Neat little laser

Very interesting. I would love to hear how it turns out. Why do you prefer doing that and not buying ready made gun lasers? (the ones I saw, looked poorly made, like toys, maybe that is the reason)

I had good success zapping squirrels with a scoped air rifle. Gamo

1000. Out of 5 shots, 3 dead squirrels and one fatally wounded (died under the porch). And I am not even a good shot. Unfortunately, I discovered that squirrels have foul taste, so I ended that activity, I do not like killing purely for fun. i

There must be something wrong with your squirrels. I should send you some squirrel dumplings..... or maybe it's just a Southern thing ;-)

Regards, LL

I wanted a look at that laser anyway, for some other ideas. One might be an aid for precisely backing my pickup under my camper to mount it.

This is varmint control. The damned squirrels are a nuisance at her bird feeder. These are those scrawney little pine squirrels. If that's what you tried, they're not fit to eat. My dad was a good squirrel hunter. Squirrel stew can be really good if made with the right kinda squirrels -- but I don't recall which ones they were now. Bigger ones, like gray squirrels or maybe fox squirrels.

Squirrels don't bother us so I leave 'em alone -- but I do shoot rabbits because they eat Mary's garden. Rabbits haven't been much of a problem the last three seasons, though. I saw a red fox in my neighbor's yard last fall, and there is a huge owl living nearby as well. That owl is something else! It's wierd sitting outside reading on a summer night and having the moon wink out as it goes silently overhead on its nocturnal hunt. NEAT! Bre'r Fox and Bre'r Owl seem to be doing a good job of rabbit control.

--HSC sells these lasers for $4.95, with 4 interchangable "masks" for the front end.

Plus shipping. Don't know if they'd be as bright. I'd seen the HF level so I knew it was bright.

Unfortunately owls are pretty good on cat control too. I had to "discourage" a great barn owl that used to hang around, snacking on kittens and the occasional full grown adult cat.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

We've been admiring the great horned owl next door, and the pair of rough-leg hawks behind us. Sure would be tough if they decide to make a meal out of our 2 four-legged children. I think I'd have to kill the bird. We don't let the cats out at night due to coyotes, so I guess that covers the owl too. I think the hawks won't bother the adult cats. And the young one would put up a helluva fight, while it lasted.

OK, story time.....

A few years ago, before I opened my shop, I used to hunt quite a bit. Early one morning, I was setting in my treestand bowhunting, waiting for the sun to come up. I was bored, and just looking around to see if I could identify any of my surroundings. It was VERY dark that morning. All I could make out was the soft glow of 2 small round balls about 20 yards from me. I couldn't tell what they were, and it was still too early to worry about seeing any deer, so I just stared at them. After a few minutes, I figured out that they were eyeballs, but I still couldn't tell what they belonged too. We were at about the same elevation, so I assumed they belonged to a coon, because they were too big to be a squirrel. We stared at each other for about another 20 minutes. My eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness at about the same time that the sun was starting to peak through the trees. About the time that I figured out I was staring at a small owl (around 4 foot wing span) he took off from his perch heading straight for me. OH CRAP! this guy thinks I'm breakfast! Time slows down, while my mind is racing. No problem, I'm sure he'll figure out I'm too big to eat, and fly away. Nope, he keeps coming! Five feet from my face, I realize he's not going to back down. I'm strapped to a tree with nowhere to go, and no time to get there. The only thing I can do is duck my head. I leaned forward at the same time he hit me with his talons right on the top of my head. The impact nearly knocked me out of the tree, but I must have thrown off his timing, because I wasn't bleeding. He landed about 15 feet from me, and rolled and cocked his head to try and figure out what it was that he just hit. I decided that endangered species or not, I wasn't going to be eaten by an owl! By the time my shaking hands could get an arrow set and ready and the bow drawn, he flew away.

Which of course reminds me of another story.

I was watching America's Funniest Video's a few weeks ago. They had a kid on there that was outside playing with his pet hamster. The hamster crawled onto his shoulder just in time to hitch a ride with a passing hawk. The kid just stood there with his mouth open not knowing what had happened. :)

If you ever saw a hawk or owl stoop and hit, there is no fight. Bird comes down talons formost, hits the cat/rabbit in the back or in the back of the neck, instantly breaking the back or neck, and driving those razor sharp talons deep into the spine or neck. Death is virtually instantanious. Usually.

I wove a very broad net of high test monofiliment across the area that the owl hunted..fishing line. The owl didnt pay any attention to it..came in hard..nailed the fishing line, which screwed him up pretty good, and then tried several times to fly up through the line, finally exhausting him, so I was able to simply walk out, toss a blanket over him, and take him to the local wildlife rescue for relocation. Magnificent birds.

I raised a few raptors, growing up in Michigan in the mid 1960s, hunted with them. The people that did that, actually saved a number of raptor species, back when DDT was commonly used. I believe the Greater Kestral was saved that way as well as others.

A friend used to raise and race homing pigeons, and here in the desert, the Redtailed Hawk is pretty good about picking them off both in flight and had learned to hang out near the coop and nail em as they were flying into the landing bay of the coop. The friend waited with a 12 ga for the hawks to make their run. Shrug.

3 S's. Shoot, shovel and shutup.

I know nothing about any such thing.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Wow..!!

"Mommy..whats a food chain?"

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

We have a cat that we're pretty sure was attacked by an owl. The cat is black with a white belly. But too large for the owls around here (Barred Owls). I think the owl saw the white and thought it was a rabbit. I can imagine the cat twisting around and swiping at the owl, causing the owl to let go. The depth and location of the wounds matched the owl talons. And our neighbor has also had trouble with owls attacking his cats. I can't help but wonder though if the owl knew how big the cat really is because this cat catches bats and flying insects in such low light that I can't see the bats or the insects. And owls see pretty good in the dark too. ERS

Hawks and small Eagles will pick up cats and small dogs. Mom lost here Chihuahua off their front porch north of Phoenix. Here we have buzzards looking for road kill and a few Hawks looking for what is loose. The large Barn owl flew through and stayed a week - I think he or she was in migration - or finding a new home - ate tons of small toads coming out of the wet sand at night. Simply said - we keep ours in unless we go out and verify no down-lookers. :-)

Martin

Martin Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH & Endowment Member NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

Rex B wrote: