The other night I was awakened out of a deep sleep by a horrible smell. Being groggy, it seemed to me that I had left something on the stove and it was burning. As I became more awake I realized it was a skunk, and heading downstairs I discovered the smell was in every room of the house. So what to do? I got dressed and grabbed my nocturnal pest rifle, a Ruger 10-22 outfitted with a Pulsar thermal scope. I went outside and looked around. Sure enough there was something on the hill across the creek. I walked closer and saw that it was a possum. He was a big one, and we've had problems before with them getting in the barn and killing chickens, so I let him have it with a CCI subsonic hollow point round. After he settled down I heard a rustling in the leaves behind me. Turning, I looked through the scope and saw a skunk beating a hasty retreat. He had been nosing around in the yard and had gotten pretty close to me before he took off. I missed him with the first shot, but the second took him off his feet. Still, he managed to crawl down his hole. I was confident the hollow point had done it's job and he would die in the hole.
Seeing nothing else in the yard I decided to check the barn. Opening the chicken coop door I spied a large rat sitting in the corner. I shot him and another one took off, offering me no shot. After I deposited the rat in the trash I headed back to the house. As I went I was thinking that the subsonic rounds were pretty quiet and shouldn't disturb the neighbors. I was also thinking how nice it will be when my suppressor finally gets out of jail. Why I need government permission to protect my hearing is beyond me! Also, it's been nearly a year since my forms were submitted. I'm no lawyer, but I think it would be hard to argue that making someone wait a year for something isn't infringement. Anyway, the next night I went out again and got another skunk and another possum, but no rat. The warm weather definitely has them out and about!