GTA
General Discussion To Gateway To Airguns => Hunting Gate => : Mryan21 January 26, 2010, 04:54:13 AM
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Went squirrel hunting yesterday. I didn't have any luck , but on the way back to the house i saw a woodchuck peaking out of its hole. Although it's january, it was 51 here in upstate yesterday. I saw one last year in March. Wonder if we are getting an early spring. I asked him, but he ignored me. So i'm not for sure. Any of you guys hunt woodchucks with an airrifle? I don't have a gun with enough power for them. So i guess i'll have to stock with the .222 rem. Anyway, what kind of power is needed in an airgun to harvest one of these things?
Matt
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Longislandhunter shoots them all the time! Just go back and look at some old posts. I'd say a 350M or a TF89 has the power to kill one with a headshot.
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Did somebody say woodchuck ???? I hunt woodchucks all summer long with my air rifles. Matter of fact during the summer they are my primary target while I'm shooting at the commercial duck farm that I hunt on. The farm is literally over run with "g-hogs" and they eat a lot of the duck grain from the large open wooden feeders. If you want to see some pics of some of the ones I've harvested just do a search in the "Hunting Gate", I've posted quite a few pics over the years of dead G-hogs :)
As for what kind of power is needed to cleanly take a G-hog,,,, a .22 cal magnum springer like the RWS 350, TF-89, RWS 48 or something in that class is best. Of course it goes without saying that PCP's like the Disco, the Marauder, AA 410, Air Force Talon SS, talon or Condor, or other PCP's are also easily capable of taking them cleanly. 2 years ago I bought a .22 cal Air Force Condor specifically for hunting G-hogs and it's a G-hog killing machine :) I've taken some real jumbo G-hogs at the farm over the years, some real monsters, but most of them that I take are your average sized g-hog. You can also take out a g-hog with a very well placed shot from a .177 rifle as well, I took quite a few with my Beeman R-9 Goldfinger, but of course the range was much closer than the range I take them with the Condor.
As much as I love my air gun small game hunting I have to admit that stalking the duck farm hunting G-hogs is my favorite thing to do. As you know they have very keen senses and the challenge of stalking within air gun range is like the ultimate "rush" for me. I can't wait until the warmer weather gets here and they emerge from the earth nice and hungry :)
A couple other guys on the forum regularly take g-hogs as well. My good buddy Harry is a well known G-hog exterminator :)
You should give it a try.... Once you do I think you'll be as hooked as Harry and I are....
Here's a link to one of my posts with pictures where I got a 14 lb 8 oz G-hog :)
http://www.gatewaytoairguns.com/airguns/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=21132&posts=22&highlight=G-hog&highlightmode=1#M169914
JEff
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Jeff,
I hear that they are quite good eating, when they are younger. Like rabbit only slightly nutty.
I actually intend to shoot a couple this year.
M
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Woodchuck's where? hehehe. Jeff had a great year last year with the G-hog's 8) I had a low body count on em :0 but hopefully this spring will be better. That one you seen must of rose early to check out the warm temp's. :) Ed
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Mark,,,, they are very good eating, I eat all the ones I shoot. The younger ones are of course more tender and milder tasting, but even the older ones are good. I make stew and pot roast out of the big ones and they are absolutely delicious. I still have quite a few g-hogs stowed away in the freezer from this past season. Matter of fact I had cajun fried g-hog for a late lunch this afternoon,,,, it was finger lickin good :)
All this talk about shooting g-hogs is getting my blood moving and my trigger finger twitchin :)
I can hardly wait until they wake up in the spring and come out to feast :)
Jeff
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What Jeff said, and if you can get up close to within about 25, even 30yds, you can kill them with a head shot using a .177. Even a 14fpe gun like the Diana 34 or 36. I took 17 of them with my Diana 36 .177 (avg. 900fps with 7.9gr and 860fps with 8.3 Superdomes) in the Spring/Summer '08. All with 1 shot to the head. I got pass-through with most except if they were >22-23yds away, but still got a clean kill.
