Anyone still hunt woodchucks?????????

[Wyo. Coyote Hunter]

Drags, sounds like you do some serious chuck shooting..what counties do you operate in???

[drags]

I hunted in many counties in pa. from Washington south to Potter north and Clearfield east and everything in between.
Drags

[upnut]

Not exactly hunting, but a target of opportunity behind the house. At 115 yards with my Weatherby 22-250....not even fair!
 

 
woodchuck #2 for the year...Scott B.

[upnut]

#3 Scouting some abandoned buildings, this one waited out in the open too long. 80 yards, .22 mag H&R shooting 40 grain Winchester HP..DRT  Sorry about the fuzzy pic, taken with my phone just before dark...

 
Scott B.
 

[Swift One]

There is something addicting about shooting a GHog with a 22 mag........

[ironglow]

  I don't know if anyone else has the same idea I do, which I call "efficency hunting"....but here goes..   I don't like to over gun..that is, I only use as much gun as necessary for any chucking situation.  if a CB .22 will do it, that's what I'll use..so I go up through my calibers to .22 LR, .22 Mag, .17 HMR, Hornet, .223 to .243.
   I haven't used the .243 yet, having found the others to be fully adequate...but it's there if I need it.  By and large, most chucks fall to my rimfires.

[woodchukhntr]

Back in my early days of woodchucking, when they were plentiful, my friends and I went out with a variety of guns including .22 LR's, 9mm, .38, .357, .44 mag, .222 magnum, .22-250, .30 carbine, and a  .243 Gibbs.  The range would determine what gun we'd use.  When we were walking fields several guns were chosen, the largest depending on the maximum anticipated range we expected.  I mostly hunt the now scarce 'chucks primarily with Contender carbines in .17 HRM and .204 Ruger, although I frequently also take the .17 out along with a .222 or .223, occasionally a .243.  My handgun shooting isn't what it used to be, so only a .22 might come along.
I had many good times and have many good memories from the early days.

[omegahunter]

I have shot far more groundhogs with rimfires than I have centerfire.  But then again, most of my shooting has been near enough to homes that I don't want to use the centerfires either.  It sure is fun to turn loose a .223 or .243 on a groundhog though!!! 

[ironglow]

   I find myself having to reach out a bit more often now, due to scarcity compared to years ago.  I blame the shortage on coyotes...what say you ?

[woodchukhntr]

When I first started out in the 60's, there were a lot of fields on dirt roads that offered long ranges with no nearby houses.  Slowly the roads became populated with more and more houses, sometimes right in the fields that we used to hunt.  That and the scarcity of woodchucks due to coyotes, as Ironglow stated, and land use changes has actually limited the ranges that I shoot at.  Now I am most likely to use the .17 HRM since I don't want to disturb the residents any more than necessary.  If they feel threatened they will complain to the owners of the fields that I hunt and that means fewer places to hunt.

[spikehorn]

Due to the raising prices of corn they just plowed under my 3 favorite fields to hunt

[upnut]

Close range scouting...sneak and peek....a nice light .410 loaded up with buckshot,deadly combo. Scouting fencerows and under 100 yards a .22 mag is hard to beat. The .17 hmr with a bull barrel works well for sitting and waiting them out, and the .22-250....well, they can run but they cannot hide...  
 
Scott B.

[woodchukhntr]

Close range scouting...sneak and peek....a nice light .410 loaded up with buckshot,deadly combo. Scouting fencerows and under 100 yards a .22 mag is hard to beat. The .17 hmr with a bull barrel works well for sitting and waiting them out, and the .22-250....well, they can run but they cannot hide...  
 
Scott B.

I like the .410 shotgun idea, I'll have to try that with my Stevens .22/.410.

[Couger]

With all the noise about coyote rifles, and the interest in prairie dog shooting,
anyone still like to shoot woodchucks... ?? Until I was 25 this was my favorite game...While today, coyotes probably get the number 1 spot, I still miss the summer fields and woodchuck shooting...Did a bit 2 years ago, this summer doesn't look promising either...Anyone still shoot these critters...?? What rifles have you tried,  what calibers do you use  now,and what is your average range... ?? What is your longest shot on a chuck and what was the caliber?

Hmm   How much wood could a woodchuck chuck ..... Oops!  Wrong part of the country!!
 
With a name like "Wyoming Coyote Hunter,"  how come you you haven't located any ROCK-chucks in that state in your moniker?   
 
I'm not familiar with eastern woodchuck shooting, but there are plenty of greater or lessor hoary marmots (or whatever they are) that destroy or damage many areas arounf irrigation, farms, ranches, and land inhabited by livestock that many western landowners/ranchers/farmers love for hunters to stalk and snipe the damm things!
 
As the fellow who likes the .30-338 for LR shooting, he definitely sounds like a seriousfan of the sport.  Anyone who lives near that gent ought to approach him enough to see if he'd simply be happy to share 'knowledge' he was willling to, and maybe enough to get started?
 
One range I once visited in Utah I met a school principle who was into shooting rock chucks!
 
He had a 30# .300 Winchester with about a 28" bbl, and let me shoot it 7 or 8 times at basket ball-sized rocks 800 yds away.  I actually hit them several times!
 
A week or so before he had missed a couple rockchucks that were on another ridge that far away.  My point being, rockchucks are in MANY [places in the West, besides there being those woodie cousins in the East.     

[upnut]

#4 for the year, and first kill for the new H&R Tamer 20 gauge! Can't claim this one myself, my oldest son Greg was scouting with the newest addition and was able to nail this one at close range with #3 buckshot. I picked the Tamer up at Tony's Gun Shop just south of Sault Ste. Marie when we were up there moving Greg to his next apartment for college. We swapped out the original forearm for a Choate storearm...I think he likes it!
 

 
Scott B.

[ironglow]

Due to the raising prices of corn they just plowed under my 3 favorite fields to hunt

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
 
  My area was once all dairy farms...now concentrated into a few very large ones..leaving the fields to go two ways...either back to the wild or into cash crop farming.  My own cousin is one of the culprits... he has about 6,000 acres around my neighborhood into cash crops..corn, soybeans etc.  Drat him!  ..not really, if he weren't tilling that land it would be resorting to brushland now.  Besides, coon, deer, bear  etc like corn & soybeans 7 other cash crops...and most of those fields are adjacent to woods.

[Wyo. Coyote Hunter]

  Cougar, acutally, I have shot dozens of rockchucks..BUT in my area, they seem to do little damage to fields or what is grown in them...they hang out here mostly in the mts. and damage little..the last serious rockchuck shooting I did was at some that were digging holes in irrigation ditchs...real pests and doing some serious damage...also about the same time...friends bought and old ranch with dozens of piles of wood and other junk...they told me to clean out the chucks, because they were going to burn the piles and destroy their homes...so I did, and honestly I loved it...I still shoot a few in the mts...but if they are not doing some serious damage, I can't shoot very many... I must be getting old As for chucks doing damage to crops or property, I love shooting them...just hard to find in this local.....

[upnut]

The soybeans are up and the woodchucks can't resist the tender sprouts. Nailed these two within ten minutes of each other, about fifty yards with the .22-250 shooting white box Winchester 45 gr. jhp...DRT. Number 5 and 6:

Spotted them a couple days ago, and was able to use a good approach to get close.
Scott B.