Any interest in trapping?

[TnRiver46]

5 minutes ago, Choporoz said:

Those suckers are deceptively fast.  They can hear me sneaking across my creaky kitchen floor and be gone before I fling open the door.  I'm not yet to the point of donning a gillie suit and sitting out all night waiting on them.

I would just set a cage trap, relocate if the law allows or relocate to the big hollow tree up in the sky if required. Gillie suit sounds way more fun tho 

hopefully you can eliminate the ones that have learned the behavior but they certainly learn from each other 

[Choporoz]

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

I would just set a cage trap, relocate if the law allows or relocate to the big hollow tree up in the sky if required. Gillie suit sounds way more fun tho 

hopefully you can eliminate the ones that have learned the behavior but they certainly learn from each other 

Thanks.   Previous owner left what I thought was a crab pot behind the garage....probably had similar visitors 

[TnRiver46]

Found something pretty wild today. A squirrel that apparently didn’t sharpen its front teeth enough and they grew into a circle 

[HaydenS]

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

Found something pretty wild today. A squirrel that apparently didn’t sharpen its front teeth enough and they grew into a circle 

Woah, thats awesome!

Full curl squirrel!

[HaydenS]

I’ll start the bidding at $5!

[TnRiver46]

12 minutes ago, HaydenS said:

I’ll start the bidding at $5!

My boss always thinks he can sell that kind of stuff so I’ve been collecting it for years. Fairly disturbing collection hahahah. I found a mummy squirrel once that must have been 75 years old . And a whole myriad of other such things 

[HaydenS]

2 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

My boss always thinks he can sell that kind of stuff so I’ve been collecting it for years. Fairly disturbing collection hahahah. I found a mummy squirrel once that must have been 75 years old . And a whole myriad of other such things 

Please get us a picture!

[TnRiver46]

16 minutes ago, HaydenS said:

Please get us a picture!

I found one with a brief search of my phone, I’ll have to consult the varmint museum sometime this week. 

[T-Billy]

On 1/30/2020 at 7:37 PM, TnRiver46 said:

That’s the good thing about cage traps, if you catch a non target you just let them go. The only problem is it’s darn near impossible to get a fox coyote bobcat or mink to walk into a cage. I know an old timer that I usually refer those type jobs to 

I would think letting a bobcat out of a live trap could be an exciting experience. 

[TnRiver46]

Well that was refreshing. We’ve been dealing with almost nothing but flying squirrels getting into huge mansions lately. I’ve been risking life and limb to climb all over steep roofs trying to find how they are coming into attic and attempting to seal those places off, I’ve had to tell lots of customers I can catch them but they will have to hire someone that can fly to fix the hole.
 

so today I go to a new job, symptoms are night time noise in a wall so I’m initially thinking mouse. I went all through the attic  and didn’t see any mouse activity, which is good I suppose but not helping with the mystery. Then I got up on the roof, then down to a lower roof and see this. Praise be, it’s not a flying squirrel but a raccoon. It’s a whole lot easier to find a raccoon sized hole on a house than a flying squirrel sized hole on a house 

[T-Billy]

On 8/6/2021 at 9:53 AM, TnRiver46 said:

I’m after a skunk at this house and I catch a different possum almost every night so I tried leaving the traps it without any bait. A big fat raccoon got in my small trap and probably ruined it. “Plum ruirnt “

Those coon try to dig their way to china once they're in that trap don't they? I had one that took weeks to catch one time. Stole my bait night after night, even after I wired it to the cage. Finally caught her and understood. She was so big the tap door couldn't close behind her. When it finally did, she completely filled the trap. Had to weigh her. 24.5# One of the biggest coon I ever saw.

[TnRiver46]

1 hour ago, T-Billy said:

Those coon try to dig their way to china once they're in that trap don't they? I had one that took weeks to catch one time. Stole my bait night after night, even after I wired it to the cage. Finally caught her and understood. She was so big the tap door couldn't close behind her. When it finally did, she completely filled the trap. Had to weigh her. 24.5# One of the biggest coon I ever saw.

