GTA
General Discussion To Gateway To Airguns => Hunting Gate => : August 17, 2006, 09:23:18 AM
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I noticed from my kitchen window that my corn was being pulled down by something, so I grabbed my 52 and headed down.
It's down a slope where it levels off at the bottom by a creek, about 100 uards or so from the house.
I saw the little bugger, a ground hog, stalked up to about 40ish yards away and had a shot but passed it up to get closer. I wanted to try for a shot that wasn't downhill so much, and I had the wind in my face, he was busy eating so I thought I would have another shot.
Flanked him around to the right, closed to about 30 yards... and closed and....
he disappeared.
blah what a tease. never even saw him run off.
But it was a fun hunt without even taking a shot =D
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are you a farmer?...but yeah i like the stalking better than anything,even if the critter runs off before i take the shot...i just asked id you were a farmer cuz you said "My corn"...nice stalk though they have pretty good eyes and smell if i remember right...oh and BTW,you really need to get a shadow...much lighter to carry on those stalks you will have to get closer but,hey,who cares thats just kore fun!..hehe
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no, just a "hobby" farm...it's small...like a glorified plot...maybe 15 yards by 30 or so
most of it is fenced in but I grow corn outside, unfenced since it takes up so much room.
After you put a lot of work into tilling the earth, planting, weeding, watering it quickly becomes "my corn" =D
At some point I will probably get another rifle. For now it's just the 52. Honestly weight wasn't an issue. It wasn't that long and when you're focused on the hunt, I didn't even know I was carrying anything -- all I noticed was my surroundings.
They do have excellent eye sight though...even from the side if they detect any movement they run off in a hurry.
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Youkilis:
I like that story.... Especially the ending.
During the last upland game bird season, I had a few of my friends from the casting club join my wife and I for quail and chukar hunting.
They're shotgunners, my friends are. Serious ones, too. AyA side-by side 28 guage and Beretta 686 serious. My wife did most of her hunting with them and carried her shotgun most of the time.
We'd leave our 20 acre hunting camp which borders the National Forest on two sides, and drive about a mile so so from the gate to the area we like to hunt in. My wife would take off with my two shotgunning pals and the Britainey "Spastical" and they would go there way while I would take an air rifle and my 4 year old daughter and 7 year old son and go my way.
It's nice to hunt with younger eyes. They notice things I might take for granted. Things like pretty rocks. Indian paintbrush blooming with their delicate little orange flowers. Cooper's hawks perched in trees. Clouds that morph into shapes that look like everything from cars to cheeseburgers, at least to them.
Off in the distance, we'd eventually hear the popping of the scatterguns going off as we took our little strolls across the desert. I can't say that I ever came back to the Jeep empty -handed, as I was often carrying one kid or the other after walking them a little too ragged. It's kind of hard to shoot when you've got a four-year old in your arms...........
But the hunt for me isn't about the killing. It is about being in the position to kill. Killing is something I've done plenty of. It is always the low point of the hunt for me, and something that I'd do without if there was some way to eat a quail, cottontail, or chukar without killing first.
Back at the Jeep, with the shotgun-toters with near limits and me often with two worn-out kids and an empty bag, wife and friends all say how sorry they are that I've got these kids "cramping my style" and the wife invariably volunteers to take them on the afternoon hunt.
I decline. They don't really cramp my style. Oh, I KNOW I'd get more game without dragging them across the desert slope of the mountains with me. But I also know about the other things I'd miss.
I'd miss those pretty rocks, and those clouds shaped like so many things, and the sense of wonder they express when seeing a Cooper's hawk snatch a quail out of the buckbrush just a few yards from their feet, and those glorious sunsets, with the sky ablaze in hues of orange, purple, and magenta, with my kids falling asleep in my arms, while I sit on some boulder and watch a covey of mountain quail wander by less than 25 yards away, instead of waking them, which I would surely do if I made a move for my rifle that rests in the crook of a deadfall's branches.
Back in camp, I can still call that a successful hunt.
-JP
http://www.uplandhunter.com
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Of course if all I wanted was a quick death for the corn-fed ground hog population, I would release
my 98 lb yellow lab. He has more "notches" for ground hog kills than I do (he's up about 5-1), but he operates at a much closer range.
I figured me with a big ol .22 air rifle would give them a chance =D
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I'm holding out to see what turns up with JP and his possible .20 cal barrels for shadows.
If that happens or I can find a .20 somewhere else I will probably pick one up.