re: Opossums are Getting Out of Control!

Air Rifle to the back of the head does the trick everytime. We use to have a problem with them. Trapped a couple and left their bodies in the woods behind our house. We don't have a problem anymore.

Last weekend I cleaned the yard and cut the grass and almost picked up my trap I keep set behind the yard and put it away. I decided to just leave it set for a while longer. Well, this morning the dogs were barking at something back there so I go and look and sure enough there's a fricking possum in there. Just when I thought(again)that I won the war on the possums. This brings the total to 36 trapped!

36?!?! That's insane!

quote:

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Stop releasing them and kill em.

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They get released like 30 something miles from my house!
Whether I release them or not(???) they still keep coming! And that's just the ones I catch in my yard. No telling how many there are!

Caught another one this past Monday and the dogs were after something in the yard early this morning. I guess there's another one lurking. Total trapped so far is up to at least 37.

Well, the possum war rages on..... STILL! About two weeks ago I saw a possum in the middle of the street about 5:-- in the morning in front of my next door neighbor's house. I remembering thinking "at least it's not in the yard." Then last week the dogs were barking at something at about 9:30 pm and my daughter said she saw a possum on the fence. I go and look behind the shed and sure enough there's a fricking possum on the fence. I used a stick to nudge it off the fence into the neighboring yard.
The next night I set the trap and used canned dog food as bait. It took three nights but I finally caught the sucker last night. This brings the total caught to 39.

If whacking them with a bat be careful to make sure they are dead, let me regale you with the tale of super-possum.

5 or 6 years ago I was super into trapping. Mostly coyote, bobcat, beaver and otter. Well one day I was checking traps, primarily concerned with the water sets but I did have a few cat sets on the trail to the beaver dam. On my first check I unhappily noticed that I had caught a possum.

All I had with me was a set of 330 conibear setters, basically hinged pair of 30 inch steel bars that weigh a smidge over 5 pounds. I've killed a lot of stuff with sticks ranging from 60 pound beavers down to snakes. With a lifetime of golf, baseball and splitting wood I can swing pretty hard. So I thought no big deal, thump it and toss it in the brush.

Day 2 I go down for my 5am trap check and what do I see but a shining pair of eyes telling me I had something. When I got closer I found the bloody headed possum from yesterday. Offended that I didn't kill him I proceeded to beat the hell out its head and once again pitched it in the brush.

Day 3 5am once again I walk down my trail only to find the bloodiest mess of a possum in the trap for the third day in a row. At the point I begin swearing and head back to the truck for a gun. When I got back to the possum I shot it 2 times in the head at a distance of about 3 inches with CCI minimags, once it stopped moving I pulled it out of trap and decided this time to throw it into the ditch. As soon as it hits the water it starts to swim away, at this point I empty the remaining 8 shots into him as he finally stops moving.

Day 4- No shining eyes so I'm feeling pretty good, walk past my land traps and look down and nearly shite myself. Turns out beavers will pile carcasses on a dam and they had decided he was a good addition, I turned around walked out and pulled traps the next day.

Spraypaint a number on it so you know which ones you're re-catching.

410 works quicker

Had one turning our trash over last year, I sat up one night and smoked that MF'er.

But it was an 18 lb coon