day Lacy came to me with a pump shotgun and told me that the shed down on the next property was infested with a family of skunks and to go kill them. It was August. It was a little tin shed about eight by ten feet. It had a card board floor. I walked behind it and saw the skunks all high tail it into the burrow they had built under the floor. I thought "hmm" and went inside the shed. The door closed behind me. I emptied the shotgun into the floor. Noticed a bit of a smell but figured nothing much about it. Ayup... when I went back to the restaurant part of the marina, they kicked me out.
Once sprayed, hard, I mean. You can't really smell it anymore. Two or three times of that and you learn to appreciate the smell of a skunk. Doesn't help with your friends but it won't bother you so much.
;)
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It helps a whole lot if you bury them immediately. Smell goes away within days and no stinky car. Just bury them on the spot as deep as you can, and then water the grave a little to make mud and seal it up. I've taken out 10 so far. Yes...10. And there's 3 more to go that I can see. They have no predators that I know of, so they just multiply. Nobody wants to mess with them...and they turn the neighborhood into a nightly stinkfest.
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Does it help if you pour powdered lime into the hole, then dump the stinker in, and then pour lime over it, followed by filling in the hole with lots of dirt?
I know lime works great for dog doo and road kill. I'm lucky in that I've only encountered 2 skunks in my life, and both were freshly dead on the road. Ungodly stink. Hope I never have to shoot one.
Gotta be careful with stinkers. They can live their entire lives infected with the rabies virus, acting as carriers.
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Holy chrips Harry...Nice !!!! I hope you returned the wifes gloveand you should find that kodiak, mount it on a chain, and wear it aound your neck as a reminder of what not to do...lol...
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Are you kidding Brent? I can't even walk around that area. I went back to re-fill the bait bowl and it still smells but not like that first night. I tried not to go near or walk on the area where the skunk was, but when I got back inside the house I could smell skunk again. I finally figured it out. It was 1 leaf at the bottom of my shoe that stunk to high heaven! I flushed it down the toilet and washed my sneakers for a long time until the smell "almost" went away. You want me to go dig the ground up to find the Kodiak? Even if you paid me I wouldn't do it!! :-)
I don't want anything that skunk came in contact with, especially a pellet that went through it, hehe. Otherwise, good idea :) The odor just lingers around for a long time. I can still smell it everytime I get into my car and I 've sprayed the interior and trunk with Lysol several times! I guess the smell just gets on things.. because that skunk did not physically touch anything in my car. It was double bagged, and the 2nd bag was far away from the sight when I put the first bag in it, and both bags were air-tight.
Trust me, I don't think I need anything to remind me of that experience. I will never forget it.. and the smell also lingers in your brain for many years I think! :-)
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Even in death that stinker is getting back at ya Harry LOL :)
Jeff
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Im ordering a set of them Heat detectors Harry...I think I have a big critter outside my house at night and with them I will catch and surprise him...My 16 year old stepson(http://../jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-frown.gif)
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I got one on order,,, just waitin for it to arrive so I can finally nail the masked bandit who addicted to my garbage cans :)
Jeff
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Brent: Can you please post pics when you catch your 16yr old step son? Will you be using a cage or a bear trap? :-)
Jeff: I think I said earlier, I don't really think I got that stinker, he got me! hehe
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Harry .
He and two of his friends were almost shot last night..I kept hearing noises outside so I quietly went out back,no sooner had I cleared the door when the backyard lit up like daylight ..I quickly stepped around the corner to see flames higher than our 8' privacy fence...The first thing that came to mind was someone had set one of our cars on fire,I dart back inside,grab the 357 and hit the front door..as I got to the door I noticed the security door was open a bit so it clicked it may be Dana outside and tu be extra careful..I rounded the corner wide with the 357 at the ready and yelled " Dana if thats you say so now !! I have a gun and I will fire !!" He and his friends spoke up real quick..Theey were sent home andhis punishment is still being worked up...I like to get creative with my punishments, last year he had to edge both mine and my mothers yards with scissors..Took him 6 hours and his hands we blistered badddddddddd...Damn kids....
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They started a fire in your back yard? Dang.. teenagers hey? We were like them once but we went to the woods and sat around the fire trying to scare the girls with stories we made up :-)
I 'm sure you 'll think of a good punishment.. I need to get to bed.. I 'm too wired from my "special night hunt" that was very fruitful :-)
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Harry, They started the fire in the front/side yard..
Special night hunt !!!!
Fruitful !!!!!
Post !!!!!
Pix !!!!!!!
It's only 2:44 !!!!!!!!
See ya in the morn..