Almost had to shoot a skunk last night.

A freak'n skunk has decided to make it's burrow under the concrete pad of my front entryway. Wish there was a good way to get rid of it or chase it away with certainty. No good way to trap the dang thing because of the layout and shooting it in city limits =smell & police response

Already blasted my beagle twice and my border collie once (she is too smart for a second tangle) at contact ranges. Nailed the beagle in the mouth, his saliva smelled like skunk for weeks and weeks! First time, all I had on hand was a large bottle of ketchup (no tomato juice) -so I'm rubbing-down a pair of miserable dogs with ketchup at 4:00AM in the side yard...Was funny until the dumb beagle got hit again 2 weeks later. At least now I have lots of enzymatic cleaners and hydrogen peroxide on hand. Doesn't get rid of all the smell, but tones it down enough so I don't have the shoot the beagle...

Try some pepper spray?
Get a can of that bear repellent- sprays pretty far and is known to cause some pretty bad discomfort.

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/t...ct&cmCat=Related_IPL_225959&id=0047644228701a

if it can stop a bear, i imagine it's going to do a number on a skunk.

A lady I used to work with told a story of her skunk shooting encounter.

It was many years ago when she was married to an OTR truck driver who was gone a lot.

Well they lived just outside of town and he left a .357mag at the house just in case she needed protection.

What he didn't tell her is how he loaded it.

First 3 shots were .38 wadcutters ... last three were hot loaded .357mag HPs.


So as she tells it, this skunk gets in the yard and she's trapped in the house with a toddler, so she gets the roscoe out and starts shooting. First 3 shots miss, but the fourth one erupted like a bomb going off and she hit the skunk square in the stink bladder and it just blew apart raining skunk spray all over the front yard ... parked car ... kids swing.

She was horrified.

The pepper spray sounds like a horrible idea! the last thing that I want is a pissed off skunk!

You could always just pour the hole full of concrete....

The pepper spray sounds like a horrible idea! the last
thing that I want is a pissed off skunk!

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Damn, i was hoping you wouldn't realize that.

Gary Frost said:

I shoot any skunk I see. Some of you may not know the misery of a skunk that takes up residence under the house.

For some of you who may not know, skunks smell bad all the time.

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Same here and yes they do smell awful all the time. Plus, it seems like if you have one skunk, you have a dozen. Out on my farm, I kill 'em if I see 'em. I let the rattlesnakes take care of the rodent population. I've walked up on plenty of skunks in the high grass that I dang near stepped on before I saw 'em. Then it's back away slowly, reeeeeal slowly, making sure you're upwind then blast away. The stink will pass eventually.

Funny story, kinda: I woke up at the crack of dark to go duck hunting one morning. Bleary-eyed I stumbled to the back door, thinking I'd step outside to see just how cold it was and how heavily I'd need to dress for the hunt. I was in my boxers mind you and without my contacts-- just barely awake-- when I got to the door and opened it. Just as I began to step onto the deck, I saw our big old black yard cat, Patrick, and went to nudge him out of the way with my foot. Right about then that cat, or as it turned out, that polecat, spun around, lifted his tail and did that little hop they all seem to do while they take aim. Let me tell ya, it all happened in blurry slow-motion. I stumbled back and slammed the door just in time to watch him casually saunter across the yard. My heart was still racing, and I was thinking how bad it could have been if he'd have unloaded on me; it would have been bad enough to have been blasted point blank but I suspect my living room would have never been the same. I had every intention of grabbing my gun and sending him off to skunk heaven but thought better of it this time. After all, he let me slide so I figured I'd extend the same courtesy.

CWL

Throw some moth balls in the hole under your concrete slab, that will run them out without making them mad enuogh to spray. Its better if you do it at night when they're away, and then when they come back, their burrow smells like mothballs and the leave.

HA! When said skunk is hit it goes OW and sprays to hell and back. When I was a teenager my cousin blasted one and MAN it was awful in at least a 50 yard radius. Unbelievable smell. I just smile at skunks and say nice pole cat go along sir.

Like Ringtail, I go along with the mothball solution. I had a skunk move into my garage, and after throwing a couple of boxes of mothballs around, the skunk moved out. It would have been more fun shooting the thing, but my garage would've stunk for weeks.
Marty

When I was a kid, we had a skunk in our garage.

Dad, in his infinite wisdom, decided to chase it out with a water nozzle on the hose.

The skunk was by the utility room door of the house when Dad hit the skunk with the hose.

Anyone want to hazard a guess at how that worked out?


Dad isn't a genius, but he and his entire family DID stay in a Holiday Inn for a bit.

I love him to death, but I don't let him live that down. Not now, not ever.


