I saw an ad for .22 COLIBRI. I’d never heard of them, but apparently they’re the modern version of a .22 CB. They are a powderless .22 long? Maybe? Or is it a long rifle brass? Do they increase the primer to propel without additional powder?
Anyway, it brought back a flood of memories.
When I was a kid, in a close suburb of Chicago, one had very few options for ridding the space under the front porch of vermin. I set up a round conibear trap and caught one opossum. Turns out she had a pouch full of toothy little rascals. The jill was dead but the joeys were alive and still clinging to her carcass. I dumped the whole mess into a garbage can full of water and pushed it down with a concrete block. We went to dinner and afterwards the problem was solved. Dad didn’t want a repeat, so he just threw away the old trap, opossum, babies, and all (I think he was afraid if I caught something and the trap didn’t fully kill it).
Dad got me a Have-A-Heart trap and I made a catch pole and went to work. I caught (I don’t remember) several more opossums and a couple raccoons under there. Not knowing how to dispatch my catches without attracting undue attention, he got me some BB caps and some CB caps. I would drag the critter out of the trap, hold its head down by the basement floor drain with my catch pole, and put a CB or BB in their ear from inches away with my revolver. The BB caps worked, but not well. The CB caps did better.
1) I miss that old Herter’s single action .22 I traded it when I traded up to my Ruger Super Single Six 9” (still have it).
2) I plugged my nose and skinned those opossums. I learned to ring their feet, neck, and tail (from an article in Outdoor Life) so I could leave the hide whole and unsplit. We froze them and next time we went to the furrier near my Uncle’s place in Iowa, I sold them. They said that they were skinned properly and handled correctly and they gave me $3 each. After that I wrapped the carcasses in doubled garbage bags and threw them away- nobody should touch and smell an opossum for $3
(This post was last modified: 10-05-2024, 10:02 AM by srjdsmith.)
Anyway, it brought back a flood of memories.
When I was a kid, in a close suburb of Chicago, one had very few options for ridding the space under the front porch of vermin. I set up a round conibear trap and caught one opossum. Turns out she had a pouch full of toothy little rascals. The jill was dead but the joeys were alive and still clinging to her carcass. I dumped the whole mess into a garbage can full of water and pushed it down with a concrete block. We went to dinner and afterwards the problem was solved. Dad didn’t want a repeat, so he just threw away the old trap, opossum, babies, and all (I think he was afraid if I caught something and the trap didn’t fully kill it).
Dad got me a Have-A-Heart trap and I made a catch pole and went to work. I caught (I don’t remember) several more opossums and a couple raccoons under there. Not knowing how to dispatch my catches without attracting undue attention, he got me some BB caps and some CB caps. I would drag the critter out of the trap, hold its head down by the basement floor drain with my catch pole, and put a CB or BB in their ear from inches away with my revolver. The BB caps worked, but not well. The CB caps did better.
1) I miss that old Herter’s single action .22 I traded it when I traded up to my Ruger Super Single Six 9” (still have it).
2) I plugged my nose and skinned those opossums. I learned to ring their feet, neck, and tail (from an article in Outdoor Life) so I could leave the hide whole and unsplit. We froze them and next time we went to the furrier near my Uncle’s place in Iowa, I sold them. They said that they were skinned properly and handled correctly and they gave me $3 each. After that I wrapped the carcasses in doubled garbage bags and threw them away- nobody should touch and smell an opossum for $3
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