floodgate
12-27-2006, 02:34 PM
Though I've been enamoured of guns and their gear all my life, I've never gotten "into" hunting - nothing against it; I've just never tried it. But moving to the "country" has given me a new perspective, at least as regards predators. This past Fall and Winter, the neighborhood has suffered a real plague of bobcats. We have a big "Hav-A-Hart" trap with live bait compartment, and trapped two big adults a couple of months back (It's amazing what an "attitude adjustment" an obstreporous rooster will undergo, after a night next to an angry 'cat!). But they must have had a big litter, because then we were swamped with half-grown kits - small enough to squeeze through the electric fence between the hot wires - who cleaned out a dozen of our chickens and three ducks. We called the Government Hunter in for help, and he got three; we trapped two and I got another with my Stevens 24 .22LR / .20 ga. in the act of killing two chickens; anchored him with #3 Buck at a longish 35 yards and finished him with the .22. (Legal, as he was in the "act of depredation".) Thought we'd cleaned them out, but then Xmas eve we lost another chicken. Put the half-eaten carcass on the trip platform and set it as light as it would hold, but he somehow sneaked it away without tripping the trap. I left it set and un-baited last night, too much rain to set a live chicken out in the live-bait compartment overnight, and - Lo! and behold! - the cat wandered in to see if there were any morsels left over and tripped the trap on himself. Ever see that "Oh S**T! expression on a cat's face? He's - uh - "relocated" now; hope that's the last of them.
Happy New Year to all!
floodgate
Happy New Year to all!
floodgate