Hi all, I have a problem and hope you guys who have hunted varmints for a long time can help me.
What do you do with the corpses? Is there something useful to do with the meat or the pelt even after its been pretty well shredded?
Here is my situation.
I have Family in Eastern Washington, and friends of the Family own a few pretty substantial orchards, the one with the house on it is 900yds by 1250yds.
For the past 7 years every time I visited between spring and the start of winter I would shoot groundhogs as pest control, they are very destructive to the land and the trees, and have created some pretty nasty sinkholes that just cave in without warning especially when you are riding an ATV
Before last year in 8-10 hours of huting I would get 10-15 groundhogs, and at 4+ lbs a pop thats alot of meat and carcass to dispose of.
I would just pick them up and throw them in a small clearing and let the scavengers have a free meal, and they would clean up the mess in a couple of days at most.
Now thats not a viable option, last year I killed just over 30 in the same amount of time, and could have kept going but had to come back home.
I did the same thing with the bodies as I always did but I was told that the scavengers couldnt eat them up fast enough to get rid of them before the smell kicked in. All that did was attract tons of crows that also destroy the crops by pecking at the fruit on the trees.
This spring there were so many groundhogs, males were sharing burrows with two or three living in them at the same time, which is pretty rare I have never seen groundhogs in that high of a concentration, I mean they were everywhere.
This spring I spent three full days laying on the roof of the house that is on a slight hill and basically in the center of the property cutting the longest sightline down to just over 600yds.
I use an AR-15 with match 77gr SMK's or 75gr Hornadys, with all the wind and the distances involved varmint loads just got blown all over the place. After a pretty large groundhog gets hit by one of those rounds, even out to 450yds there is some pretty spectacular damage. So I only basically have half of the body to deal with.
In three full days of shooting with my AR and Savage 93 22wmr, and nearly 200rds of ammo, I ended up losing count of how many I shot, I know it was over 60.
We decided it was best to burn them, but that takes all day to really cremate them, and marinading in burning gas and fur isnt a pleasant experience, whats worse is the fire hazard, burning the bodies puts out so many embers we were constantly putting out small fires, and almost had one get out of control.
So again what do you guys do with them? I realize prairie dogs and ground squirrels are less than half the size of a groundhog but I assume it requires the same procedure just on a bigger scale.
This is a serious problem, we cant use a solid poison because it ill soak into the ground contaminating the trees plus they are no longer organic when you do that, and we cant use those little smoke bombs or whatever because the amount it would take to make a dent would turn the orchard into a facsimile of "no mans land" of WW1
Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated.
Also what attracts you guys to varmint hunting? I dont enjoy shooting something unless I am going to eat it, But the "field craft" of spotting, making range cards and the marksmanship of hitting such a small target at 300-500yds is pretty satisfying.
Other than that I dont find anything appealing about killing 60 or so animals and all the cleanup to just throw them away, even if they are pests. And I absolutely do not mean that as a criticism of any of the things you guys do. Its just not my cup of tea.
What do you do with the corpses? Is there something useful to do with the meat or the pelt even after its been pretty well shredded?
Here is my situation.
I have Family in Eastern Washington, and friends of the Family own a few pretty substantial orchards, the one with the house on it is 900yds by 1250yds.
For the past 7 years every time I visited between spring and the start of winter I would shoot groundhogs as pest control, they are very destructive to the land and the trees, and have created some pretty nasty sinkholes that just cave in without warning especially when you are riding an ATV
Before last year in 8-10 hours of huting I would get 10-15 groundhogs, and at 4+ lbs a pop thats alot of meat and carcass to dispose of.
I would just pick them up and throw them in a small clearing and let the scavengers have a free meal, and they would clean up the mess in a couple of days at most.
Now thats not a viable option, last year I killed just over 30 in the same amount of time, and could have kept going but had to come back home.
I did the same thing with the bodies as I always did but I was told that the scavengers couldnt eat them up fast enough to get rid of them before the smell kicked in. All that did was attract tons of crows that also destroy the crops by pecking at the fruit on the trees.
This spring there were so many groundhogs, males were sharing burrows with two or three living in them at the same time, which is pretty rare I have never seen groundhogs in that high of a concentration, I mean they were everywhere.
This spring I spent three full days laying on the roof of the house that is on a slight hill and basically in the center of the property cutting the longest sightline down to just over 600yds.
I use an AR-15 with match 77gr SMK's or 75gr Hornadys, with all the wind and the distances involved varmint loads just got blown all over the place. After a pretty large groundhog gets hit by one of those rounds, even out to 450yds there is some pretty spectacular damage. So I only basically have half of the body to deal with.
In three full days of shooting with my AR and Savage 93 22wmr, and nearly 200rds of ammo, I ended up losing count of how many I shot, I know it was over 60.
We decided it was best to burn them, but that takes all day to really cremate them, and marinading in burning gas and fur isnt a pleasant experience, whats worse is the fire hazard, burning the bodies puts out so many embers we were constantly putting out small fires, and almost had one get out of control.
So again what do you guys do with them? I realize prairie dogs and ground squirrels are less than half the size of a groundhog but I assume it requires the same procedure just on a bigger scale.
This is a serious problem, we cant use a solid poison because it ill soak into the ground contaminating the trees plus they are no longer organic when you do that, and we cant use those little smoke bombs or whatever because the amount it would take to make a dent would turn the orchard into a facsimile of "no mans land" of WW1
Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated.
Also what attracts you guys to varmint hunting? I dont enjoy shooting something unless I am going to eat it, But the "field craft" of spotting, making range cards and the marksmanship of hitting such a small target at 300-500yds is pretty satisfying.
Other than that I dont find anything appealing about killing 60 or so animals and all the cleanup to just throw them away, even if they are pests. And I absolutely do not mean that as a criticism of any of the things you guys do. Its just not my cup of tea.