Last year I only got 14 (on my property mind you), and half of them were with the Diana 350 .22 Magnum Springer. The rest with .22 Condor (PCP). Their soft spot is their head right behind the eye or half way between eye & ear.
You will almost never get a clean kill with a body shot. I have shot them with .22LR rimfire (high & ultra velocity of 1,300fps) in the chest/body and they still ran after a good hit! So I started shooting them in the head only, even with the .22 rimfire before I switched to airguns 3yrs ago.
Here are a couple of big ones :)
PS.
BTW, I saw a dead G-hog on the side of the road yesterday too! About 1/2mi. from my house. It got up to 52 deg. here too. They must have thought it's Spring already.
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Jeff, if you get a chance, you might want to try my rabbit recipe with them. It's incredible. I'm talkin' guest-worthy. If you can't find it easily, I can email it or repost on this thread.
M
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Mark, I'd love to give it a try. If you could email me the recipe that would be great . My email link is at the bottom of each of my posts....
Jeff
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They're a week or so early, but....
Depending on snow depth and temps, the male Woodchucks come out late January to early Febuary to find a female's borrow. They enter the borrows and impregnate the females while they are sleeping. Then the males return to their own borrows and go back into hibernation. When the females come up in early Spring they have already given birth.
That's also why Ground Hogs day is Febuary 2nd.
What Harry said, forget body shots, even with a .22 LR. Because I had too many runners, I stopped using my 22 mag with hollow points and went to a .223 with ballistic tips.
Paul.
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That's interesting,,, I didn't know that.
All this talk about woodchucks is getting my anxious for spring to arrive :)
Jeff
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Same here Jeff.
Seeing all those chucks last year and not being able to hunt any just about drove me crazy (it's a short drive these days !)
I gotta find a farm this year that's overrun.... and no kids on it who want to learn to shoot. Last Spring was the third farm I lost out to kids!
However, even though it puts a crimp in my hunting, I love to hear about kids wanting to learn to shoot and hunt !!!!
Paul.
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I sent via email, but what the heck, I'll dupe below.
Gorgonzola Bunny
(takes 1/2 hour to prep, and 2-2 1/2 hours to cook.)
For 4 people:
2 large rabbits
2 T Tarragon, divided
1 cup flour
ample salt and pepper to taste
2 T olive oil (as needed)
2 cloves garlic, peeled and whole
2 bay leaves
3-4 springs of thyme
2-3 onions (based upon taste and size/room)
2 large turnips
3/4 lb carrots (less or more to taste)
2 cups Chicken broth (enough to cover--best quality made with feet*)
1 cup of dry white wine.
1/3 lb Gorgonzola (Italian is better, if it's not really sharp, try Danish Blue instead)
Fresh Tarragon for garnish or to add to sauce (optional)
First, bone the rabbit. I separate the back legs and then simply cut the meat off each in as large pieces as possible. Then I cut the meat from the front legs, and slice the saddle off both sides. I then cut the loins off by running a sharp blade down either side of the back bone. This is tricky and a bit like filleting fish, pulling the meat out with your thumb and scraping along the spine and ribs with the knife. It's worth the effort however. If you don't feel comfortable doing this, you can cut the whole loin section apart from the ribs and worry about pulling the meat once it's cooked. If you REALLY don't want to bone the rabbit at all, you can have the butcher cut it into pieces, but your guests will have to eat the meat from the bone and some may be squeamish.
Once boned, dredge the rabbit pieces in flour seasoned with 1/2 of the tarragon and ample salt and pepper. lightly brown in a non-stick pan and place in your dutch oven or covered pan. I like to add a half tablespoon of the seasoned flour to the pan with a little more olive oil, to cook for a few minutes. This will act as a thickening agent. De-glaze pan with wine and a bit of stock and pour into the dutch oven with the rabbit pieces.
