Yep. Reminds me of cutting hay about 10 years ago with a discbind, and encountering a badger. It would move into the field 10' further everytime I came around. Till the end I couldn't find it and suddenly I heard a loud bang in the back and there was blood and guts everywhere. I was trying to avoid the damn thing too. If it would have been any other animal I would have gone out to chase it away, but I don't trust badgers.
Did the same thing this summer except it was with a couple of fawns that were moving to slow. and i couldnt see them in the hay
Did the same thing this summer except it was with a couple of fawns that were moving to slow. and i couldnt see them in the hay
We had tons of coyotes too. Tried my best to chase them away, or even shoot around them to make them run away, but sometimes they left their little ones behind and I ended up putting them through the disc.
With deer I never had a problem. The noise seemed to scare them away. Sometimes they don't run away though, and with a good crop you can't find them again.
A couple of years ago while erecting the roller coaster at Callaway Park, during a break I casually threw a spud wrench at a gopher about 20' away. Surprised myself by spearing him cleanly and felt badly after as I don't believe in taking any life without a good reason.
I guess gophers can be a problem in some cases but killing them for sport isn't my idea of a good time.
I hit one with a bow one time when I was pretty young. Wasn't a bad shot although I'm not sure if it skipped. I was actually aiming for it too, but felt really bad afterwords because as you say without reason it just feels doesn't fell right. Lesson learned: don't do stuff you don't want to actually happen!
I hit one with a bow one time when I was pretty young. Wasn't a bad shot although I'm not sure if it skipped. I was actually aiming for it too, but felt really bad afterwords because as you say without reason it just feels doesn't fell right. Lesson learned: don't do stuff you don't want to actually happen!
In grade 5 I was out hitting golf balls around when we saw a gopher. bet my friend a slurpee that I could throw a golf ball and hit it from about 30 yds away. Bam! right in the head and killed the little bugger. I thought I was gonna be in so much shiat.
Best slurpee ever though.
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We are commenting lately how we don't see many gophers anymore. Is the population cyclical like with lemmings, with surges and crashes?
Tell me about it. The one guy I know who owns rural land had me out last week to shoot gophers on land that was used for pasturing last year, and not a single critter was found. I couldn't believe it.
Tell me about it. The one guy I know who owns rural land had me out last week to shoot gophers on land that was used for pasturing last year, and not a single critter was found. I couldn't believe it.
Living southwest of the city, I haven't seen a single gopher corpse on the highway, there are far fewer coyotes wandering the fields and fewer hawks circling the area.
Gophers aren't around. It impacts the entire food chain.
Cowperson
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I was just thinking about this the other day while walking around my parents place. They have a well-kept plot of 8 acres, but the giant pasture on the other side of the road ensures there's always a bunch of gophers running around. Usually you hear whistles or see a ton of babies around this time, and I'm not seeing much of anything. Maybe the boom will take a few weeks, but it hasn't happened yet.
As for the cleaning question, generally nature takes care of that for you. I once took a shot at a magpie that was attracted by a carcass. The following 2 weeks were a very smelly lesson in the importance of scavengers (and the intelligence of magpies).
