groundhogs

[GingivitisKahn]

Originally posted by Spectre:
Get a medium action rod, maybe a 7 footer, and some 15lb test line. Take a lawn chair and a cooler full of your favorite beverages along. Tie a loop in the end(a slip) and lay the loop over the chuckhole, kick back and relax. I'll tell you what, when you get ahold of one, the fight is ON! LOL. Not to mention the looks that people give you when they see the crazy fishing in the middle of a pasture. [/qb]

ROFL - what a riot.  Someone has *got* to get that on video.    :D

[GingivitisKahn]

Here's one I clobbered this past deer season...

 

As to the goundhog fishing method not being sporting - I dunno.  Maybe we could try it w/ a fly rod.  :-p

[Charlie Lamb]

[L. Bullington]

Great pics! I know where a big 'hog is holed up, I'm gonna try for him soon...

[ThePushArchery]

Yes stalking these guys are a blast. Me and my buddies try to do it once or twice a month through the summer. I've killed a couple.

I just got in from hunting them in a thunderstorm about an hour ago. I was on the edge of a pasture when I heard one up ahead doing a little distress grunt. As I cleared the trees a medium sized Coyote was tumbling this G-hog around not 25 yards away. I only hunt G-hogs with field tips and finish shot with Judos. (I'll explain why in a minute) The Coyote spotted me leaving the G-hog watch the retreat unaware of me there.

One shot a foot right, and the G-hog didn't budge or take his eyes of the running Yote. Second shot was spot on, and got my follow up shot with the Judo. Pretty cool to see this post while I'm still amped up about the encounters!

I use field points for the medium penetration. Never hit one and lost it. If I hit it, it always ends up dead and recovered. A field tip will 95% of the time penetrate so the arrow is equal on both sides. No matter how hard these guys try to get down their near by hole, its impossible for the running shish-ka-bob! A Judo does a fine job to finish them off.

[Mudd]

Charlie from your last posted picture I think we could easily and rightly call you "Timex"!..lol

Why? You ask! I'll be glad to answer that!
 
Because I can tell that like a "Timex" you've taken a licking or two.... but your picture also shows that you've just kept on "ticking"!...lol

Thanks again Charlie for sharing with us!

YHS, Mudd

[Ken Taylor]

Yummy! They are delicious!

Although you probably think I'm nuts, especially since a while back I also said I ate beavers (and that was the end of the post on beavers).

[Charlie Lamb]

   

Mudd...you got that right! Been knocked down, beat up, run over,run hard and put away wet. When you're as dumb as me it helps to be tough.
    :D

[Red Beastmaster]

A local guy named Homer told me a story of how he and his brother used to "fish" for groundhogs with a belt. Back when they were kids they were too poor to buy bullets and meat was whatever you could catch, clobber, or hit with a rock.

They would run a hog down a hole and then start digging like mad with a shovel. Sometimes the den was shallow enough they could eventually get to the groundhog. One of them would go to the back side of the cornered hog and dangle his belt buckle into the hogs face. The hog would bite the buckle and get its teeth caught. Then the "fisherman" would rear back on the belt stretching the hogs head back against the hole. The other brother would then cut its throat with a knife. That had to be wild!

He said they ate a lot of groundhogs back then. And then he said "Coulda got ripped up pretty good doing something like that. But what did we know? We were just dumb kids". Classic!

[Looper]

I used to catch them when I was a teenager. I'd take my handy critter-catcher (referred to as CC, henceforth), position myself in our field and wait for a big juicy one to stray a little too far from it's burrow.  After a mad dash and some deft CC wielding, I'd have my prize.

The key was to catch them far enough away from their burrows that they'd have to run.  I say run, but they actually bound. And they won't do it for very long.  Depending on how thick the grass is and how close you get to them, they'll stop a square off with you. They'll stomp and pop their teeth and create a fuss, but it's pretty easy to get a loop around them.  

It does help to have a little brother or an idiot friend around to block their escape, though.

[Red Beastmaster]

Since the Deer Elimination Program started here in PA the bowseason has become a joke (or challenge). Last year I saw 12 deer in 6 weeks of hard hunting and burned several vacation days in the process.

I got to thinking, I'd rather take vacation time now and hunt groundhogs than spend day after day freezing in a treestand seeing nothing this November. I took the last two Friday's off and I am really leaning hard toward doing it again this week. I've shot 6 so far this year and there's lots more to hunt.    

Hunting sod poodles is about the "funnest" thing you can do with a stickbow!

[PSUBowhunter]

Here is one I killed earlier this year. They are a great way for an easterner to practice their spot and stalk skills. If you can get to a field that was just bailed and still has the bails sitting in the field, you can get nonstop shooting all evening. I killed 23 two summers ago, mostly using this method.