Peel and coarsely chop the carrot, onion, and turnips. Add to the pot with the rabbit. Add remaining tarragon, thyme, garlic, and bay leaves. Cover with best quality chicken stock, bring to a simmer, and then place in a 350' oven for 1 1/2 hours. Add about 1/3 of the Gorgonzola to the pot, in small pieces. Return the pot to the oven for another 10 minutes or so.
Serve on plates or wide bowls. Arrange the rabbit and vegetables so that you can place small pieces of Gorgonzola on each bit of rabbit. Pour hot broth from the pot over the pieces of rabbit so that it melts the Gorgonzola into a glaze. Serve with a nice pinot noir and a salad of bitter greens with a Dijon vinaigrette.
Note 1: if you bring the sauce back to a simmer it will help the Gorgonzola melt when you pour the sauce over the rabbit. Note 2: on herbs, I've found that one can omit the thyme without much ill effect and if you don't have fresh, don't add thyme at all. Also, the tarragon need not be fresh. Dried seems to work quite well and should not be omitted.
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Thanks for the recipe :)
Jeff
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Let me know how you like it. My wife, who had never eaten rabbit before, fell in LOVE with this dish. We get cravings for it as soon as it starts getting colder, every year.
BTW, some might pair a white with this dish, but I'd go with a light red. A light pinot noir or maybe a fruitier Rhone-style. It doesn't need a big or expensive wine, but it does need a nice wine to really bring out the Gorgonzola. Oh, one other thing. If you can't get good Italian gorg easily, Maytag will work quite well. If you want to take it a notch higher, the spanish Cabrales is very good to. Basically the tangy and pronounced the blue, the better.
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I will definitely be whipping up a batch soon :) , sounds delicious. Thanks again :)
Jeff
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Paul,
I 'll have to ask you for a favor again :) Please trap a couple of G-hogs, preferrably female, and send them my way. thanks you! :D
I spent most of last summer watching one young G-hog across the street because I have shot about 70 of them in my backyard over the years and now they are a rare commodity just like the squirrels :( I have rid the neighborhood of most vermin and now I have nothing to shoot except an occasional Starling. I need to find a farm full of G-hogs too. Easier said than done though.. but dang it, I 'll go out there and solicit every farm within 10mi. of my house this summer. Didn't have much luck last year but didn't try hard enough.
What are some things you guys do to make sure it is safe to hunt on a farm, ie: the owners or residents are not dangerous, like in some of those horror movies, where people end up locked up in one of their barns chained up, or in a meat grinder, or dinner on their table! :o 8) A lot of these farmers look very weird to me. I just don't trust them. I asked one farmer last summer about hunting on his property. He looked just like an ax murderer. He only opened the door about 6" and was talking to me mostly from behind the door like he was hiding something. He then asked me for money $ in return for 1 day/wk of hunting only..!! Scary people out there. The 2nd farm I visited was not much different. The guy asked me if I knew I was tresspassing when I said hello to him, so I just left because I didn't want to deal with him even if he gave me permission. He was just plainly an a*hole. There has to be a decent farmer out there. Hopefully I 'll have better luck this year.
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Harry, find a way to get an introduction. They don't know you from Adam and you're telling them you want to kill stuff on their property.
You gotta get their guard down. Make friends, then ask if they need some help with pest control.
Also, it never hurts to be seen picking up trash, if there's a problem with that on the property or by the road. I don't have any farm I hunt on, but when asking permission to fish, I make it a point to bring a little something nice. My dad used to bring bourbon, but I fear that can go over wrong. I will bring a bottle of wine when I know it's cool. We started with some home made basil vinegar that my wife makes and then work from there. Now the guy looks forward to our visits. Has met my father and wife. I spend hours talking with him instead of fishing, but that's the way it goes. :) It's fun. Anyway, you get the point. Network and try to find ways to make it worth their while.
Maybe you have a feed store you can hang out at and ask questions? Hang out at a diner that is frequented by farmers. Maybe schmooze the waitress for a while to get the poop on folks.
Good luck!
