Gotta take your excitement wherever it comes

Okay gang, vacation's over and it's almost back-to-work time. I feel like a Penn Stater fer sheese crissakes . . . .

Had an awesome week hunting the wily woodchuck, aka Mr. Marmota monax. I'll have to breeze through the detailed blow by blow, but here is a summary of how the week panned out:

July 12th, Thoreau's birthday.

You will recall that in Walden, Thoreau writes: "Once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my bean-field--effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say--and devour him, partly for experiment's sake; but though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher."

Well, I celebrated Thoreau's birthday in style by sluicing the bruiser pictured above out in the sheep pasture. I saw him from the kitchen window, did a sneak a la Kleinman to "close the gap," and shot him at about 40 yards using a half door to the sheep shed as a rest. As you can see, he expired mid-hole.

Mr. Marmota, as found DOA

July 13th, Friday the 13th. It was a very unlucky Friday the 13th for this little chuck, who picked the wrong time to come out wandering from the big barn to explore the newly cut hay in the adjacent field. First kill with the new Stoney Point bipod; another long shot at 25 yards. Dead instantly.

One unlucky woodchuck

July 14th. Skunked. Can't win them all.

July 15th. Tonight, two for two. I shot the Papa Chuck who has lived under our pole barn and who has been a clear target for assassination for some time. I was hiding in my woodchuck blind about twenty yards away when he snuck out; I shot and he turned around without batting an eye and beat a hasty woodchuck retreat. I didn't follow up immediately so as not to scare the other big one I was after who lives under the big barn. But then an hour later a little baby came out from the big barn, and I shot it whereupon it expired instantly.

At that point I went to see about woodchuck # 1's whereabouts. I turned over the picnic tables leaning against the pole barn, and lo and behold there was a woodchuck blood trail! I got an old yard stick out of the barn and probed the burrow: pay dirt! or should I say, soft chuck butt!


These are the things they don't teach you in grad school! Utilizing the following array of gopher-getting-gear, I was able to pull him close enough to the mouth of the burrow so that I could reach in and pull him out by the tail.

Professional Gopher Grabbing Gear

Sure enough, I had hit him right where I was aiming--right in the old boiler room. Being the tough old chuck that he was, it took him an extra ten yards to die.

Pole barn gophers

So that's it. A good gopher getting week. Seven confirmed kills, a couple of other questionable ones. It's back to work tomorrow.

Daddy in the gopher boneyard:
photo courtesy of Sophia