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Squirrels are at it again.
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GypsmJim
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I once lived in a house with a woods behind us, and miles of uninhabited land. The squirrels would destroy my wife's vegetable garden.
One Saturday I got up and saw about 8 of them out there. I went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet with the back window open, and popped them off one at a time with my Winchester Model 69 and .22 shorts. The muzzle was so far inside the house that I'm quite sure they didn't hear the report.
Then I went outside with a bag and casually picked them up.
Later that afternoon when I was cutting the grass, the old lady next door came over and asked if I heard "shooting" that morning.
"No, I din't hear a thing"
One Saturday I got up and saw about 8 of them out there. I went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet with the back window open, and popped them off one at a time with my Winchester Model 69 and .22 shorts. The muzzle was so far inside the house that I'm quite sure they didn't hear the report.
Then I went outside with a bag and casually picked them up.
Later that afternoon when I was cutting the grass, the old lady next door came over and asked if I heard "shooting" that morning.
"No, I din't hear a thing"
OP
This isn't my first battle with them. It's a yearly thing. They attack. I kill off the bold ones. The rest leave me alone until a new crop of bold squirrels develop.
I assassinated some for my brother, at his request. He lives in an older residential subdivision with .25 acre lots.
He has some Chinese break barrel .22 pellet rifle with not the best sights. With that rifle, which seems fairly powerful, you have to make a perfect shot for a clean one shot kill, which with that rifle is just by random chance. He had the lighter supposedly high velocity pellets. Probably shooting about 10 yards or a bit more or less. It seemed to usually take 2 to 3 shots but no squealing or anything.
He really did seem to have an endless supply of squirrels. I suspect someone in the area was feeding the little pests although there are a lot of various fruit trees in the neighborhood.
I was unimpressed with the performance of the .22 pellet rifle. I wouldn't mind having a quality, pellet rifle that is actually effective on the vermin.
mckenney99
Member
You need one of these. Preferably aimed at your neighbors yard. When it starts raining squirrels, they may have a change of heart.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFZIRL1gddI[/ame]
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFZIRL1gddI[/ame]
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Amazing - the squirrel was able to grab a branch and climb after he got tossed.
Have a Heart live traps or a quality copy. Then take the little varmints somewhere and shoot them.
We had cat problems when we first moved into our current house. All the neighbors were of the opinion that their cute little kitties could roam free and use everybody's flower beds for a cat box.
When I finally got tired of it, I bought a live trap and baited it with tuna fish. Trap cat and transport puss to the pound.
Neighbors would come by looking for tabby and if they asked, I would ask what the cat looked like. "Yep! Live trapped him yesterday and took him to the pound". If you go get him and he comes back in my yard the same thing will happen over and over until you figure out your cat is not welcome to use my yard anymore than my dog is welcome to poo in your yard.
Word got around and people started being a lot more responsible with their cats. We no longer have kitty issues.
Have never figured out why some cat owners think a cat is different than a dog when it comes to invading another person's property.
Two years in a row, we had mother foxes raise their kits in a den under our patio slab. The many squirrels that inhabited our heavily wooded lot virtually disappeared, except for the dead ones the mamas would provide for the kits each morning. Even after the foxes left, the squirrel population seemed to stay away, likely due to the residual fox urine. Rather than find a fox family to live on your property, you could buy some fox urine from Home Depot and spread it around your plants. I haven't tried it myself, but it looks like a simple and easy solution, and it works 24/7.
Faulkner
Member
I don't think the white flag is necessary. A couple of live traps from Tractor Supply will help you solve the problem and they're simple to use. I eradicated the raccoon problem around my place last year. It took me about three months, but I either got them all or those remaining behind decided to move on.
I helped my neighbor do the same with squirrels. Between the live trap he had and my two traps, we caught over two dozen squirrels in about six weeks and his squirrel problem has been eliminated.
The problem with shooting them, even if you live in a place where shooting them is not a hazard to neighbors and such, is that you have to be there to shoot them when they're active. That's time consuming on your part. With traps, you set them the night before and walk away to check them later.
NEVER USE POISON, unless you want dead owls, eagles, hawks, pets, deer, etc. A dead squrriel is part of the food chain and I would certainly not want to be responsible for my neighbor's dog or cat's death.
Also, don't forget that skunks love peanut butter too.
Also, don't forget that skunks love peanut butter too.
Following up on my post 2, I got a Crosman 1377 pump action .177 cal single shot pellet pistol.
My thinking was I could vary the FPS with a pump action from enough to discourage (say, 300 FPS at 3 pumps) 'em with a butt shot, to terminating 'em ( ~ 600 FPS at 10 pumps) with a headshot. (FPS is per a chart I found on the internet by a guy who chronographed it.)
Shot a big fat sassy one in the butt at 3 pumps a coupla days ago. He jumped about three feet straight up in the air, ran another three feet, stopped and looked at me. Motionless. Ran off while I was reloading tho.
