Found a new place to groundhog hunt back in March. The farmer "wants them killed!" I don't like to start before Memorial Day but this farm was one of those places where it is "shoot now or don't come back!" So we shot then! That was March 21st. We killed 34 that day. We went back yesterday and shot 20 more on that place. Bobby Brown my groundhog hunting buddy was supposed to "scout out" some places for us to shoot yesterday so he went out on Thursday and while "scouting" shot 23 on the same farm!! All total we have shot 128 groundhogs on that place this spring. We are at 177 for the year so far and hoping to get to 300 as we haven't even shot the farm that usually gets us over 100 a year. I've never seen a groundhog hunting place like this one. As far as "overkill", I'm sure the population has been reduced but the border areas, woodlots and fencelines surrounding this place is like Swiss cheese so I really do think that repopulation of the dens in the hay fields will occur. GHD

At a place over crowded as that what is your typical shooting distance. roger

Roger, Yesterday's average for the 20 there was only a little over 220 yards but there were several shot with the 17HMR from 90-125 yards. All the groundhogs on that farm yesterday with the exception of 2 were shot in one field. Back in March the first day there the average for the 34 would have been over 300 yards shooting 22-250, 17 Fireball and 204. There were 7 over 500 yards that day and a bunch in the 350-460 range, but we were on the whole farm that day. On Thursday when Bobby shot the 23, he shot 19 of them with my tripod stand set up in one place and never moved it but he was shooting from a different angle than we did yesterday and his shots on Thursday all with a 223 probably averaged 260-275 yards. GHD

Charly, What would you say your hit miss ratio was? roger

Roger, The first day when we shot 34 and the long shots were more prevalent, the hit/miss ratio was right around 70%. Bobby's Thursday ratio was 77% and this past Saturday's ratio was 92% and due to the fact we could not find two groundhogs that were as best we could call from the spotting were hit, we were 23/25. We don't count them if we can't pick them up. GHD

Sounds like you found a honey spot!!!

Grass was too high when we went out last week..

the farmers haven't been able to cut the alfalfa yet, due to the weather..

so we only got to shoot about 400 that afternoon...

sage rats that is..took most of mine within 75 yds or less..

Charlie,
It's none of my business but I would leave some for seed, that way there might some for next year.
Call it self conservation.



Stepchild

My hunting buddy and I had a rockchuck hunt and he knows some of the farmers in the area and so we had access to great locations.

One of the local farmers came up to us as we were returning to the truck to ask us if we would go hunt around his corn field. He said that it would be great if we could come back in a couple of weeks as the emerging corn was hit hard by the rockchucks. Last year he estimated that he lost 2 acres of corn to the varmints.

A couple of days ago my hunting buddy ran into that farmer and he was pushing for us to come back and pop a bunch of them. It's unusual to those farmers pressuring you to go hunting on their fields!!!!!!!

Teancum and others, As of this past Saturday the total has now grown to 151 on this parcel. The farmer was threating to poisin/bomb them and told us to shoot all we saw. That was on March 21st. We shot 34 that day...........if all we shot were 50% females and they had dropped 4-6 babies, we'd have had a REAL field day in June!! Probably have rescued this farmer for future years as having more holes dug. Groundhogs will move into existing holes that are vacant. As for me, I would hate to have to operate machinery(tractors, Mo-Co's, rakes, balers in this landscape!!) And as for me from a varminting standpoint.......out here in the East.....where targets are not as prevalent as in the mid-western-western states.......we have had fun for one year at least! Bobby Brown (my groundhog, long range varminting buddy), is suffering from 2 forms of incurable cancers. Today they are both in remission. Tomorrow they may rear thier ugly heads. So we shoot where we can and enjoy the spoils of the hunt. I know in all my years of eastern groundhog shooting(40+) I have never seen anything like this place and it may be a once in a lifetime of varminting, but we're exploiting it for all it's worth right now.............both of us have sworn off it till next spring for now!!Saturday's total was 16 but the furtherest shot was 810 yards(22-250)and the rest of them were 100-385 yards with the 17Fireball or the 223 or 22-250's. Week before that the 17HMR did the deal on a bunch from 100-150 yards.I took some pictures this opast Saturday but the camera mal-functioned so nothing shows up. Hoping to get "Miss GHD" ((some of you all remember her))(( and we will go to the other unbelievable place where I found a few years ago where the coyote kills about equal the groundhog kills so so much for the coyotes destroying the groundhogs!!) out this weekend to shoot some groundhogs and maybe I'll have to send pics to someone to post. I love varminting, "would rather shoot groundhogs than eat when I'm hungry"!! Accurate rifles are all that peak my interest. I like the "little guys"...17HMR, 17Fireball, 204, 223Rem, 222Mag. I like the big guys also, 22-250, 225 Win, 220 Swift, 243, 6mm, 25-06, 260, anything over that diameter better be in a pistol configuration.....7mmBR!! Hope you all liked the epistle!! GHD

