My yard is filled with very tall native pecan trees and the trees and nuts have combined to generate a ridiculous amount of squirrels. Before I bought the r9 goldfinger .22, I had nothing but a little Walmart gun that cost about $30. I used it to shoot the squirrels that would go after the bird feeder outside the kitchen window but couldn't hit much beyond that short distance.
But everything changed about 5 weeks ago when the little vermin went after my tomatoes. The first round of tomatoes reached baseball size in early May (I am in Texas) and all of a sudden they were gone. I wasn't sure what was eating them but when I found pieces of gnawed tomato I assumed it was likely the squirrels. I did not have the time nor energy to build some ridiculous cage around the entire garden but I was angry. Its not the money, its the time it takes to plant all that stuff and then take care of it only to have some fluffy rat steal it.
In my desperation to protect the few little tomatoes left, I went to the organic nursery hoping for some wolf urine or other repellant. They looked at me like I was on drugs. When I explained the situation, they asked in a scornful tone, "well, are you feeding the squirrels separately?" I could not believe my ears. Feed the very varmints that were destroying my garden. Unbelievable. I was going to be paying protection money to a varmint. But I was desperate. So I got a little squirrel stand and started putting feed out at various spots around the garden to keep them fed and away from my garden. Meanwhile though, I started researching "real pellet guns"
Fast forward about a month. I have ordered the pellet gun, the aforementioned Beeman R9 Goldfinger .22, but it had not arrived. Then we ran out of squirrel food and just as my next round of tomatoes were reaching a decent size and after only two or three days without having their food set out for them, the squirrels raided the garden again! Now it was war.
Fortunately, about two days later the Beeman arrived. Man was I glad. I was ready for some payback. And even better, the little varmints were quite content to come down and sit on my various squirrel feeding stands and help themselves to nice meal, what a convenient target.
Now I am sure there are some who would say it is not very sporting to set up a feed stand and then shoot the squirrels off of it but I didn't' care. I wanted payback.
Since I got the Beeman on Sunday (June 9) I have shot about 10 total squirrels and after posting a review of the gun on air gun review part of this site, decided I would document my squirrel hunting a little better. This morning I rose early enough to catch the early rising squirrels on my various stands and started sniping. I took out three before I had to go work and have attached a picture. The squirrels don't seem to mind eating on the stand while their comrade lies stiffening below so I just keep shooting until the last minute and then round them up in one go.
All of these shots today are at about 20 yards standing up and leaning against a door. I am a complete rookie and have only fired 100 shots or so through the gun so my accuracy is not that great so while I aspire for head shots, the .22 is powerful enough to kill pretty quickly with a "upper torso" type shot. I am shooting Beeman FTS pellets because that is all I have at the moment but look forward to testing out others and will report back.
Lots of fun and perhaps at some point this summer I will even get a fully ripe tomato for my trouble!
