Varmint Hunting Page

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I first posted this in August of '98 and have been adding to it from time to time. I have noticed some format problems when viewing this site with different browsers. It is best viewed with Netscape Navigator, and if you're using a Mac, it probably won't look very good.

I'm an avid varmint hunter, in fact I enjoy most types of hunting, along with target shooting, handloading, predator calling, and outdoor photography. The animals on the left and right are the varmints that I most often pursue. On the left is the eastern woodchuck or groundhog, and on the right is the coyote.

It all started with Groundhogs

My interest in varmint hunting was born of necessity when I was a youngster and my family moved to a cattle farm that the previous owner had badly neglected. Fallen down fence rows were grown up with saplings and weeds, the orchard was littered with storm damaged apple trees, and the barns and sheds were in poor repair. Rich, deep topsoil combined with abundant clover and alfalfa provided ample forage, and with the many brush piles, blow downs, and grown up fence rows for cover, this neglected farm was excellent habitat for the eastern woodchuck.

The groundhog population was thriving when we moved to the farm. They had dug their dens under almost every brush pile, tree stump, and pile of lumber. Their holes were causing leaks in pond dams, undermining the foundations of outbuildings, and causing soil erosion on terraces in the hayfields. They destroyed our vegetable garden, ate corn and soybean plants right down to the ground, and climbed into the apple trees to eat the fruit. Something had to be done to stop the damage they were causing. There is much work to do on a farm, and my father was far too busy to sit and wait on wary groundhogs to emerge from their dens, providing an opportunity to shoot them. We tried filling in their holes only to find them dug out the next day. We tried to catch them in leghold and conibear type traps which they either pulled out of or tripped by shoving dirt on top. We tried smoke bombs, poison, and water hoses, all with very little success. The only effective way to put a stop to the damage that they were doing was to catch them foraging away from their dens and shoot them from a distance with a rifle. After chores were done and on weekends, my task was to work on thinning the groundhogs, which I did with youthful enthusiasm. I spent many a late afternoon in my boyhood years stealthily stalking down a fence row or peering expectantly from behind some brush with a .22 rifle in hopes of a shot at one of these infamous dirt diggers. By these methods I was able to reduce their numbers, but I soon grew dissatisfied with the lack of effectiveness of the .22 long rifle at distances over 75 yards. The desire for a more effective groundhog control tool launched me into the world of high powered rifles, and I soon found out that I could produce higher quality ammunition at less cost than factory ammunition by handloading it myself. Thus began my quest for more accurate rifles, and my fascination with hitting small targets at long ranges.

My first centerfire rifle was a Springfield 1903-A3 that had been "sporterized" by my uncle. It had a standard sporter stock with a recoil pad added, and an all steel Weaver K4 scope on it. Not the best varmint rifle, but it was all I had. It was a big step up from .22 rimfire to 30-06. I was young and pliable then, and didn't think that much about the recoil at first, but I soon realized that heavy recoil had an antagonistic relationship with accuracy. Since any 30 caliber bullet that you hit a groundhog with is going to have the desired result of a very quick death for the critter, I loaded the lightest 30 caliber bullets that I could find in an effort to reduce recoil and improve my ability to hit 'chucks out to 200 yards or so. In addition to the objectionable degree of recoil and loud report, the steel scope on this rifle had a very sharp edge on the eyepiece, which initiated me with "scope eye" on several occasions while shooting prone. After a couple of seasons of my mother complaining about me rattling the windows in the house by shooting this "cannon" in the back yard and a few deep cuts over my shooting eye, I decided that there had to be a better way.

A Varminter's Rifle

The .22 rimfire had too little power and the 30-06 was way too much rifle for varminting. I had read about benchrest shooters who could put several bullets in a very small group at long range, and my dream was to somehow put this kind of accuracy to work on my groundhog problem. Eventually I saved enough money to get a used bolt action rifle that I had found in a local gun shop. It was a Remington 700 chambered in 22-250 and had a fixed power 10X scope on it. When I bought the rifle, I also bought some dies, bullets, and a couple of boxes of factory ammunition to zero the rifle in when I got it back home. It didn’t take long for me to find out that the 22-250 is a varmint hunter’s dream come true. On my first time out with the 22-250, I shot from homemade sandbags placed on the ground in a cow pasture and zeroed it to hit one inch high at 100 yards. Three or four shots went in a nice little round cluster that you could cover with a nickle. About the time that I got the scope adjustments just where I wanted them and screwed the caps back on, I noticed a single crow perched in a tree at the edge of a large field beyond my target. With a solid rest on the sandbags, I shifted the crosshairs over to the crow and centered them at the base of the crow’s neck, figuring that there would be a few inches of bullet drop at this distance. I took a few deep, easy breaths and let the crosshairs come to rest, then carefully squeezed off the shot. I raised my head just in time to see the crow falling like a rock out of the tree. To say that I was excited and amazed is an understatement. I paced off the distance to the base of the tree at 256 strides, which at the time was farther than I had ever hit anything. At that point I knew that I had found my dream rifle and the groundhogs were in big trouble. Since then I have owned and experimented with many rifles chambered for various cartridges, but the 22-250 remains one of my all time favorites. It is accurate, very effective on a variety of varmints, and easy to get very satisfying results using either factory or handloaded ammunition.

The photo at right shows my preferred rifle for shooting groundhogs around farm buildings and at ranges of less than 200 yards. It's a stainless Thompson/Center Contender Carbine in 221 Fireball with a Leupold 3X9 Compact scope. This rifle is light, compact and very accurate, and it doesn't make nearly as much noise as some of the more powerful varmint rifles, making it ideal for eliminating animals that are damaging property in close proximity to settled areas or around farmsteads. While it does make noticeably more noise than the 22 Hornet, which is another popular cartridge for short range varminting, I've found that the Fireball provides a significant improvement in accuracy potential over the Hornet.

Calling Predators

Since predators have exceptionally keen senses, getting close to them can be a real challenge. One way to do this is to imitate a natural sound that is attractive to the predator. This can be the sound of a prey animal, a territorial sound from one of their own species or a competing species, or it can be a simple curiosity sound. Probably the most widely used call is that of a distressed rabbit. Since rabbits are a very important prey species for a variety of predators, one needs only to successfully imitate the sound of the species of rabbit or hare that is indigenous to that area. Snowshoe hare sounds work well in the north, whereas cottontail and jack rabbit imitations work well in the south and west respectively. The hope of an easy meal attracts the predator to the sound and gives the hunter or photographer a much better chance of getting close enough for a good shot.








Check out these links to other related sites:

Varmint Al's Hunting Page
Varminter.com
Varmint's Den
Varmint & Predator Hunting with Randy
Go Go Varmint Go Message Board
Varmint Hunters Association

Number of visitors since Aug. '98.