The Gun Blogs

It wasn't just the six to eight raccoons that were showing up eating deer corn on the gamecams, it was the fact that some of them, while they weren't eating corn, were DOING it, to make MORE coons. I finally decided I was going cut the numbers. On camera, I could see that the coons and the deer didn't get along. It wasn't a problem for nearly the first two years of deercam/feeder operation but eight coons a night are suppressing the deer. For a year I had no crows, no squirrels, and few coons on the memory cards. I still have zero oppossums or skunks, though I have seen bobcats, fox, and coyote.

The cams are in a large creekbottom area that is a corridor between a beaver-flooded creek and the lakehouses. It's brushy and quiet, a natural game corridor.

Some of these raccoons are big enough to saddle and ride. I thought about using multiple leg-hold traps and shooting the prisoners in the head with my .22 Mk I Ruger, but being a sensitive renaissance type, so I bought a large hav-a-hart cage to catch them in, (Gander Mountain), and THEN shoot them in the head with my Ruger Mk I .22.

I set it at the closest cam. I baited it with dry catfood.

The coons are coming late, around midnight. This morning I walked out to reload the feeder and a young yearling coon was in the trap. She had dug up the duff around the hav-a-hart, so she had been in there for a few hours at least.

I put the barrel through the bars and let her bite it so the shot wouldn't damage the trap. Maybe that's what those long Ruger barrels are for. My girlfriend was with me so I warned her to turn her head.

Afterwards I cut the coon open so the Turkey Vultures would have an easier time and tossed her in the corner of a pasture near the drive. She will be a greasy patch and a piece of fur by tomorrow noon.

More data in the morning. I killed a young coon. Does this mean the older ones were trap-savvy? Will the group learn from the fate of the first? Will it take new tactics, new bait, switching trap locations, changing to leg-hold traps?

I'm going to achieve my goals in the Raccoon War. It will be interesting to watch. I set the trap away from the feeder by a few feet at first, but now its in camera range so I can watch the reaction of the others.

I figure I need to cull five to six of the eight or make them wary around deer corn.