Didn't see any for a day. Then a skinnier, shabbier lookin' one showed up this evening. When I eased open the patio door, he ran about three or four feet up the tree in the patio. Since he, well, bottom half of 'em, anyway, was still below the top of the brick wall surrounding my patio, I had a safe shot. Shot him in the base of the tail at 300 FPS and he took off straight up and out of sight...
My wife thinks I should put some of the cashews we like with wine in the evenings before dinner out there on the patio to lure 'em in, but I think that would be unsporting.
I don't see how they could be communicating with one another but they are keepin' themselves a lot scarcer than they were.
My thinking was I could vary the FPS with a pump action from enough to discourage (say, 300 FPS at 3 pumps) 'em with a butt shot, to terminating 'em ( ~ 600 FPS at 10 pumps) with a headshot. (FPS is per a chart I found on the internet by a guy who chronographed it.)
Shot a big fat sassy one in the butt at 3 pumps a coupla days ago. He jumped about three feet straight up in the air, ran another three feet, stopped and looked at me. Motionless. Ran off while I was reloading tho.
Didn't see any for a day. Then a skinnier, shabbier lookin' one showed up this evening. When I eased open the patio door, he ran about three or four feet up the tree in the patio. Since he, well, bottom half of 'em, anyway, was still below the top of the brick wall surrounding my patio, I had a safe shot. Shot him in the base of the tail at 300 FPS and he took off straight up and out of sight...
My wife thinks I should put some of the cashews we like with wine in the evenings before dinner out there on the patio to lure 'em in, but I think that would be unsporting.
I don't see how they could be communicating with one another but they are keepin' themselves a lot scarcer than they were.
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Squirrels just want to have fu-un
I have had this problem in the past. Solution, .22 shorts out of a Marlin bolt action. I would get em when they were in a side yard eating a little cracked corn in an out of the way spot. I lived in a neighborhood, so stealth was required and I was just the man for the job. Just stick the very end of the barrel out a cracked window and most of the noise will be in the house. I have used an RWS pellet gun as well. That thing was quiet and would stone em just like the .22. Unfortunately, it is a never ending problem. They just seem to show up out of nowhere. You shoot a few and it will quiet down. Then next thing you know they're back eating every bulb you planted, chewing wires and wreaking havoc again. Good luck and happy hunting.
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On my 2 acres I use an RWS Diana .22 pellet rifle with a Hawke 4x AO scope that will drop em' at 40 yards. I also have a Ruger Camo takedown 10/22 with a Spectre II silencer for the longer shots and with CCI standard velocity ammo it's even quieter.
muddocktor
Member
What my Father In Law did when he was having squirrel problems with his garden was to get a Have A Heart trap and set it up with peanuts in it for bait. When he caught the squirrels, he would then drive over to the city park and release them. He must have moved 20-30 squirrels to the park that year. 
City parks are a traditional place to release live-trapped squirrels.
Placing a live trap on a table of some sort helps reduce or eliminate skunk catches.
I use a lot of Aquila Colibri in a S&W kit gun. There's a LOT of bullet drop but if you get right under the branch and shoot straight up, it cancels out.
For long guns, CCI Quiet works much better than CBs.
I see CCI has a new product "Quiet SA" with 5 more grains of bullet at a slightly higher velocity, aimed at actually cycling semi-autos.
Anyone try it ?
The problem I see with it is that so many current mfg SAs have 16 - 18" barrels and the serious sound reduction comes when barrel lengths get above 20 - 22"
Placing a live trap on a table of some sort helps reduce or eliminate skunk catches.
I use a lot of Aquila Colibri in a S&W kit gun. There's a LOT of bullet drop but if you get right under the branch and shoot straight up, it cancels out.
For long guns, CCI Quiet works much better than CBs.
I see CCI has a new product "Quiet SA" with 5 more grains of bullet at a slightly higher velocity, aimed at actually cycling semi-autos.
Anyone try it ?
The problem I see with it is that so many current mfg SAs have 16 - 18" barrels and the serious sound reduction comes when barrel lengths get above 20 - 22"
.177 pellet in my cheap Crosman, 5 pumps is deadly at 30'. They don't go far if anywhere at all with a thorax hit.
I found the pellet much more accurate than the BB's. The BB's precess or wobble a bit like a knuckle ball, and don't hit as hard as the heavier lead pellet. The report is about the same.
OCD me chrono'd the thing, and found there isn't much gain and a lot of additional work going up to 10 pumps.
IIRC, 5 pumps got me about 550 fps, 5 more only got up to about 650-700fps.
I used to have to shoot them out of our bird feeders, because the impatient little rodents would chew right thru the plastic of the feeders. We put a squirrel baffle on the poles, sort of a coolie hat looking thing, and that saved the feeders. I shoot the tree rats now only if they have too many hand grenade fights (burying acorns) in my turf.
We scattered a few handfuls of mothballs around in our barn, well house, tractor shed & under a couple of outbuildings. No more ground squirrels, packrats, rabbits, skunks (who knew you could out stink a skunk?). Also since the food supply is down we haven't seen any snakes.
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