Look out you coons !

[Old Stony]

I do quite a bit of hog hunting, and at one spot where I normally have at least 100 yd shots, the coons have been driving my crazy. I have a large round trap there as well, and the coons frequently trip the door on it. I occasionally trap coons, but lately I've decided to just shoot some and lower the population. I took my 77/22 to the range to sight it in today for 100 yd. shooting with a suppressor and sub sonic CCI ammo. I think it will do the trick, but it is stretching things out for the caliber and speed of the bullets.

After getting some sort of group at 100, I decided to try it at 50 and shot 25 rounds at this target. I was sort of impressed..but it does shoot 3 inches high at 50, so I held at 6 o'clock.

I guess my old range is getting about ready for some rehab....starting to look pretty run down! This is the 100 yd. line..

 

[DaveBj]

Nice. Were you using any kind of optics?

At our place we get raccoons in our attic. The use of firearms there is not a good idea, so I trap them and transport them way across the backwater.

D

 

[Old Stony]

I just put a cheapie Walmart Barska 3x9 on it. It had a 3.9 Leupold at one time, but a friend needed one so I took it off and gave it to him. Those coons can sure be a pain !

 

[Art Eatman]

Coons don't like the smell of camphor, so put some mothballs in the attic as a repellant. They evaporate, so periodic replacement is necessary.

 

[Colorado Redneck]

We live in town...not my choice but, happy wife = happy life. Coons crap in the backyard and it smells so bad that dog doodoo smells good. So a HaveAHeart trap is the method of removal. A big coon can really mess up the trap and dig up sod trying to escape. Then they go on a ride out to the Grasslands and get a lead pill to send them to Racoon Heaven. I don't want to relocate my problem to make a problem for someone else.

That 22 long rifle should be the cats meow, Old Stony. They might go a ways before expiring, but a center of mass hit will do it. Pretty nice shooting!

 

[the possum]

They sure are tenacious varmints. Caused a whole bunch o trouble on our farm, too. A .22 will kill them, but not quickly enough for my tastes. (Unless you can be sure of scoring only brain shots.) Good luck, either way.

 

[Jack O'Conner]

When I was a teen in Pennsylvania, we shot treed coons using 22 shorts with the tips filed flat. These little bullets hit hard! Distances were typically about 35 - 40 feet. My Uncle Rolph's black and tan hound was a pro at finding and treeing coons. Young coons in this corn country were roasted with potatoes, onions, and carrots. The older animals were fed to the hounds. Hides back in those days brought about $20. a piece.

Jack

 

[Old Stony]

The old Ruger has been doing just fine. A friend invited me to go with him this morning to Oklahoma...only about 2 1/2 hr. drive to his hunting place...to try to run off some hogs and coons from his feeders. He is getting overrun with both of them and the hogs are even camping under the feeders and keeping the deer away. I'm taking the Ruger 77/22 and my Ar-15 in 6.5 Grendel which has night vision also uses a suppressor ( it's a veteran at this kind of work. We'll be at it for a couple of nights.

 

[Colorado Redneck]

The Oklahoma hunt sounds like a good time! How many piggies have you harvested?

 

[Old Stony]

Only ended up shooting one pig ! I saw a few more little ones, but wasn't able to get shots at them. The deer were everywhere, and somewhat goofy behavior for whitetails. We sat up in two different elevated stands and probably saw up to 50 deer apiece after dark each night. I had one standing under a protein feeder, about 25 yds. away from a corn feeder where I shot that one hog. The deer not only didn't run away, it walked over within a few yards of the corn feeder to check out the dead hog. Within a few minutes other deer were wandering through also and with my night vision I could see others bedded down within 50 yards of the feeders...and they didn't even get up and leave after the shot went off.
When my friend came by in a 4 wheeler to pick me and the dead hog up, he said there was one doe directly under my stand watching him drive up. They were all nice looking fat deer, but must be eating some peyote or something around there!
They sure do have a good tick population around there that I didn't expect. I sprayed my legs before we set out to the feeders and during the nights spent out there I must have picked up 20-25 tiny ticks....still itching like crazy!

 

[Colorado Redneck]

That does sound weird for whitetail s to be that relaxed. Come deer season it'll probably be way different!