Goundhog help Needed-best shot placement

[SMH77]

Thanks for the continued advice guys. I have an update from today: I was able to get a shot on him and nailed him in the head (a little below the line connecting the eye and ear, mid point between them). He was half in his hole when I took the 45 yard shot on him. I heard the thud, but wasn't sure if I hit him-then (while still watching through my scope) I saw his big body flop upside down as he was expiring. Excited, I ran down to inspect-only to be met with an empty hole entrance with blood everywhere on the dirt and rocks: he made it back into his hole-ugh! Good news: I'm certain he's toast now. Bad news (for me): no mount (but and easy burial).

BTW: he came out to graze right in front of my bedroom window while I was on a conference call with my boss this morning. Then, he proceeded to 'climb the oak tree' to sun himself! I've never seen that before-it was crazy! He did it more than once as I was going to grab my gun and head out after him. I then found him sunning himself on the retaining wall-but I spooked him. After getting into position, his curiosity had him come out to see if things were clear...

Here's the location I took the shot from (45 yards, per the laser range finder).

 

[fuznut]

Bummer, sorry to hear i dont like side of head because a large flat bone runs from back of eye socket to the back of skull and the lower jaw comes up and shields some of the area. If you would have been much closer things might have gone better for you. And yeah half in the hole did not help either. Crazy as it sounds he might not be dead give it 3 or 4 days then smell close to the hole if hes in there dead you will know it.

 

[SMH77]

Thanks for the advice Fuznut-much appreciated. I'm high 90's% certain he's dead. However, prior to shooting him, I noted it didn't appear to be the original GH I was after since the original looked much more 'grey' and this one was more reddish-brown. Plus, this one seemed more like a juvenile: he was ready to walk up onto my deck, didn't fully 'spook' when I tapped the glass to get him to stop going up my steps, but looked at me and slowly meandered off. Then he ended up climbing up and down my oak tree off my deck (about 20'+ off the ground!) several times like a squirrel. That wasn't the behavior of the one I had been seeing at all...

So at lunch today, I went to the kitchen to make a sandwich, and walked back into my bedroom-only to be met with 'ol greybeard standing on his haunches, on the top tier of my retaining wall, looking right at me! He spooked, but later resurfaced while I was down by the window with my wife-both staring at him from about 10' away through the glass. We both looked carefully at both of this one's cheeks: no signs of a hit, blood or damage-this one is certainly a different one than the one I shot the other day! Plus, he stood up and showed me his belly: it was a youthful reddish-brown while his muzzle and topcoat were all the 'seasoned grey' that I recall seeing in the past. So I apparently haven't missed my opportunity to mount this trophy-but he's a Wiley old critter so he's going to be tough to take out...

Stay tuned for more...



Sean

 

[cn722]

I’ve got a family under my shed that are wreaking havoc. My wife is an animal lover and I think she has a GPS attached to my 1377 somewhere because she always knows when I’m thinking about it. 

 

[Matt247365]

::sniff, sniff::

Is that gun powder I smell?

Sean, you need to put that rimfire back in the safe and break out some airguns



Matt

 

[SMH77]

::sniff, sniff::

Is that gun powder I smell?

Sean, you need to put that rimfire back in the safe and break out some airguns



Matt

Yeah, guilty as charged. I had my RAW all set up, but then switched my scope over to get my new CZ sighted in and need to move the scope back over. I was giving it some time to see what I thought of the CZ before spending more money on a second scope. It's time for me to start looking for a scope for the CZ and get my RAW set back up again.

I gotta get my tank filled again too, so that's also not helping things either. But I'll get my RAW set back up. I'm thinking I'll set it up as a .25 cal again rather than the .30 cal.



Sean