Groundhogs in yard

These last two groundhogs are pretty smart. They hardly come out into my yard at all anymore. Didn't see them at all yesterday, not even once. Today I saw one baby for just a minute, it scampered off and haven't seen one since. If I can get a shot at them I know I can get them, but they just never seem to show up anymore.

The good news is, if they're too scared to come into our yard, then they can't eat stuff out of our garden either. As long as they don't get into our garden I don't really care. But if they pop up in my yard again and I can get a shot I'm taking it. Not taking any chances.
 
cdahl383 said:
If I can get a shot at them I know I can get them, but they just never seem to show up anymore.
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Do groundhogs "whistle" like rockchucks (AKA "whistle-pigs")? Around here, we can often get the rockchucks to pop their heads up out of their holes and look around by emitting a short, high-pitched whistle. As a matter of fact, it works for ground squirrels too. :thumbup:
 
I bought a old farm about 6 years ago. The land hadn’t been worked in over 40 years and it was overrun with critters, including ground hogs. We have horses, so the groundhogs are a big problem. Here’s what I learned:
- a single male groundhog will typically have a “harem” of females covering a fairly big area. In our case we saw lots of activity over a 10+ acre area.
- I would kill a female, but it seemed she was replaced almost immediately. To solve the problem, you need to eliminate the male. After that was accomplished, the problem seemed to go away for about 2 years. I probably killed 6 or 7 females and immature animals for every male.
- I’ve used 223, 17 HMR and 22LR. My preference is the 17. There’s no doubt when you hit it since recoil isn’t consequential. I use Varmint bullets and death is quick. All of my shots have been between 50 and 120 yards and that seems to be a sweet spot for my particular rifle.
- they’re back this year, and easily spooked. 5 years ago they pretty much ignored us. They seem to be using many of the same holes as years past.

Every once in a while I’ll be out and run into one that’ll ignore me and I can get within 15’ or so. I’m going to get a holster for my 22 pistol and begin carrying it
 
Buddy bought an 80 acre farm. 2 fields (about 50 acres tillable). The back was weeds.
He mowed it and planted corn in front field.
Back field I killed 30 chucks off it first year.
Next yr it was beans and I killed maybe 20 total on farm.
After that, less than a dozen a yr.
Once knocked down the hawks and coyotes helped to keep them in check.

In the old days farmers rotated crops, so whatever survived during a bean year, was left alone during the corn year to repop.

Get a field that's beans 2 yrs in a row with consistent hunting pressure and you can shoot it down and may take a while to be worth hunting again, if ever.

Think populations somewhat cyclic though, as this yr have seen more chucks in general, than ever. Weird but used to see them kinda evenly dispersed. Now seems like they're higher density, but localized.

Dunno how farming practices and other have influenced it.
Place Im hunting, has 6 bean fields plus corn and weed fields, public land.
All but two look untouched. And one is absolutely hammered.

Coyote hotspot.

And get this, the fields near the ditches/creek...........look perfect.

Maybe somebody else shot those down ?

Two other fields I expected to be decent for a few had no damage.
Used to hunt right next door to them way back.
 
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CCI Velocitors work pretty well, better than other ammo I tried in .22LR anyway. My buddy and I were recruited to eradicate a very bad rock chuck infestation at his aunt's ranch a few years ago but she did not want us using anything more than .22s due to noise/animals/neighbors . Mini-mag HPs were okay but the Velocitors are heavier and just seemed to hit harder. Non-expanding anything almost always resulted in them escaping wounded back underground, aside from a head shot.

We had a real heyday for a couple of weeks, giving them a day or two between our shoots to settle things back down.
 
Saw one hopping around on side of road, beanfield on other side.
He was sure jonesin' for some of that !

Dunno if he made it across, there was a fair bit of traffic.
 
cdahl383 said:
If I can get a shot at them I know I can get them, but they just never seem to show up anymore.

The good news is, if they're too scared to come into our yard, then they can't eat stuff out of our garden either.
Click to expand...

Once you start killing things, when you see them, you will see less of them well before they become extinct. Same as any other animal. Once you are known as a predator to them, you will be avoided.

The bad news for shooting them is that they will come around only when you are not in sight or at distances where you become less lethal to them.

