The 12 gauge was loaded with varmint loads, not 00 buck. A lot of small pellets... just the right thing to get the job done. The Old-man took out the woodchuck no problem with it (too big for the air rifle).

This year we had a mating pair of foxes move in under the barn. That pretty much put the end to the rodent / varmint problem.

Wow, squirrels with a 12 gauge ain't as sporting as the 22, but at least there's no bodies to clean up! My cat came home with a freshly dead squirrel last month, it was impressive as he's a skinny little guy, maybe 5-6 lbs. Cats are badasses.

Kudos to the subject of the OP for thinning the tree rats, he was just an idiot for displaying them.

I have a tenant who would sympathize with this guy. The squirrels completely destroyed his garden last year. For everyone he trapped and relocated, three more took its place.

My dad had the same problem (VT not NJ) with his crops being annihilated by grey squirrels and woodchucks. He was using a .22cal air rifle to knock them off. I gave him my 12 gauge shotgun to make things a bit easier. He thinned the population down enough where they stopped destroying stuff.
There isn't much in the way of small game hunters in the area, so the squirrel population was unreal.

Note: The above is legal in VT.

http://m.cbsnews.com/fullstory.rbml?c ... feed_id=999&videofeed=999



CBS News
June 13, 2012

Linden, N.J. man Richard Baird is accused of killing squirrels with a BB gun and hanging them from a fence (Credit: Handout/CBS New York) (CBS/WCBS) LINDEN, N.J. - A New Jersey man is charged with animal cruelty after he allegedly killed several squirrels with a BB gun and hung their bodies from a fence. According to CBS New York, police in Linden filed the charges against 49-year-old Richard Baird after finding the animals hanging from a stockade fence in his backyard.

Det. Lt. James Sarnicki says he believes Baird was frustrated because the squirrels were crawling through a hole in the side of his house, CBS New York reports. "He was frustrated to the point where he proceeded to put some peanut butter by a tree in one of his backyards to lure the squirrels to the peanut butter and then he was shooting them with a BB gun," Sarnicki reportedly said. "After he killed them, for some unexplainable reason, he was hanging their bodies from one of the fences in the backyard." Baird reportedly could be fined between $250 and $1,000 if convicted. He also faces up to 6 months in prison and up to 30 days of community service at an animal shelter.