M
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Harry,
Like I said..you are a victum of your own success !!!!:D :D :D
First, I have to see if I can get a farm to hunt on.
The farm I hunted for years I was introduced to by a hunting buddy. When he passed away I was already established with the farm owner.
The farmer was crippled up from a life time of carrying milk pails and couldn't get around well on foot. He was glad to have someone walking the 300 acres which was half hay fields, half woods and ALL HILLY, putting up and maintaining the posted signs and keeping the woodchucks from trashing his hay fields.
I also watched for signs of others trespassing, or dumping, and would report it to the farmer who liked riding out in his truck and taking pot-shots over the heads of trespassers with 20 ga slugs. Even shot one guys truck radiator when he found the guy parked, hidding in the back of an upper field on his property. Another time he jammed a stick in the horn to kill the battery of an unknown car he found parked behind a hedge row in one of his fields .....turned out to be a car my hunting buddy forgot to tell him he'd just bought the night before. :D
And like Mark said, I'd pick up any windblown papers, trash, hay bale twine, or plastic, etc and pack it out. And I'd always offer him a share of any venison, which he'd always smile and politely decline.
Farms are alot of work. Ya gotta think about what the farmer needs before he'll even consider what you want.
Paul.
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Harry, another thing you can do is have a chat with the local DEC Officer. He/She usually have accurate info regarding farmers in their zone who are having pest problems and who may be receptive to you helping to rid their farms of the pests causing the problem. The DEC Officer may even offer to introduce you to the farmer, or at the very least when you approach the farmer you can name the DEC Officer and let the farmer know that the DEC Officer suggested you contact the farmer. I recently had such a discussion with my friend who is a DEC Officer and he told me of a couple of farmers in my area who have been having such problems, one with deer and the other with woodchucks. My friend told me he would help me get permission to hunt on the farms if I wanted. Give it a try.... the local DEC Officer is the most useful hunting/fishing resource out there and it's also the most under utilized resource as well. Most hunters are leery about seeking out these officers, I'm not sure why, but they are. When I was still on the force I had a very close working relationship with the DEC Officers in my zone and I know from personal experience that these officers actually enjoy meeting and talking with sportsman and they are almost always very eager to supply information that is of great value when it comes to finding new hunting land..... As you know most of these officers are dyed in the wool hunters and fisherman themselves and there's nothing they like better than talking hunting or fishing. :)
Having been a law enforcement officer yourself you have an edge in that you won't have any reservations about approaching and speaking to the DEC officer and also when you let the officer know that you used to be on the job they in turn will feel more comfortable with you.....
Jeff
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So i guess the new disco will work then. I never realized so many of you guys hunted woodchucks with your airguns. Luckily, I have a few great woodchuck hunting spots. Now i can't wait till spring. I can't wait to hit the button on the disco tommorow morning when the tax refund arrives. Real nice shooting on the woodchucks guys. Now that i will have a new gun for woodchucks, i may have a couple of more spots to hunt. The disco will be more landowner friendly.
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Jeff,
Great idea about contacting the Game Warden. We have a DEC office here on the edge of town. I'm gonna make a point of stopping in.
One of the reasons I wanted a powerful but quiet air gun is to hunt woodchucks near cows and horses. I see many farms with alot of borrow mounds in fields the live stock pasture in because the owners don't want to spook the cows/horses with rifle shots. Having those borrows around they still risk an animal with a broken leg. However a quiet, accurate airgun can get in close enough to rid those pastures without spooking the live stock.
Just don't lean on that straight wire of the fence !!!:D :D
One other thing I let the farmers know about. I carry a Mil surplus entrenching tool and after dropping the dead chuck down it's borrow, I back fill the hole and do my best to re-level the mound. The farmers realy appreciate having someone undo the woodchuck's damage - instead of as some guys do to show off their kills, they'd hang all the dead chucks on the barbed wire fences to rot. A fast way to *_*_*_*_*_* off alot of farmers is for them to see dead animals hanging on their fences !!!!!!
