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Busting the Groundhogs !

Been out 4 times now and the rascally little rascals are winning..... 3 times with the pistol with 2 misses and this morning broke out the .243 and no shots offered...... You'd think they'd been shot at before ...... :smiley_chinrub: rotflmao
 
I know I've posted this before, but it's been awhile. And since someone asked why hunt groundhogs, I thought this would be a good place to repost.

A few years back I carried a camera on a tripod out to the soybean field. I stood in the field about 15-20 yards or so from the edge of the woods and took a picture of me in the beans. I then moved both myself and the camera/tripod over about 30 yards and stood in front of a groundhog den on the edge of the bean field and made sure I was once again 15-20 yards into the field away from the edge of the woods. I tried my best to keep camera height and distance from the camera the same (as well as I could). This was the result:

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Hey how is everyone doing? Well turkey season is over and I'm catching up on some missed sleep. I did shoot one gobbler, but the second one eluded me. I've been itching for groundhog season to begin. We are going to have soybeans on the farm this year IF it ever stops raining. Please say a little prayer for the farmers in NE Ohio as it is getting kind of scary. I took a ride around the block on my way home from work this past week and this is what the fields around me look like.

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Yes, that is correct. Almost no one has started doing ANYTHING in the fields. Maybe 10% of the fields around here have had any work done in them. This weekend should change that, but more out of desperation than anything. Still lots of standing water around.

I generally don't like to shoot groundhogs early as the thought of orphaning a litter is very distasteful to me, but there are exceptions. One is groundhogs that are doing damage to building foundations. So I did go out one evening and shoot one that was living under the foundation of my neighbor's shop and while I was waiting for that one to show, I got one that was hanging around its burrow in the pasture on my side of the road.

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As I was mowing the pasture around the barns today I found a brand spanking new hole being dug up. I'll have to keep my eye out for that one.

And I'll throw this random picture into this thread because it is a varmint. Three nights ago I went to lock the chickens in their pens right before dark and when I got out there, all the chickens were still in the yard which was really odd. It took a little bit before I figured out what was going on. So the live trap was called into duty. Three nights and a couple handfuls of mini marshmallows later and the critter was caught. The resident turkey vultures will now have lunch tomorrow. I even had some lead free bullets for the .17hmr that I used.

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That's all that's new with me. Looking forward to everyone's tales of groundhog summer.
 
I ate one once. It wasn't bad but I can't really get past what I'm eating... I don't really enjoy cleaning them either. They're pretty nasty...