-- John

Ringtail,

Thank you! That's the kind of advice I was looking for! Off to the hardware store for a crate of mothballs!

Dirty Dawg,

Exact same thing happened to me. Early AM in my robe. Got hit from 3 ft. Sprayed me and the side of the house.

Unfortunatly for me my well pump quit the night before, had no water in the house. I took a bottle of dish soap and went and sat in the stock tank and was able to get most of it off. It was either that or run as fast as I could to stay ahead of the stink.

We were in camp in Utah in the late 40s and Dad sent me out with the .22 with instructions to "get something for dinner." I came back with a 5' rattlesnake, a porcupine and a skunk. We ate them.

The skunk I found asleep in a stump and popped him behind the head. He never woke up.

Pops

Peppers spray and mothballs are ironic punishment for skunks!

I have a really hard time picturing anyone eating a skunk or porcupine. How do you field dress a skunk without it spraying? And a porcupine has all those quils.

Around here it gets cold enough that if you shoot a skunk in your trap you can just leave it for a day or two and it will feeze solid = no smell

Last night I vaporized a fox with 00 buckshot. But I have a pair of possums under my porch, they keep away snakes.



Marsh

It is not normal to see them this time of year, and whenever they are acting abnormally, one must suspect rabies.

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Don't know where you live, but skunks around here are year round critters. I used to trap when I was in school to earn money for Christmas, skunks would get in the traps more oft than coons..

Uncle taught me how to get em out of traps, never been sprayed.. but that's a different story..

if you have to shoot them, do a clean shot to the head, they pretty much won't spray. Shuts down the nervous system .. something about instant lead poisoning..

Headshots are a must to keep a skunk from spraying. I've had a couple of close encounters, and a quick trigger finger and a lucky first pull of the trigger headshot saved me from stinking.

Also, I've heard that they can only spray when their back legs are solidly planted on the ground. I've heard my grandfather talk about his father trapping. Apparently, my great-grandfather would approach the trap in some manner and pick the skunk up by the back legs and stab it. He was never sprayed once by a skunk.

A friend's neighbor took the garbage out of their garage one morning before going to work. He had left his car outside that night, so just walked back up the drive got in his car and hit the door opener/closer as he backed out. He did not realize he had locked a skunk in the garage with the door to the house also and a little yippy dog inside. When they got home that evening the scene inside was probably undescribable. I don't know how they got the skunk out, but they had the fire department involved somehow. The dog lived through it all.

They ended up hiring a firm that cleans houses after bodies are found in them to clean the house. All furniture, clothing, carpet had to be stripped out. What a mess!

My cousin saw a mother skunk and her kits trying to get into one of his big poultry battery houses. He took his Ithaca 20 ga single shot and got them, but not before they got him too. They made him strip in the barn yard, burned his cloths, and gave him a big can of tomato juice to wash himself off with, not that it helped much. He ate, slept, and lived in the hatchery for two weeks as they wouldn't let him back in the house.

Years ago, a skunks pelt was worth something. My grandfather used to trap them.

I see skunks all winter long around here in KY and they are the carriers of rabies around also.

I had a friend that had one for a pet years ago also. Vets around here would take the scent gland out, not anymore. They make good pets. His wouldn't use a litterbox. It wanted to go out side like a dog. It would follow him around everywhere he went. Liked to ride on the dash board of his truck. It liked everybody. Play for hours.

A couple months ago I shot a skunk.
Normally, I'm really tolerant of wildlife but this skunk tested my peaceful nature to the limit by spraying two or three times a night, every single night.
The decision to eliminate him was made.
Long story short, I shot him in the head with a .410. There was no smell at all.
At first...
A few minutes later the full force of the skunk odor became apparent. It was a real challenge to get rid of it and the smell remained for several weeks.

IMO, you're lucky you didn't shoot the skunk.

We had a skunk problem when I was young, so my little brother decided to take care of it. He shot the first one (with a pellet pistol) in a stack of wood. That was a bad smell, but it gets worse. There was one living under the house, so he went after it. His weapons were a dog that could not stand up in the crawl space under the house, a pellet pistol, and an ax handle with a pocket knife taped to it. This is where it gets bad… He got the skunk, but he got sprayed, the dog got sprayed, and the house got sprayed. The house was not inhabitable for weeks, and it continues to smell over 20 years later whenever it rains…

- Sig

NO BRAG just plain facts, ok ! I have been trapping fur bearers for 46 years. Have caught at least 150 skunks. If you shoot or trap one and want to stop the smell immediatly put said skunk in a bucket of water. Hopefully you have a lid that fits the bucket untill you can dispose of the skunk. I have guys bring skunks to my house the whole trapping season so I and my neighbors know all about the smell.Give the bucket of water a try you'll see that it does work.