Paul.
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I've learned so much about Groundhogs from this forum! I didn't know they were "true" hibernating animals. I wondered where they all went all of the sudden!
It really bothers me when I see then as roadkill. I just think "what a waste"; I could have got to hunt it! :D
My pastor says his dad has a Groundhog problem :) I'm going to be the solution!!!!
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Randy,
"............It really bothers me when I see then as roadkill. I just think "what a waste"; I could have got to hunt it! ........"
Same here.
I once mentioned that to the Girl Friend as we drove by a dead Chuck laying in the road. Next time we saw one she just looked over at me with her Im-busting-your-chops smile and asked, "Want me to stand that one back up for you ?" :D
She understands though, because she likes venison and feels the same way when we see dead Deer on the road... what a waste !!!!!
Paul.
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Mryan,
Check this out:
http://www.velocitypress.com/BeemanKodiak.shtml (http://www.velocitypress.com/BeemanKodiak.shtml)
Right after I read this article I ran out and bought my Kodiak. (And a few others) But I'm still l still looking for awoodchuck.We did have one in our yard for a while but he disappeared before he and I got properly introduced. (Even so I was kind of hoping he might find his way into the neighbors garden. She's the type who reminds you of the Wizard of Oz every time you come in contact with her. I'm told she's married but she and her husband live in separate houses. Even he can't stand to be around her all the time.) But I digress .It's a good article, I hope all who take the time to look enjoy it.
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Craig,
I thought this article was pretty good when I first read it and for the most part it's ok. I was kind of new with adult airguns then too.. This article has been around for about 4yrs.
However the author does not have a clue how to quickly kill a Groundhog. Body shots don't work on a G-hog, just like they rarely work on a possum, raccoon, ie: medium-sized game. Most of us that often read the airgun/hunting forums know this. I have shot G-hogs with .22 rimfire in the chest and they ran only to die later in the burrow (and have my yard smell for a month in 90deg. weather in August). If you do some research on Youtube, you will find videos of G-hogs shot with 30-30 and 30-06 and were never recovered! The one I saw shot with a 30-06 on Youtube looked like it got cut in half. The cameraman left the camera on its bipod/tripod and walked over with the shooter to recover the G-hog. The camera is still rolling and a few secs later you see the G-hog become concious and crawling away! The shooter and the cameraman never recovered the G-hog. They are the toughest small game animal I have shot with any gun. A head shot is MUST with a Groundhog especially when their burrow is never far away. That is why you must do your best to kill it instantly or make a fatal shot that will not enable the Groundhog to even crawl a few feet because once they go down the burrow, it is very hard to recover them. The only way to do that is with a good head shot.
In the end the author of this article lost the Groundhog after he made a non-head, non-leathal shot to the body from very far away. Not a great ending to his story and not so smart of him to take that shot. The damage he describes from a .177, 22. and .25cal projectile is probably pretty accurate and his body shot on the Groundhog probably killed the animal, but not right away or within a desired couple of seconds. It probably died minutes or hours later or even days from infection. All said & done, not so great article. It was more of an advertising tool to sell more Beeman Kodiak .25cal rifles. Afterall he says Dr. Beeman is a good friend of his...
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Meann-Machine - 1/31/2010 12:47 AM
Mryan,
  Check this out:
http://www.velocitypress.com/BeemanKodiak.shtml (http://www.velocitypress.com/BeemanKodiak.shtml)
Right after I read this article I ran out and bought my Kodiak. (And a few others) But I'm still l still looking for a woodchuck.  We did have one in our yard for a while but he disappeared before he and I got properly introduced. (Even so I was kind of hoping he might find his way into the neighbors garden. She's the type who reminds you of the Wizard of Oz every time you come in contact with her. I'm told she's married but she and her husband live in separate houses. Even he can't stand to be around her all the time.) But I digress .It's a good article, I hope all who take the time to look enjoy it.Â
Very interesting article. Wish i could afford one of tose puppies.