Has or does anyone hunt Nutria, and what are/were your experiances?
Take care
smallfry

Have hunted and eatin nutria. Tastes like rabbit. Not hard to kill. Very bad eye sight. Can get within 25 yards no problem. Don't know where you live but in La. there is a season on them and they are not considered varmints unless they get in the sugar cane fields and do damage. If that happens then the landowner or his designates can kill them.

I have shot nutria but never eaten it. They espaced from breeding establishments and are therefore considered vermin here so I was to cull them out of a lake here. I stared out using a .22lr but it was rather easy, so I took to using a .177 magnum air rifle...They are fairly easy to kill, though most of mine were head shot ot very close through the chest. Strangely enough, none have come back in the 2 years that have passed since I eradicated them from my lakes. The cleaned skull makes an interesting piece, big, ugly yellow teeth. If encountered on dry land they are rather combersome, and can get very aggressive, I have been "charged" and had them stand up to me rather than run.

Heard on the radio not long ago that there was a $4.00 dollar bounty per Nutria in LA. Maybe rack up enough to pay for a trip?

Hi SMALLFRY
There are a ton of these things on the eastern shore of MD. Go down around Blackwater game area and ask the locals about shooting them. I use a 357 or 32 and maybe a 22mag. Try to find places that have been burned and look for the "green". This is the place the fun starts . Oh BTW they CAN be VERY mean.
Turtle

Hi Turtle,Thanks for the tip,gonna have to look in to this,sounds like fun!Clay.

Ahhh, nothing like shooting nutria. Does that bring back some fond memories. Especially when you could sell them for $8.00 on the hoof or $14.00-$16.00 skinned and dried like back in the '70s.
Where I grew up the bayous were loaded with nutria. At night we would hunt them out of flatbottom boats with a spotlight. During the day we would use airboats and chase them out of their cover and shoot them. All shooting was done with .22lr hollow points. All shots had to be in the head or the price dropped 50% if they were hit anywhere else.
On a good night it was not uncommon to shoot well over 100 nutria not to mention the coon, otter, muskrats and mink. My wife and I's personal best was 210 nutria, 25 muskrat, 8 coon, 6 mink and 2 otter for one nights hunt. You guessed it, thats well over $2000.00 for one nights worth of hunting.
As with all good things the state decided to make it against the law to hunt them from public waterways. Also they are now classed as a furbearing animal.
That ended the days of being able to make enough in a week to pay cash for a new truck or a new boat and motor back in the late '70s but it was fun while it lasted.
The last I heard the furs are bringing around $2.00-$2.50 skinned and dried.

Louisiana just instituted a $4 bounty for frozen or salted tails.

In Texas, they are fur bearers, but they are the one species with no limit and a year-round season. A $15 trapper's license is all you need. Regular hunting license limits you to 1 per day, and 2 in posession, if bagged in the course of other hunting. Landowners have some exceptions for pest control, of course.

I wish we had them in my neighborhood

BBTURTLE, where are you in Delaware? I'm right near Salisbury.

I'll show my Kalifornia ignorance and ask a dumb question-

What in the hell is a Nutria?????

Brian.

brian

Check out this link

http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/tmot1/myoccoyp.htm

Jim

Nutria are right at home here in the lower tidewaters of the Columbia river. My friend Pete has a black lab named Ebby (Ebony) who hates them, and they her. Half the times Ebby goes out to retrieve a duck she encounters a mature nutria and there is hell to pay. Her ears look like the fringes on a buckskin shirt. She can kill juveniles but the adult nutria always chew on her ears and lips and then swim away. Getting her back in the blind is pure hell.

Some dentists in Louisiana are using selected nutria teeth to do surgical implants in humans. Not an urgan legend!

I used to take my supressed .22 (77/22) to my friends house, situated on a small, rural golf course lake. Every night the Nutria would come out all over the place (as many as 40 on 1 green!) and I would be there waiting. Tons of fun! If you've never shot varmints with a supressed gun, you're missing out. The bystanders don't run far, if at all, so you can get a lot of shooting in.

ONE NIGHT ON COMEDYCENTRALS INSOMNIAC SHOW THE DUDE WAS IN NEW ORLEANS. LOOKED LIKE THEY HAD A CITY EMPLOYEE SHOOTING NUTRIA OUT OF A SEAT IN BACK OF A CITY PICKUP TRUCK WITH A .22 RIFLE. AT NITE WITH A SPOTLIGHT HE WAS SHOOTING THEM IN THE DRAINAGE SYSTEM OR SOMETING. LOOKED LIKE A BALL.

THE 2ND AMENDMENT PROTECTS US ALL .........

I saw a show, can't remember the name of it, where the animal control officers (police?) were in the back of a pickup with a spotlight and a Ruger 10/22. The truck was slowly driven down a street parallel with a drainage ditch and all Nutria seen were shot. Apparently they are as bad as rats in the damage they were causing to the levies and local homes.

Nice site Hobie, "Shooting with Hobie". Eley's Subsonic HP's make for good 22 LR ammo.

Everyone is saying hunting season is over . Not for me . These guys are year round as well as fox in the areas I go. Below is a link of where to go if you want to get these over grown RATS .
If anyone is interested in going for these guys let me know and maybe I can hook something up .
Turtle

http://sherpaguides.com/chesapeake_bay/eastern_shore_md/dorchester_map_large.html