Enjoy, Charlie! roger

WOW, 151 groundhogs on one parcel of land...that's pretty impressive.

I've managed to shoot 1 so far this year, seen 3 dead on the highway on my way to and from work, only seen one this summer that was still and is still alive, to the best of my knowledge anyway.

The story concerning the one I did shoot goes something like this:

One saturday afternoon while visiting my parents, my mother runs in the house shouting, "Bradley...BRADLEY, come out here QUICK!" "There's something out by the woodpile, it's TRYING TO EAT ME!" "I think it's a BADGER, it's HUGE!!!"

So my dad and I put our ball game watching on hold and head out to the garage to see this HUGE BADGER, well I stick my head out the walk in door of the garage and to my surprise, see a good sized chuck staring back at me from about 25 yards. I started laughing histarically, so did my dad. I immediately told mom that she had nothing to worry about as they are herbivores and even though she has red carrot coloured hair, that this whistle pig wouldn't try to dine on her whatsoever. But I did mention he might destroy the garden, to which she replied, "GET RID OF IT!" I said gladly. So I grabbed the 22-250 and fed him a 50 gr Blitz King at about 3700 FPS to the back of the cranium. He's now fertilizer for the garden!

Up here in Manitoba, they just aren't that common, I usually get one per year and that's about it. Although this year with all the moisture we've been getting, there have been a few more sightings, just not where I can shoot 'em. I've seen more in the city and on the highway than anywhere else.

Charlie,

I'm probably about 4-5 hours west of you in south-central KY. Grew up in this area and lived away for 16 years. Have been back 8 years now.

25 years ago we GH's were everywhere. When I moved back 8 yrs ago there was a drastic decline in GH's. Hardly saw any. Everyone blamed it on
coyote population.

This spring I have seen many more GH's around. Some road kill, some in the ditchline of roads. Most seem to be young. It got me thinking of disease and wondering if something had gone through the population to knock them down for years rather than the coyote doing them in.

Any ideas?
Steve

Steve, Although the coyotes may be preditating(new word!!it means "eatin 'em) on the groundhogs, I do not believe they are the sole culprit for declining populations. Overshooting known groundhog hunting fields by SHOOTING IN SPRING is a bigger culprit in thier decline than the coyotes! What have we done for this farm for the future? Probably decimated it for a couple years!! Maybe longer! The other "honeyhole" place we hunt(haven't even been there yet this year!!) has been experience coyote problems with livestock(sheep) for over 40 years. It was the first place I ever heard of coyotes being in VA back in late 60's or early 70's. Last year on September 8th, we were enjoying a 39 groundhog kill day out to 832 yards and I asked the owner, "How many coyotes have y'all killed this year?" His anwer......."Well, I shot one last Thursday and that makes 82 for the year since January 1!!" And we should have had a 50 groundhog day that day if we could dope wind worth a darn!! So I don't think the yotes are all the problem that folks think they are. The places I learned to hunt on are past dairy farms, orchards and now they have grown houses instead of trees, hay and groundhogs. As far as diease goes, I think Mange may be a factor in declining populations. I can remember one particular farm that I shot a few years ago, started after Memorial Day and there was an abnormal number of groundhogs from that farm that year that exhibited Mange. I do not know of but 2 active dens on that 400 acre farm now. Mostly an orchardgrass producing cattle farm with great groundhog habitat but devoid of the little vermin. Just my thoughts. Charlie (GHD)

I've been reading your GH reports for a few years and appreciate what you are seeing out there. With predator/prey ratios so high and the other farms being so low in #'s there has to be another reason for decline. Is the Orchard grass farm hunted by anyone now or is it open for re-population?

I haven't shot any GH's for 8 years because of low numbers. Until this year, I just haven't been seeing any.