It's official now! You can go ahead and hunt groundhogs! They should have had another batch of targets by now and should present you with a more "target rich environment" when you go out! GHD

A buddy of mine just got back from Wyoming.


Check this out:










Looks like fun!

I'd like to stock those in Pa. but I don't think the farmers would like my idea.

Heck just go to New York State. I drive truck over there a fair bit and the woodchucks are there in amazing numbers. I drove from Buffalo to Syracuse then down to Binghamton then out to Walton and I am no kidding counted 132 woodchucks in fields and on the side of the road one afternoon last summer. I don't know if it was mating season or what but they were everywhere! In one strech of ditch bank about 100 yds long there were 5 in that one ditch!!! I guess no one shoots them in NY?

quote:

Originally posted by K20350:
Heck just go to New York State. I drive truck over there a fair bit and the woodchucks are there in amazing numbers. I drove from Buffalo to Syracuse then down to Binghamton then out to Walton and I am no kidding counted 132 woodchucks in fields and on the side of the road one afternoon last summer. I don't know if it was mating season or what but they were everywhere! In one strech of ditch bank about 100 yds long there were 5 in that one ditch!!! I guess no one shoots them in NY?

As a kid growing up in PA during the late 1940's and early '50's, I read lots of stories about chuck hunting in upstate New York; better than PA back then which was very good.
But, I gotta think that the frigging anti's have got everyone enrolled into their hysteria to the point where no one is willing to get hammered for making noise shooting chucks, in New York.
Pathetic.
Canada is the same way. At one time chuck huting flourished in southern Ontario, but no more.
I think it's time to end the Liberal domination of Real Men, and that we take back what's been lost to those inane ass holes... They make me sick....

Don

2 of my friends just left this AM for Wyoming and they will have stories and pictures I am sure when they return! I used to kill a lot of groundhogs every year around here on the farms but the farms are disappearing and so are the groundhogs. That's why I set the rule for "wait till Memorial Day" so they can reseed a little bit on the normal hunting places. I know that indiscrimanite shooting of them in March and April can dessimate them on those fields and make them worthless for future hunting. They only have 1 litter of young a year so if you shoot an old sow in March or April you have eliminated 5-6 potential targets! I'll have a field day before long! GHD

I am leaving the 18th for a weekend of PD shooting in western kansas. this will be my first real PD hunt. i have no idea what to expect. taking 2 .223's a .22-250 and a boat load ammo. also considering taking a .22lr. will i get any use out of it?

I offically opened Groundhog Season today(June 1,2009) with a really unceremonious 162 yard shot on a groundhog inhabiting a field previously known to present targets from 110-320 yards. This one fell to a strategially placed shot from a 6X47Rem(aquired from a member of this forum last year)using a 70 grain Sierra BlitzKing. I heard the splat, I saw the red mist fly and the dust cloud from the dust covered hide as the bullet struck. The old sow had done her duty! She had produced a litter of future targets this spring and was now just shoring up herself by eating protien rich clover...........and she died clutching a clover stem in her mouth. Tomorrow, I and Bobby Brown(my long range buddy with the maladies) will go to visit our friends in far SW.VA and try to extract some vermin from the rock outcroppings there................can we call them "rockchucks" if they are on top of a rock when we shoot them? Where I will be tomorrow is the closest thing to a prairie dog town that I can be in driving distance. If we get 50 oppurtunities for shots it will be a GREAT DAY! Give it about 2 more weeks and a bunch of hay gets mown and double or triple that figure!! IT'S TIME!! LET THE VARMINTERS ROLL!! GHD

The trip to the VA varminter's heaven was not as expected! The rock outcroppings offered no shots! Bobby got impatient and said to me, "Let's head back toward home and check out ........... place"! I agreed and we went that way. Thunderstorms were gathering in the distance. I found(using the Steiner Peregrine XP-10x44's from DOUG at CAMARALAND ON THIS FORUM) a "this years chuck"(why you wait for Memorial Day!) at 380 yards. The Savage VLP wearing the Monarch 6.5-20 was "dialed" to the target and that target was split wide open by a 39 grain Sierra Blitzking. Less than 10 minutes later another target appeared. This one was a "sow" sitting on a rock at 435 yards. Again the Nikon was dialed and the results were the same!! Another dead vermin! Red Mist was prevalent! Then I spied a groundhog at 572 yards, severe downward angle and Bobby wanted me to shoot it so I tried! I saw the dust kick up under it's chest and it ran "hell bent for leather" over 100 yards to it's den! 1 more inch(1 more click up at that range up and I would have had 3 for 3!) Then the thunderstorm hit! Time to leave and on June 29th of this year, Bobby and I will travel to the "killing fields" and if I can talk the wife into helping me post the pics, they will be here!! Not a prairie dog town but the closest us ol' poor folks in the East can do. Hosting about 7 folks tomorrow to shoot rifles and handguns at the GHD range..........we'll see how that goes! GHD

Kudos on the two you shot!!!

Don