I missed all this yesterday, heard about it when I got home right after the excitement. My daughter and son in law came home from college to my suburban home. A young groundhog, thrown out by his mama and looking for a home, was under a shrub on one side of the front walk next to the portico. He growled at them when they tried to shoo him away, fearing that he'd be harmed by our cat Sally, who lives on and around the portico and is quite a hunter. Son in law grabbed a broom off the porch and poked him. He made some more unpleasant racket and leaped across the walk into the daylilies where Sally was lying unnoticed. He pretty much landed on her, snarling. She jumped several feet straight up and took off. The groundhog ran across the front yard and hid under my old Chevette. I didn't see him there when I got home a few minutes later; he doubtless crossed the street into the grown-up field.

I thought this quite funny, needless to say. My wife and kids didn't think the groundhog was a bit cute up close. I'm sure Sally was pretty well freaked out; she didn't show herself for a while.

Most good groundhog stories end with the groundhog dead!

Sometimes it comes down to hand to hand combat with a Varmint. I once killed a groundhog with a claw hammer(really).



The sucker had a tunnel dug the the bottom of a stack of Alfalfa hay that was stored in a barn on our farm. We we loading it on a truck in the early fall(after a dry summer) in N.E. Oklahoma(the far Western edge of the Eastern Woodchuck's range).Anyway, I pulled a bale off the dirt floor and this sucker darts to a bale and crawls up on a second one.For a minute, I though he was rabid or something...



There was a claw hammer hooked on a nail in the wall of the barn ,I grabbed it without thinking and hit him in the head the first swing.I was only 18 at the time and had pretty good reflexes then..My younger brother stood there amazed and couldn't beleive it.



Anyway,I was sort of a legend on the farm for a while and got teased for it a lot.Everytime Dad would see a Coyote skulking around in the pasture,he'd grin and say "If we start loosing calves Son, you'll have to go get that claw hammer,I guess"



One cool thing is that anytime I hear some blowhard running on and on about how he made this bogus shot or did this macho act,I break into the converstion and say in a low ,deadpan voice-"Thats pretty interesting..You know,I once killed a groundhog with a claw hammer"....

That story reminds me of the time the wife and I were sittin watchin tv when a mouse ran across the hearth in front of the fireplace and stopped by the tv. My wife was somewhat disturbed to see a mouse in the house and told me to do something about it...so, I picked up a book from the end table and lobbed it across the room to the intended target, with great accuracy I might add, and squished that critter flat dead! The wife was a little dismayed at this hunter instinct response but what can I say.... Women, ya just can't win.....

Groundhogs one, cats nothing!
As a kid I once got between a muskrat and it's hole in the ice near the bank. Without a moments hesitation the rat reared up on it's haunches and sort of hopped at me clicking it's teeth and making rapid kind of a chirping noise designed to scare hell out of a little kid. It worked to some extent in that it did indeed scare hell out of me, but not enough to keep me from drop kicking him into the middle of next week. I don't know if it survived or not cause I didn't stick around to find out.
I'm thinking a good size groundhog with an attitude problem would have something for ya, especially if you were completely unarmed. I'm bettin they don't dropkick near as well as a muskrat!

Mountdog,

Now if you'd had a WEAPON (like a claw hammer or a good readin' book) THEN that Muskrat would have been in REAL trouble!!

Sharpsman, when I was about 10 I went to spend a few days with my grandmother, then probably in her 70s. She served me a rabbit for dinner. It was in the middle of the summer, not normal rabbit hunting season, and I inquired as to how it came to be on the table. Mr. Bunny had made the poor choice to hop into Grandmother's garden. She quietly slipped out, picked up a nice round river rock that fit her hand nicely, crept up and popped Mr. Bunny in the head with it. Into the pot he went. She could shoot a .22 rifle quite well (there's a rumor in the family that she once shot a man off the front porch with one at night when he had no business being there), but she wouldn't waste a cartridge unnecessarily. She used to get in trouble all the time as a little girl for sneaking off to play baseball with the boys, I'm told.

Since we're talking about this stuff...
When I was about 13 on the farm, I saw a decent sized groundhog out in the middle of a field about 60yds from our barn. I knew where his hole was, and he had a haul to get back. Doing some quick teenager math in my head, I figured I could catch him before he made it back to his hole. But what do I do if I catch him? Looking in the barn, I found an old aluminum softball bat. Perfect! I tore off running straight for his hole. He immediately saw me and did the same. Unfortunately for him, we met about 10 ft from his home. I whacked him once (we were both running) to keep him from making to freedom, then finished him off. Kinda brutal, but when you live on a farm you find some odd ways to have fun.

A friend of mine was sitting on the throne when he spied a groundhog outside. Grabbed his 7mm Rem Mag (which apparently he kept loaded in the bathroom for such eventualities) and blasted him right out the window. Kind of upset his wife.

I found out what was attracting the young groundhog to my porch. He'd just been weaned, of course. My wife's been treating the old cat to a bowl of milk in the morning, and was giving her more than she could finish. The young chuck was lapping up the milk.

We call ground hogs "ground grizzlies" around and consider them dangerous game!

Ground grizzly attack #1:

My father-in-law, the farmer, got charged by one when taking the tractor out into the fields. The little sucker bit fast to the rear tire in an attempt to suffocate the tire and kill it. Unfortunately the grizzly didn't account for the rotation of the tire which promptly took him around the ring and crunched him. Since the ground was soft the dirt fell back into the tire track and buried him. I have to say that this is the cleanest kill I know off! The snarling ruckest behind the tractor caught my father-in-laws attention who saw him go around. He laughed so hard he almost wrecked the tractor.

Grizzly attack #2:

I was out grizzly hunting on the farm. I didn't see anything that day and decided to head back to the farm house. I walked up along the creek still hunting as I walked. All of the sudden this very loud very dangerous sounding animal growled at me. It really scared the crap out of me. I immediately brought the rifle up in preparation for an attack by whatever it was. When I turned toward the sound I didn't see a thing. What the heck??? It took a few seconds to see a grizzly holed up and peering out at me ready to charge. I didn't know they could growl like that!! I give him a 25-06 attitude adjustment.

Gorund grizzly and hand-to-hand combat

The best case of hand-to-hand combat with a grizzzly is my mother-in-law who is a towering 5 foot two inches. She was out walking on the farm and passed I grizzly that could care less when she walked by. On the way back they had a close encounter. She used the only weapon she had - a thermos bottle. Give him a frontal lobotomy in one shot. I was very impressed!

as long as we are telling groundhog storries, i was once charged by one at the edge of the cornfield beside my house. he thought he was a pretty bad dude until that 180gr. hydrashock from my xd-40 hit him in the top of the head from a distance of 31in from the end of my boot.(yes i measured it with a tape) i always carry that thing when i go and check my game tracker cameras, and now i can use that groundhog charge as a viable excuse for buying another handgun she said i didn' need. i told her i think i need to upgrade to a FA .475 for charging groundhogs.
back in my younger days(ok last summer) when i was still wild, i pinned one to the ground with my boot, and had all intentions of cutting his throat with my pocket knife. i finally managed to kill it, but i still have the scars on my hands to show for it. i just couldn't pass up that opportunity.
now i make sure i'm carrying a sidearm when i'm out and about.
dwp