Going after a grass grizzly

[critch]

#5138

Hopefully, in a few weeks I will get to hunt some on my swamp property as we like to call it. I’ve seen 2 maybe 3 groundhogs or “grass grizzlies” as one writer put it.

I’m going to use some old broadheads with those little starshaped rings behind it. I’m also using some old aluminum arrows, I’m sure to lose some arrows in that mess down there.

[James Harvey]

#37598

Everything I’ve read about them makes them sound like a fun hunt. The closest we’ve got are bunnies and they’re plenty of fun 😀

Good luck mate!

[Doc Nock]

#37821

Grass Grizzlies :lol:GOOD ONE!

We call em all sorts of names, but the goofiest around here is “whistle pigs”. When alarmed, they can make some of the craziest sounds!

Not bad eating either…if you take time to find the 6 scent glands, one under each armpit and one on each side of the spine between shoulder blades.

Duddies Gramdma was from Slovenia and would render the fat down for the Vit E in it from eating so much greenerie. Rub it on her knees.

Have fun! Tough li’l buggars!

[critch]

#37996

I’ve shot them with 22LR, 22 mag and 223s, they are hard to kill. They cause thousands of dollars of damage to the rice fields in our area every spring.

[Doc Nock]

#38103

rice fields in MO? I missed that part of the state searching out digs in the Ozarks…

Interesting!

Funny story. Hunted them whistle pigs hard as a kid… once, saw one over the lip of a bowl in a hay field… snuck up and popped him with my savage .22 lr HPs. Emptied a 5 shot clip…ran down over the lip and it charged me (or so my 14 yr old self envisioned). Truth was I ran over it’s den hole and didn’t know it and it w as trying to get back to the den… put 2 more 5 shot clips in it…afore it died. Weight 22# on the bathroom scale… at that one too… had to: Grandpa made me eat what I shot so I never shot crow…

Ate some in life though…just not what i killed! LOL:lol:

[Charles Ek]

#38126

TBM has had a couple of good articles on hunting groundhogs, the latest being the excellent “Summer Groundhogs” by Bob Steiner in the June/July ’14 issue.

I don’t have time right now to hunt for the other articles (barely have time to get ready for the upcoming turkey season!) – maybe our Webmom can help with that?

[critch]

#38209

I think the proof that I have become a good bow hunter would be when I take a coyote with a bow…I’ve had coyotes spot me at over 200 yards…pretty smart animals.

[paleoman]

#38250

Long ago my grandmother told me my great grandfather had to shoot them while in the Russian army or they would have starved. Never looked it up though if woodchucks are native over there?

[Robin Conrads]

#38320

eidsvolling wrote: TBM has had a couple of good articles on hunting groundhogs, the latest being the excellent “Summer Groundhogs” by Bob Steiner in the June/July ’14 issue.

I don’t have time right now to hunt for the other articles (barely have time to get ready for the upcoming turkey season!) – maybe our Webmom can help with that?

I see two others: Apr/May 04 Spot & Stalk Ground Grizzlies by Ron Rohrbaugh (available in print) and Dec/Jan 13 Making Prairie Grizzlies Taste Good by Randy King (available in both print and digital).

[critch]

#38325

paleoman wrote: Long ago my grandmother told me my great grandfather had to shoot them while in the Russian army or they would have starved. Never looked it up though if woodchucks are native over there?

Groundhogs and their cousins, marmots, are pretty much stretched across the northern hemisphere. My wife’s great grandmother was from Ukraine and she would cook groundhog or about anything else you brought in.

They have caused considerable damage to some of my buildings; along with coyotes I consider them vermin.

[Stephen Graf]

#39090

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with them. They are merciless on the garden and make a real nuisance of themselves rooting under buildings. A few years back, I killed 25 in one summer between shooting and trapping.

But now that the coyote’s have moved in, I don’t see them so much anymore. Now I kind of miss the little buggers.

It’s been 3 years since I’ve shot one…

[Ralph]

#39155

“..ran down over the lip and it charged me (or so my 14 yr old self envisioned).”

😀 A badger, charged 30 yr. old tail for real, 30 yr. old treed in back of truck out of arrows. Think badger starved to death before expiring. Groundhogs not nearly as ferocious?

I used to get after prairie dogs with my bow big time. I had a really good place but now it’s covered in a housing development that went broke. Ruined more than my dog hunting.

[Etter1]

#40737

I used to stalk them as a kid in PA. They are no pushovers!!! And theyre tough as bears! Even with a broadhead, most of the ones I shot would still make it back to their holes.

[BYoung]

#43435

Anyone else ever take one out of a tree? I pinned one to the back of an old abandoned coon hole when he lingered a bit too long. Had to pull off quite the gymnastic feat gettin my arrow back though!

[critch]

#51375

If you look at a map of Butler County Missouri you will see that we are where the Ozarks meet the delta. We are about half and half hills and delta. The topsoil in the delta is over 200 feet deep. Rice accounts for 30-50 thousand acres depending on the prices expected in the coming year. Otherwise it’s mostly soybeans, milo, and corn.

Groundhogs love to tear up the dikes the farmers build for the rice fields. They eat the grubs and other critters in there turned up by the big plows.

I did get to hunt a little today but all I saw was an otter playing in the ditch. It was fun watching him going in and out of the ditch and sliding down the bank.

[Author]

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