Well I was getting ready to go food shopping today a little after 6pm to give my wife a break after the great job she did with my son's B-day party and cleaning the house and all.. when I glanced out the window as it is now a 2nd nature habit that I do. Well what do I see but a nice size adult groundhog about 10ft from my shed. It spotted me and ran back under the shed. That's ok I 'm a patient man.
I grab the 36 and load a Superdome 8.3gr in it this time as the 36 (same as 34 but dressed better) .177 shoots them very accurately @ 860-870fps. I didn't wait long, maybe 1min. and the g-hog popped its head up. I was resting on the window sill and had its eye in my crosshairs. After about 5min. it inched out a little where about 1/2 it body is now exposed but covered well behind some tall grass up against the shed that I didn't get to trim yet since yesterday when I cut the lawn. Well my patience was running out. I figure if I made a good shot at its head, it wouldn't matter whether it is 10ft away from the hole or half-way sticking out of the hole. It should drop him/her. If not I 'd lose it either way since I can't reload a springer as fast as she can run a few yards.
Distance was 21-22yds. This is not the 1st g-hog I 've shot sticking out of one of the shed's burrows. My only concern was the 36's power. Can a 13-14fpe gun take a 10+lb adult g-hog from 22yds out? Well I was feeling pretty confident, I knew the scope was zeroed in well from yesterday's young g-hog shoot, and I knew the Superdomes were very accurate with this gun. It was very well aware of my presense and kept looking at me sideway with his left eye. I take a deep breath and as as I 'm ready to squeeze the trigger, the g-hog starts making noises, more like cries that sounded like a Grackle! I hesitated, composed myself again, took another breath, held it in, while watching it open its mouth and make the noise again. I had the Legend's crosshairs right behind the eye as Ed suggested that is the softest spot in the skull (the large eye cavity), and squeezed the trigger ever so slowly as to not jerk the gun at all. I then see the g-hog's head move back towards the left, hit the shed and drop to the ground and no movement! I was ecstatic! I quickly reload a CPHP that I grabbed blindly from the Crosman pouch on my belt. I look through the scope again and see its head buried in the grass but I shoot again just for good measure. I noticed through the scope the head moved a little on impact of the 2nd pellet but that was it. No further movement. I reload, grab the camera and run downstairs.
First pic is the way he laid but those 2 blood trails are the exit holes! I shot at its left side of the head as it was looking at me. Both Superdome and CPHP went right through. There was tons of blood on the POI and did a lot of cleaning as the freshly cut grass from yesterday was stuck all over it. Also near the entrance of the hole there was a pool of blood. The Superdome surprised me. I had never hunted with them in .177 or .22 cal. Anyway, this was not a very large g-hog, nor the biggest I 've shot but a decent size one. The only thing that bothered me a little is that it's a female with many swollen nipples. Seemed she was nursing young ones. I wonder if there are young ones down there or she is the same one I saw yesterday with the 3 young ones (-2 that I took..). Well I 'll keep an eye out tomorrow to see if they come out looking for her.
3 g-hogs in one weekend is pretty good. Luck was on my side this time and it's certainly a new record of mine :-) I also discovered I didn't need to wait for the big Diana 350 .22 to come back from the tuner to take an adult 10lb g-hog.. All I needed was some good glass on the 36 to compensate for my failing eye sight using open sights. The pics did not come out too good without sharpness. In all the excitement I forgot to adjust the camera for outdoors since I was taking lots of pics indoors yesterday at my son's b-day party, and also some clouds had moved in, so they 're mediocre but they tell the story of what happened for the umteenth time at the side of Harry's famous shed - the g-hog's favorite hang out :-)
