Has a racoon ever stolen your lunch and scratched your porch as it scurried off it in a hurry?
Do you also dislike it when a coyote eats your chicken?
Well, if any of the two unfortunate incidents have happened to you, or you wish to prevent them, you might want to get into varmint hunting.
Opossums, coyotes, racoons, prairie dogs – all of these trouble-making animals seem to have developed a particular knack for making the lives of humans in their vicinity miserable.
You might say that it’s the humans that built settlements in the vicinity of animals, but if you say that you don’t really know raccoons that well. They migrate for food and are super-adaptable and have thieving fingers that can pry-open Amazon packages and food containers.
Anyway, in this article, we’re going to talk about more than just raccoons. We’re going to discuss opossums, too.
More specifically, we’re going to get into a special sort of pest population that combines the thrill of hunting and saving your pantry from theft and trespassing – varmint hunting. There are some clear benefits of varmint hunting and in the passages below, we’re going to highlight them in their full glory.
Read on to learn more.
Easy Rifle Selection
Finding the appropriate weapon for your varmint-hunting expedition won’t be that much of a problem.
What’s more, the only issue that might arise from you choosing the appropriate weapon would be the sheer volume of different rifles at your disposal.
From a Remington 700 to Savage Mark II TR’s, you have an array of fantastic weapons, each of which can do a great job of neutralizing annoying animals.
The costs of buying these weapons and supplies is also somewhat lower than what you’d have to pay for a high-class big game rifle. Ammunition and additional equipment also tend to be less expensive, since you’ll be using a smaller caliber.
Another great thing about varmint hunting when it comes to equipment, would be that you don’t necessarily need to even buy a brand-new varmint-specific gun. More often than not, old weapons can be repurposed and reused for varmint hunting.
As long as you take into consideration the appropriate caliber, you probably won’t even have to spend too much money preparing yourself for a backyard opossum-hunting expedition.
Practicing Hunting Techniques
Even if you don’t have a particular problem with the local groundhog population, varmint hunting can be a great way to get started in practicing shooting techniques and trying out new equipment.
Since varmint hunting is not exactly a high-stake venture where your livelihood or safety depends on it (the way those crab fishermen have it), it represents a great way to hone your skills.
Whether you just bought a new rifle you want to try out, or you’ve been patiently looking for the optimal set of optics, you can rest assured that you won’t have to worry that much about missing targets while shooting at raccoons and rats.
Also, if you’re an instructor and you want to teach some new students the basics, varmint hunting can be a great option. It gives you a stress and pressure-free practicing zone, while also giving you targets for practice.
Gun safety, for example, represents one of the most important basics for any kind of hunting course and varmint hunting can be a great way to teach your students the ropes of handling a gun in a real, outdoor environment.
Also, advanced hunting techniques such as spotting and stalking prey is where varmint hunting is at its best.
Despite being relatively easy to spot and numerous in many wild and urban environments, varmints tend to be quite tough to catch and sneak up on. It’s the same mechanism like when Rocky was told by his boxing coach to catch a chicken.
A simple enough demand, but chickens, as common an animal as they are, are quite fast and zig-zagging around makes them tough to snag.
Leisure
Hunting big game can be a tough and arduous venture, leading you deep into the snow-covered mountains, dark caves, and vast prairies. There’s definitely an element of pleasure in the immense strain that comes from tracking a single elk for days, following the droplets of blood in the snow from the arrow you inflicted on it earlier.
On the other hand, there are days where you just don’t feel like tackling knee-deep snow and spotting elk in hopes of simultaneously avoiding bears.
When you wake up to such a day, but you still want to practice shooting, varmint hunting will be there for you.
Sure, bringing down a major antler is fun, but that means equipping yourself for days of arduous trekking and hiking, or sitting in a former eagle nest in a tree for 14 hours. Whipping out your trusty varmint rifle and shooting some groundhogs can get you the hunter’s thrill for the day and you can make frequent nap breaks.
You can even be within walking distance from home and still have a fantastic mini varmint hunting expedition.
All you need is a rifle and some 22-250 ammo, or some similar small caliber, and you can go out and have a blast for an entire day of leisurely varmint hunting.
Getting rid of Pests
Living in a rural area has some clear advantages over living in a cooped up apartment in a big city.
Clean air, better quality of water, non-congested roads, and lower population density spring to mind as some of the boons of living in smaller communities.
One of the downsides of owning a large property with a barn and similar large buildings, on the other hand, would be the sheer amount of varmint activity, so to speak.
De-ratting barns and getting rid of pests is a major concern for folks living in rural areas.
Now, one way of doing it would certainly be using a good old rifle and some bullets. Varmint hunting will probably not solve the problem for good, as tackling the nests and hideouts that these critters dwell in is the only way of properly getting rid of them.
That said, picking off a couple of pests with your rifle can still alleviate the pressure these unwelcome guests place on your stocks of corn, barley, and other harvested goods.
On the other hand, varmints can get violent toward smaller farm animals such as chickens and other poultry. Having a rifle ready at your disposal when a coyote approaches your chicken coop can be a great way to dispose of the threat quickly and efficiently.
Conclusion
Whether it’s saving your chickens, getting some target practice, or leisure, varmint hunting can be a great way to hone your shooting skills and keep them sharp for your upcoming hunting trip.
It can also be a great way to introduce someone new to hunting, as teaching stalking the prey and gun safety is much easier when the prey is in your backyard and available in great numbers.
Last but not least, varmint hunting can be a great leisurely activity you can engage in with your friends. Since it’s a relatively low-effort type of hunting, there’s no danger of overexerting yourself physically or getting in mortal danger over getting deep into a predatory animal’s territory.
Overall, whether you’re a seasoned hunting veteran, a rookie, or a casual hunter, varmint hunting is an activity that you will certainly like to partake in at some point during your hunting career.
