Are Rats small game?

[Roo78]

Love it.
Here in Australia we had a rat and mouse plague a little while ago.
We tried baiting and trapping but by far the most consistent and successful was shooting.
I was using a Lightgow LA101 in 22lr
Pulsar XP50
Death Grip tripod.
I used up 2000 + rounds
Pleanty of misses but still lots of hits.
Kind of miss them since the plague subsided.

 

[Prairie]

I looked through the first three pages and didn't see any rat posts! So I decided to post this one. I love shooting rats at night. In my opinion the ATN Xsight 4k pro scope isn't good for anything else except shooting critters at night time. If you want to challenge your marksmanship skills, get you a tripod and try shooting rats in the head from 20 yards from a standing position. those little bastards are hard to kill.

Anyone else enjoy shooting rats?

I enjoy watching videos on YouTube of guys in the UK that go ratting at night and I find them entertaining. A lot of fun!

 

[bcworkman1983]

Love it.
Here in Australia we had a rat and mouse plague a little while ago.
We tried baiting and trapping but by far the most consistent and successful was shooting.
I was using a Lightgow LA101 in 22lr
Pulsar XP50
Death Grip tripod.
I used up 2000 + rounds
Pleanty of misses but still lots of hits.
Kind of miss them since the plague subsided.

What about the feral cat problem in Australia I have been reading about? I would LOVE to come over there and help with that problem.

 

[Muddyboots]

Ground squirrel season starting at my house. There are so many and so destructive in gardens. Beman .177, 6x24x50 Tasco I bought at a garage sale for $20 and has parallax down to <25 yds so clarity quite good. Rangefinder, cross sticks and Gamo PBA Raptor pellets at 1300 does good job. My longest LRH kill is 72 yds!!!! No wind day and first shot was rangefinder! 2nd shot was kill shot! Wife shakes head when sees me sitting with cross sticks!

 

[Orange Dust]

I hope everyone with kids thinks about this thread. Kids today will never have the opportunities we had. Put up the phones, IPads and computers and take them out hunting, shooting, and fishing. Heck, the them anywhere there are no electronics. They will thank you later.

 

[Ol' Red]

I hope everyone with kids thinks about this thread. Kids today will never have the opportunities we had. Put up the phones, IPads and computers and take them out hunting, shooting, and fishing. Heck, the them anywhere there are no electronics. They will thank you later.

This^^^

 

[Roo78]

Plenty of cats around where I am.
I've shot 5 and missed one just this last week.
They are a major issue for the native wildlife.
I have 11 trail cameras and it's rare not to see a cat go past most weeks.
Here's one I caught in a dog trap.

 

[Weaver93]

Plenty of cats around where I am.
I've shot 5 and missed one just this last week.
They are a major issue for the native wildlife.
I have 11 trail cameras and it's rare not to see a cat go past most weeks.
Here's one I caught in a dog trap.

Holy s***....that thing looks P***ED!

 

[Critter Picker]

In the 70's I was living in North Dakota, and driving truck. In fall and early winter we would haul a lot of grain into the ports in Duluth. I had a Smith and Wesson. 177 pellet pistol that was the same weight and heft as a model 41. I remember sitting in the grain lines shooting rats. One night I was walking the RR tracks with a flashlight and shot a rat that was almost cat sized. When I hit it it started to squeeze and about 20 rats attacked it and ate it. There were so many rats down there that when a truck came in,it looked like the sea parting as the rats scattered from the headlights.

 

[Bret GRAVELINE Graveline]

If you eat them, then they are considered game!

 

[bcworkman1983]

Plenty of cats around where I am.
I've shot 5 and missed one just this last week.
They are a major issue for the native wildlife.
I have 11 trail cameras and it's rare not to see a cat go past most weeks.
Here's one I caught in a dog trap.

Yep, that's what I figured. I wish I could come help you guys. My pops was telling me yesterday it was time to come back out to the farm and do some more rat killing. I need to get my rifle out and make sure It's zero is still on. I will post some pictures when I get around to it.

 

[Old Hickory 45]

Sunday afternoons was a public rat shoot at the city dump outside Morning Sun, Iowa, not many miles from my home. It was a real hoot!

Another town, Mediapolis, Iowa, had a yearly pigeon shoot that was really popular.

When I was a kid, my dad was a city cop here in Burlington. Our city parks boss declared we had too many squirrels and needed killing because they were killing a lot of trees. LOL! So, my dad and some fellow cops used shotguns and killed several gunny sacks of squirrels. My dad brought the whole works home and my brother and I helped dad clean squirrels all night. For us, it was like manna from heaven, all that fried squirrel and gravy meals. Did we get tired of eating squirrel? Heck, no!

Our downtown Burlington had some old buildings that harbored many pigeons that occupied the upper rooms with broken windows without human occupants. We used pump up pellet guns and flashlights to shoot gunny sacks of the birds and yes, we ate the birds.

Sadly, none of those occasions occur now days.

 

[brian11]

When I was a kid in the 50s & 60s, every town had a public dump, where they burned EVERYTHING. And usually right next to a brook or river, too. Anyway, we used to take our stuff to the dump, and we'd bring along some 22s and shoot rats for awhile. Dumps closed mid 70s, town is overrun now with libtards who would absolutely freak out at the idea of going to the dump and seeing people there with GUNS.

 

[RidgeTop]

My Father would take my Sister and I to the dump in our '37 Pontiac - the one with the big bulbus headlights. We would straddle the lights and pass our JC Higgins (Marlin 60) back and forth until we finished our $.25 cent box of .22's.

Correction, our .22 is the bolt action, Marlin 81. Early years were iron sights.