Been looking around some and finally saw the first nutria in Joe's Bayou so far this spring...and shot it. Was it the tuned/scoped European HWs: R10 .177 @900fps, R9 .20 @780fps or the R1 .22 @790fps that stopped his swimming with a single head shot? No. It was my recently acquired, well used, all American, 1969 Benjamin 342 Tootsie Roll handled pumper with open sights!

I was standing on the Wise drive over about 3/4 of a mile east of the house shooting at sticks and leaves in the water when a small nutria surfaced out of nowhere about 20 feet right in front of me. Only had 6 pumps in the Benji so I watched it swim into the culvert. Pumped two more times as I crossed to the west side of the 3 or 4 foot high by ~15 foot wide one lane dirt drive over but didn't see it swim out!

Checked the east side again. Then back to the west side and a moment later it swam out from the brushy bank with a mouth full of green weeds trailing. From about 20 feet away I aimed between the eye and ear on its left side and pulled the trigger.

With a solid thwack the water rat dropped its snack, rolled onto its right side and spastically kicked the hind legs for a couple of seconds until its head bumped into some shrub stems that stopped its forward progress. I pumped/loaded the Benji while changing position to get a clear view between the stems of the shrub and delivered a second shot to the brain pan ending its agonal kicking. Hope this is a preview of the rest of the nutria 'season'.

Been shooting my couple of Benji 342s ('69 and LN '74) for the last couple of weeks and really enjoying them. So much so that I have ordered a freshly resealed '70 Sheridan Blue Streak to try the .20 caliber. Never had these as a city kid. Maybe that's a good thing.

Terry in LP

....and the ones you have will do wonderful service for many years to come. Did you get a pic of the nutria? They are on my list of things I'd like to hunt.

Randy

http://www.adventuresinairguns.com

I finally bought a little digital camera but keep forgetting to take it when I go out to do a bit of plinking. The nutria was out in the middle of Joe's Bayou anyway and I mighta been able to zoom in for a picture of his hind legs sticking up. Keep thinking I need to get some rubber boots so I can maybe get close enough to reach some of these kills with a long stick and drag 'em in so I can get some pictures posted.

Shot a beaver in another bend of Joe's Bayou late the other evening with an R1 and didn't have the camera so went back the next morning to retrieve and photograph it. Well, I slipped on the muddy bank, grabbed some dried up briar vines trying to stay out of the water and went in anyway. After picking the briars from my hand I was able to reach the dead beaver with a stick and drag it close enough to grab a foot. Dragged the heavy dead thing up on the bank, took a couple pics and went home to post them to AA.

AA requires a Photobucket account to post pics from and I couldn't get through the registration page after the 4th try and gave that up. Those registration pages will tell you you made a mistake but they won't tell you WHAT THAT MISTAKE IS!! How can you fix something if you don't know what's wrong??

I can post it here. I think. Nope. It's too big. Can't crop it enough. Oh well.

I'm goin' out to shoot something.

It has floated (feet up) closer to the bank but I ain't trampin' down through those weeds to get closer. The drive over is actually about 7 or 8 feet high and the sides are steep. The nutria is about a foot long not counting the tail. Figured out how to make the pics less than 128k by shooting from a greater distance, then cropping down to the main subject.

.....sometimes those pic hosting sites are a pain to navigate and get set up on.

Next time you'll have a better chance to get a good pic of it.

Randy

http://www.adventuresinairguns.com

rabbit hunting last year.It was the beginning of the wet season and after a few weeks of rain it stopped i garbed my QB and went out hunting.i was on the dry rocks when i saw a rabbit sitting about 25 yards out just visible in some thick brush. pulled up my scoped QB for a clearer view yup rabbit i loaded it up scoped again still there aimed for the sweet spot behind the eye and smack then i hear splash turns out he was surrounded by water puddles when i shot he went down then swimming then drowned strangest kill ever.