I'm convinced groundhogs are actually pretty smart animals. I've probably killed hundreds of them over the years, and during the off season it's honestly one of my favorite things to do. I have seen them do some pretty clever things, and they adapt VERY quickly and pattern danger very well. To give you an idea of how smart they are I'll sharea quick story from this weekend.
My one foodplot is roughly 320-350 yards from the front door of my cabin. It's a straight shot from the camp to the plot, with good line of sight. Saturday I mowed the entire plot, and sure enough a couple hours after I was done mowing there was a hog in the plot. I opened the door on the cabin, kicked out the legs on my bipod, and rested the back of my .223 on a cooler for a perfect rest. Now I'm not 100% on where I had the gun sighted in (dead on at 100, or maybe 2" high?) so I whistled at the groundhog with my fingers to make him standup (I usually do this to get a taller profile to shoot at for elevation mistakes). Well I whistled, he stood, and just as the trigger broke the little $Q@#$! ducked back down to continue eating, my shot went just about 4" above his back where his throat would have been had he still been standing. [:-] Of course, he runs to his hole and isn't to be seen till that evening.
Round 2.......he's in the plot, I open the cabin door, get setup with a solid rest, crank it up to 14 power, and whistle to make him stand up. The second he heard my whistle............he takes off for the hole. He obviously now associates the whistle with danger. My dad was there watching me and I decided to give the hog 55 grains of hail mary as he ran across the plot and came up about 4" short and sprayed him with dirt just before he made it back into his hole..........[:'(]
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I'll get him next time I'm down there. Now it's personal. [8D]
ORIGINAL: Greg / MO
Turkey vultures often gorge themselves so full that they cannot lift their bodies off the ground to escape an approaching predator. They often vomit in the face of the attacker; this serves two purposes: One, it deters the attacker, obviously -- but it also lightens their lift-off load and allows them to get in the air.
I've actually been vomited on by a vulture when I was a teenager. I'm not going to share that story on here, but one day hopefully we can meet up and I'll share that one in person. I had it coming to me though, I'll say that much......lol.
