The leaves are changing and beginning to fall. Fall has arrived, and the acorns are dropping like rain. Sounds peaceful right? Wrong. I thought the tree rats in the area were happy with the truce we had going. I have left them alone as long as they stayed out of the garden. In the past week I had to fill my bird feeders twice. They left them alone for the most part all summer. If that wasn’t bad enough they have resorted to chewing holes in the feeders to get the seed out faster. They can’t be trusted. Well the truce is over now I can’t let these attacks go answered.
My first thought was to grab my go to gun a 2289 Critter Gitter. I then saw the S1k on the other end of the rack. I began thinking. She is tuned, the new scope is sighted in and shooting .5 in groups at 20 yards. Hmm. It may not be .22 cal., but it does air mail a .177 at just over 900 fps. Time to give her a try.
I took a position overlooking the feeders. It wasn’t long before the first thief approached. He bounced around in the to long grass. I tried to lock on to him with the crosshairs but he wouldn’t sit still. As he made his way to the base of the feeder he stopped facing away and sat up. I put the crosshair between his ears and let fly. The predator did its job. This thief did one complete flip and it was over. This was the first time I used predators and I can tell you I am impressed.
The second critter came in about 10 min. later. He went right to the feeder. He stopped at the base but I didn’t have a shot. The feeder post hid his head. He bounced around a bit but every time he sat still he head was hidden by the post. (I think he was just messing with me.) I decided to take a chest shot. This is something I don’t like to do, as headshots are the norm. I placed the crosshair on the chest and squeezed the trigger. This guy jumped about a foot in the air, landed on his feet and took off. About ten feet into his flight he stopped and with a twitch of his tail he went to sleep.
I’d like to thank Jeff for his posts. I am a springer novice and it’s his posts that prompted me to top this S1k with a Golden Antler and try Predators. I believe I have a winning combo now.
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