Kind of the point of a scarecrow, showing the dumb ones that a human is still there protecting their food, from the critter…
 
While cutting the grass I saw the den where the critters who have been eating all of my Cucumbers have been living.
A section of deck I made a few years ago had dirt piled up, and not the way I had left it.
My wife asked me what could control them, I said lead!
 
Morning or evening seems to best chuck killin times.

However...

I shot one at noon on a hundred degree day ( by den in shade ) and blasted one off a deadfall in the wide open.....in soaking rain.

Oddly, the place Ive been recently hunting seems most active around 4 to 6pm. Pretty warm yet at that time slot.

BTW have seen some feed in yrs past when almost too dark to see.
 
Have some fun and shoot em down.
If you are determined to wipe them out, when the shooting stops, break out the traps.
 
Since I posted last, I have yet to see one in our yard. It's like they completely vacated the area. I know they're still around somewhere, but they don't seem to be coming in our yard anymore. We're home most of the time too and I work from home, so if they're out there we'll see them.

I'll keep my eyes open for them, but for now they seem to have found a better spot to look for food where bullets aren't flying by their heads I guess haha!
 
Surrounded by dog owners, the entire neighborhood's worth of gophers took up residence in my yard. I wouldn't mind if they stayed in the back 40 but when they are tearing up the foundation of the garage, taking up residence inside the garage, chewing on everything from building materials to cables - real PITA. My only recourse is George, the orange tabby neighbor cat, who hunts down 4-6 per day. George is my guy...

Addition: Actually looked into what the requirements were to export gophers to Japan for sale as pets. USDA requires a quarantine period but otherwise no real limitations. They sell as pets for $3k/ea!
 
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DesertFox said:
Surrounded by dog owners, the entire neighborhood's worth of gophers took up residence in my yard. I wouldn't mind if they stayed in the back 40 but when they are tearing up the foundation of the garage, taking up residence inside the garage, chewing on everything from building materials to cables - real PITA. My only recourse is George, the orange tabby neighbor cat, who hunts down 4-6 per day. George is my guy...
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They're pretty easy to trap. As a kid, I had a half-dozen "box" gopher traps, and I'd set them out in the mornings before school, and again in the evenings. Because the county "ditch" department (the Irrigation District) paid a quarter per gopher tail, I made between 2 and 3 bucks a day. Besides, the farmers that owned the fields (mostly alfalfa fields) I was trapping gophers in appreciated what I was doing, and I got to hunt pheasants in those same fields in the fall. :thumbup:
At any rate, get yourself some "box" gopher traps. Shoot me a PM if you need help as to how to set them to catch the most gophers - I'm an "expert." :D
Seriously, I still have a couple of "box" gopher traps, and I make short work of any gophers that get too close to our garden or threaten any of our young trees.
 
.308 Norma said:
That's been my experience with rockchucks and .22LRs - even with the so called "high velocity" .22LR ammo. In truth though, I've never tried any of the .22LR "hyper velocity" ammo (like "Stingers and "Yellow Jackets") on rockchucks.
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Yep - them rockchucks are much tougher than most realize. I've had several run off after being shot more than once with a 22LR. My wife, after seeing what those "cute little guys" were doing to her very expensive concrete block retaining wall, said this: "KILL EM! GET A BIGGER GUN!".

A Mini-14 is my go-to rockchuck gun.

On a similar note, I do believe several of the commenters to this post are confusing ground squirrels or prairie dogs with rockchucks and woodchucks. That is like mistaking a racoon for a bear.
 
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Back in the day, a group of my friends were going up State NY for a Chuck hunt, the bet was for the first chuck, $5.00. Well my good friend saw one in the center of the circle in town. He shot it and were getting pulled over by the local PD they all threw out the pistols that were not allowed and when the officer checked the rifles only one had a round in the chamber!
PS. only one pistol was not recorved!
 
A 22 will do it, but definately use good hollow points. Ive killed many of them with Remminton golden bullets & a Marlin 880.
 
I was shooting the CCI Velociters. They seemed to work well.

I've been keeping an eye out in the yard since last week, still no sign of any groundhogs. I wonder if they moved or something? The creek by us dried up, so maybe they moved somewhere closer to a water source? Haven't seen them hanging out in the neighbor's yard either. Either way, they're not around anymore so that's good. Guess I can save some ammo now haha!
 
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