They sure do but nothing puts more dirt into the trap than skunks ! Excavating little creatures 

[J Francho]

Trash pandas are wiley. 

[A-Jay]

A-Jay

[J Francho]

Trash panda blep!

[TnRiver46]

This guy has had a black snake, a raccoon, and flying squirrels in his attic 

raccoon scat and tracks

 

hoards of hickory from the squirrels 

 

shed skin from the rat snake 

 

and here’s a good example of what we call a “gutter line hole”

varmints like to get into attics where the roof decking meets (or more often doesn’t meet) the fascia board. This is always worse on houses with leaf guards on their gutters. The squirrels desperately want to get into the enclosed gutter, then chew their way into the attic. They rarely want to run through open gutters 

[T-Billy]

19 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

This guy has had a black snake, a raccoon, and flying squirrels in his attic 

raccoon scat and tracks

 

hoards of hickory from the squirrels 

 

shed skin from the rat snake 

 

and here’s a good example of what we call a “gutter line hole”

varmints like to get into attics where the roof decking meets (or more often doesn’t meet) the fascia board. This is always worse on houses with leaf guards on their gutters. The squirrels desperately want to get into the enclosed gutter, then chew their way into the attic. They rarely want to run through open gutters

Thanks for the info on the leaf guards.

[TnRiver46]

Just now, T-Billy said:

Thanks for the info on the leaf guards.

Im not saying they don’t work, and certainly are nice on super high gutters that you can’t easily clean, but I’ve pulled a lot of squirrel nest out of the gutters themselves (not to mention they usually chew into the attic if they spend enough time in a gutter).  They like empty hollow places, a gutter with a gutter helmet probably seems like a hollow tree limb to a squirrel 

[J Francho]

I had squirrels get into the soffit through a gutter.  Luckily they didn't get all the way into the attic before resolving the issue.  I sealed the hole with expanding foam while they were out, and then waited for them to return to give them lead pellet treats.

[TnRiver46]

43 minutes ago, J Francho said:

I had squirrels get into the soffit through a gutter.  Luckily they didn't get all the way into the attic before resolving the issue.  I sealed the hole with expanding foam while they were out, and then waited for them to return to give them lead pellet treats.

I was about to say they could chew right through your foam, but not if they are dead! I see them chew up the foam pipe insulator for water lines quite often, just for sport it appears 

[J Francho]

I just needed to buy a few seconds to take aim, lol.

[TnRiver46]

Over the last 3 years I’ve caught 26 skunks in this exact spot.

[Tennessee Boy]

1 minute ago, TnRiver46 said:

Over the last 3 years I’ve caught 26 skunks in this exact spot. 

I really think you should give the skunks a percentage of your profits.  

[TnRiver46]

59 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

I really think you should give the skunks a percentage of your profits.  

Money is no good where they are now

[PressuredFishing]

On 2/4/2020 at 9:16 AM, TnRiver46 said:

Update: I’ve been trying to trap this one squirrel for about a week and a half. Several times as I was checking the trap, the squirrel would bail out of the hole in the siding, land on the cage, and jump off The roof into a tree. Today I was prepared and got her with the .177 flat head and a daisy powerline 901. This pellet rifle never ceases to amaze me with its accuracy, $50 at academy 

I had an older version of that pellet rifle, bought a new one, it's called a weiwarch and is made in Germany and imported over, its beautiful and was roughly 500$ only problem is I live in a suburban neighborhood and the thing goes super fast with .22 sized caliber, will drop rabbits dead and has excellent range and accuracy however because of the neighborhood we live in its hard to find a "safe" area to shoot the thing, the best method was to stick a bale of hay in a wheelbarrow and put targets on the hay... that worked great until they eventually went through that