Smert' belkam (death to squirrels)
 

Early April is the time of year that my *big* bamboo grove starts putting out shoots. And I always look forward to seeing the new shoots come up and grow to their full height in just a few weeks.

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics...ot_2017_01.jpg

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics...ot_2017_02.jpg

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics...ot_2017_03.jpg

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics...ot_2017_04.jpg

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics...ot_2017_05.jpg

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics...ot_2017_06.jpg

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics...ot_2017_07.jpg

But this season was proving to be a problem..........

Continued....

A lot of the new bamboo shoots were starting to show damage from something chewing on them. In some cases the shoots were attacked just as they barely started showing above the ground. In other cases the shoots could be well started, yet something would chew into the side, base, or the top, which would kill the shoot.

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics..._damage_06.jpg


http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics..._damage_07.jpg


http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics..._damage_08.jpg


http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics..._damage_09.jpg


http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics..._damage_10.jpg

I was not happy......


http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics..._damage_05.jpg

I was pretty sure squirrels were to blame here, but just to be certain, I set out a game camera to make certain...


http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics..._damage_01.jpg

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics..._damage_02.jpg

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics..._damage_03.jpg

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics..._damage_04.jpg


Yeah, caught them red handed.

So I hauled out the hunting blind I bought years ago, and set it up in the bamboo grove.

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics/blind_01.jpg

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics/blind_02.jpg

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics/blind_03.jpg

**discretion advised** dead bodies displayed
 

So I've been spending several hours a day, at various times of the day, standing (or rather sitting) guard on the bamboo grove.

The tally as of this moment is eight (8) confirmed kills, and five (5) pretty darn sure I got 'em, but couldn't find the dead body to confirm.

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics...quirrel_01.jpg


http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics...quirrel_02.jpg


http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics...quirrel_03.jpg


http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics...quirrel_04.jpg

The last two pics were of a squirrel that I caught right in the act of chewing up a new shoot right in front of me. I have to be honest, I REALLY enjoyed that kill..

So right when I think I'm getting a handle on things, a new problem showed up...


http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics..._damage_01.jpg

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics..._damage_02.jpg

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics..._damage_03.jpg


I think I know what happened to those three (3) shoots....

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/pics...raccoon_01.jpg

To explain... I'm not completely heartless. I actually purchased two different spray products to try to dissuade the squirrels from chewing on the bamboo. One was advertised as a bonafide squirrel repellent 100 percent guaranteed to repel squirrels...

https://spray-n-growgardening.com/an...rfj1oobkcvc253

That ABSOLUTELY did not work!

So I tried another product that was supposed to repel ALL animals..

https://spray-n-growgardening.com/an...rfj1oobkcvc253

That seemed to be a bit more effective, but within a few days of application, it seemed to rapidly lose it's effectiveness. And later on I actually read some reviews where someone claimed that raccoons seemed to LOVE the stuff. So my guess is those above three shoots that were knocked over were done do by a raccoon. I actually found quite a few shoots where it was obvious that something had been digging around the base of the shoots, which I have never seen before. So my guess is that the "repellents" actually attracted this attention from one or more raccoons, and possibly a possum. So I really can't blame the raccoon for this. And I sure can't bring myself to shoot a raccoon.

So anyway, I didn't see any more squirrels this morning, but yesterday afternoon I did shoot a squirrel that had jumped from a pine tree to the top of a shoot that is around 10 ft. tall, and started to chew on the tip of the shoot. Luckily I was right there, when he jumped on the shoot, so he went to the promised land before inflicting any damage. I also saw another squirrel close by a little bit later, but that one ducked behind a pine tree and I never saw him again. So there is at least one more squirrel I need to remove.

I don't know what got into the squirrels this year. I have had minor problems with them in the past, but generally it was just one squirrel. If I could shoot that one, then the problem was over with for the season. This year, they have just gone berserk and have done extensive damage to the new shoots coming up.

Quite honestly, every year I start feeling bad about shooting the squirrels. I don't allow them to come near the house as they are quite destructive. They are "tree rats" in every sense of the word. And if they had never bothered the bamboo, I would be a WHOLE lot more tolerant of them even then. But all it takes is a season like this one to see the wholesale destruction they are inflicting on my bamboo, and it's "game on, suckers!" I lose absolutely all sense of regret killing them. And I can say with no hesitation whatsoever, when I get to actually shoot one caught with his pay in the cookie jar chewing on one of my bamboo shoots, killing the little SOB is quite satisfying.

I was overrun by the rodents .I could shoot some of them but always concerned about a stray round taking out a neighbors window .It's illegal to poison the little basters in most states although I found some stuff that seemed to work .

My wife who has had a few to many strokes thing the buggers are cute .While she was a church I spotted on way up by the swimming pool so I shot him and saw him tumble .Went to retrieve the body before the dog found it .No luck after 15 minute search so I gave up .Two days later Nancy was telling me she saw the cutest thing that day .A squirrel with no tail :banghead:

The bamboo looks fascinating

I had a $1300 pellet gun that did the trick on tree rats. It was a .22 cal PCP with a moderator. 28lb ft of energy and no one could hear me shoot it. Thing would put 5 shots in the same hole and mean a clean hole not a ragged one. You sure could hear the pellet hit the tree rat with a loud thunk.. I have shot real rats at 80 yards easy. That gun would hit what i wanted it to everytime..

I miss having it.

Do you remember that brand and model of pellet gun you had?

Depending on the brand of the cartridge, the 17 HMR is rated at something like 2500 feet per second with around 250 ft/lbs of muzzle energy.

I don't think any of the squirrels that I wound really survive for long.

I was down at the blind this evening and eventually a squirrel showed up. He was on the far side of a bamboo shoot that had already been chewed on, so the shoot tip was kind of thin and narrow. I guesstimated where his body was based on what I could see of the tail and put one where I figured his chest area would be. He did a double summersault into the air and hit the ground, and then climbed slowly up the nearest pine tree. Yeah, I should have fired again, but I was really expecting him to just fall out of the tree dead. Not sure if that one counts as a hit or not, as just a little bit later I saw a squirrel coming DOWN that tree acting like nothing had happened. Once he got to the ground, he just vanished, though. So I'm not sure if I just stunned that first squirrel with a near miss that got deflected by the bamboo shoot he was chewing on, or this was a second one. Squirrels around here seem rather nonchalant about gun shots unless they actually SEE a person. That is what makes a hunting blind so darn useful.

That bamboo grove sure seems to be infested with the tree rats this year. Never seen this many of them around there before. But I have LOTS of ammo, so eventually I will thin them out. I might have to get an earlier start next season. The number of squirrels this year just took me by surprise and they did a LOT of damage.

It was a Mark11 Logun with a nice scope.