Weasel Makes A Kill

[Semisane]

Things are a little slow on the forum, so I thought I would tell you guys about something neat that happened at the hunting lease last Fall.

My brother-in-law and I were sitting on the deck of my hooch at our hunting lease just North of Greensburg Louisiana sipping some Scotch and looking at the targets we had just shot with our guns (his MK-85 and my Omega X7) when movement caught our eyes by the cook shack which is about ten feed from my deck.



It was a weasel. I didn't even know we had those in Louisiana and this is the only one I've ever seen.

That little sucker ran up the outside wall of the cook shack and went through the eves into the attic space. We were laughing about our surprise over that when a big old rat came flying out of the cook shack attic, hit the ground running, and took off for the woods behind my hooch.

Then the weasel came out of the eves, ran down the wall, and began sniffing around the ground where the rat had landed. It was about half the rat's size and even though it was only a few feet away it paid no attention to us.

Well, that little sucker began scent trailing the rat right into the woods - just like a beagle on a bunny. So naturally we quietly followed.

As we stood on the plastic pallet that forms the doorstep for my gravity shower at the side the hooch, we spotted the rat climbing up into the very top of a fifteen foot tall Yaupon bush. Moments later the weasel climbed up behind it and bit it on the rump.

The rat jumped to the ground and ran into some brush. The weasel climbed down, found where the rat had landed and began trailing it again. The same scene was repeated two more times, with the rat climbing into a tree, the weasel finding and biting it, rat jumping, weasel trailing.

After the third time the rat ran and hid right under the pallet that we were standing on as we watched the hunt. That weasel once again found where the rat had hit the ground, trailed it to the pallet, and killed it right there under our feet as we watched through the holes in the pallet. There was a lot of squealing and thumping going on (weasel and rat, not us ).

It may have been the most exciting hunt I've ever seen.

(By the way, this is not off topic. I clearly stated we were looking a targets from muzzle loaders when the drama began. )

Have any of you guys had a neat experience like that?

[cayugad]

You're a lucky person to have a weasel guarding the property. You will find that you have no mice, rats, pine squirrels, etc.. They will kill them all. Lets hope he has a home and family close by. The bigger the family of weasel the more mice they kill.

I have one that lives all winter in my garage. One reason I never have mice in the garage. There actually are many sub species of weasel. There are the Ermine, or short tail weasel also called a Stoat, the long tail weasel, and the least weasel, among the ones that visit my neck of the woods. These little devils are fearless and will take on about anything they cross paths with.

I have watched them sneaking up on a chickadee in the winter. They tunnel under the snow, then pop up to get their bearings and down they go, pretty soon they will come up again. Or they (they can really move when they want to) will hide and then sprint out and grab their prey and then they roll with them, but they hang on. They really are fun to watch. A truly fascinating little killer.

We also have their cousins around where I live... mink, the pine martin, the fisher, the badger, and some people claim wolverine, but I kind of doubt that. You want to confront nasty... get in the way of a badger or a fisher. They will come after a person without hesitation if you are in their way. We were bird hunting one afternoon, came over a hill right on top of a badger den. Old Momma badger came out and was determined to whoop someone's you know what. Its illegal to shoot them, so we had to run for it. Thank goodness she was only putting a bluff on.

Nice looking camp you have there.

[flounder33]

Originally Posted by cayugad

You're a lucky person to have a weasel guarding the property. You will find that you have no mice, rats, pine squirrels, etc.. They will kill them all. Lets hope he has a home and family close by. The bigger the family of weasel the more mice they kill.

I have one that lives all winter in my garage. One reason I never have mice in the garage. There actually are many sub species of weasel. There are the Ermine, or short tail weasel also called a Stoat, the long tail weasel, and the least weasel, among the ones that visit my neck of the woods. These little devils are fearless and will take on about anything they cross paths with.

You don't spose this could have been the "bore cleaning weasel" do ya?

[donjose]

That is cool I enjoy watching predators go after there prey

Jason