No more groundhogs ?

[Bowjob]

i see them at keele and steeles all the time at my college hahahha

[Snowwalker]

i see them at keele and steeles all the time at my college hahahha

I wonder which will get posted first. The glory shots of your kills or your mug shot on the evening news..

[Bowjob]

I wonder which will get posted first. The glory shots of your kills or your mug shot on the evening news..

hahahahhahaha

[old243]

There are about 100 acres of hay fields at my place. There are NO ground hogs, no dens in the fields. Used to be lots of them. Up until this year there was one ,had a den almost under our barn. Think the den is being used by a skunk this year. There was also no Jack sign last winter. Think the coyotes , have cleaned every thing out, Sad. old243

[punkrockerpj]

i see them here and there in wellington and mapleton county. sad to hear they are disappearing but im sure our horse guys dont mind that all that much :P

[Couliewalker]

We are in dire need of predator and varmint control.
Their was a time when we distinguished between critters and varmints.

[trimmer21]

I just ordered a new FoxPro electronic coyote caller from Cabelas. They were "on sale" and shipping is free. I'm making a concerted effort to rid my friend's farm of the pests this summer. They're causing him a lot of grief...more than usual. They gotta go.

[Gun Nut]

I suspect the chuck numbers are not as bad as imagined. In the days when they use to haunt the hay fields their biggest challenge was the farm boy and the low powdered .22 or possibly a shotgun. When the high power artillery came rolling out, and an increase in the number of hunters, the open hay fields grew less attractive for burrows and they migrate to areas along field edges. The more progressive ones may have even went urban, where shooting is prohibited. It may have been some losses to predations but in the end it was most likely hunting pressure not changes in agriculture that reduced their presence in open fields. The spread of rural suburbia probably also plays into the picture as well contributing to the loss of habitat with house basements and septic beds displacing the prime burrowing areas, in road side fields.

You don’t stop hunting because you grow old. You grow old because you stop hunting.
- Gun Nut

[Fox]

I suspect the chuck numbers are not as bad as imagined. In the days when they use to haunt the hay fields their biggest challenge was the farm boy and the low powdered .22 or possibly a shotgun. When the high power artillery came rolling out, and an increase in the number of hunters, the open hay fields grew less attractive for burrows and they migrate to areas along field edges. The more progressive ones may have even went urban, where shooting is prohibited. It may have been some losses to predations but in the end it was most likely hunting pressure not changes in agriculture that reduced their presence in open fields. The spread of rural suburbia probably also plays into the picture as well contributing to the loss of habitat with house basements and septic beds displacing the prime burrowing areas, in road side fields.

You don’t stop hunting because you grow old. You grow old because you stop hunting.
- Gun Nut

The lack of fence rows has a huge impact on them.

I know what you are talking about with high powered rifles but you have to go back a long way before people were not using high velocity 22 rifles for groundhogs, back 70 years or so. When I started hunting in 99 there were lots of groundhogs, well after the use of centerfire rifles for whistle pigs started. I used a 22LR, then 222 Rem, 6.5x55mm, shotgun, always found some on the same fields week after week.

[trimmer21]

I suspect the chuck numbers are not as bad as imagined. In the days when they use to haunt the hay fields their biggest challenge was the farm boy and the low powdered .22 or possibly a shotgun. When the high power artillery came rolling out, and an increase in the number of hunters, the open hay fields grew less attractive for burrows and they migrate to areas along field edges. The more progressive ones may have even went urban, where shooting is prohibited. It may have been some losses to predations but in the end it was most likely hunting pressure not changes in agriculture that reduced their presence in open fields. The spread of rural suburbia probably also plays into the picture as well contributing to the loss of habitat with house basements and septic beds displacing the prime burrowing areas, in road side fields.

You don’t stop hunting because you grow old. You grow old because you stop hunting.
- Gun Nut

I really disagree with your correlation with high speed rifles and over hunting because more hunters were in the field. That doesn't make sense to me because not a lot of people use high speed and there's even a lot less hunters,today. Urban sprawl affecting habitat in the south is a real issue,without doubt,especially,east and north of the "GTA",but,that hasn't stopped Coyote population explosions and the fact Black Bears are being sighted more and more often around those areas. Both love to feed on rodents and are masters at ambushing GHogs outside their dens and tunnels.