Tales From The Possum Hunter

This week’s episode titled: “Packin’ Heat”



The time came several weeks ago when I had to give up the pastime of trapping because my grandfather needed his trap back in order to deal with some predators that were threatening his chicken coup. After returning the trap to my grandfather, I started thinking maybe I shouldn’t totally retire from hunting (or at least deterring) the varmints that discover the small animal paradise that is our back yard. So I went to Wally World and procured for myself a form of small arms. Very small arms in fact. That’s right; I got me a pellet gun. I am now packing some CO2 powered heat.

After spending the better part of an hour trying to cut into the bullet proof plastic packaging that the gun and accompanying can of pellets are sold in, I began the informal process of self-training myself in the ways of pellet gun safety. As per the instructions, I schooled myself in the proper way to handle the mock berretta handgun. But mainly I just tried to figure out how to get the safety lock off the trigger.

After mastering the skills to load the CO2 cartridge into the handle and the pellets into the clip, I took the side arm in hand and headed outside. I was concerned about the neighbors seeing any type of gun in the hands of someone who occasionally has to deal with cats in the possum hunting process, so I opted for using the garage in my quest to see what kind of destructive power there is from a pellet moving at 400 feet per second. I was disappointed to discover that it isn’t enough to go through a piece of particle board, but it is, however, enough to sting when it hits you in the arm after ricocheting off of a piece of particle board.

After inspecting the damage on the board, I noticed that the pellet left a pretty good size dent so obviously the adolescent brain of this carefree man-child began to wonder if a pellet would completely pierce the board if held about foot away. I decided to be smart this time, or at least smarter, and hold the gun at an angle away from me so that the ricocheting pellet wouldn’t hit me this time. I held the gun at arms length, and squeezed the trigger. POW, SMACK, CLACK, CLANK, THUD, PING! I had to duck for cover as the pellet furiously bounced back and forth through the garage. Apparently the angle was too great and the pellet was totally deflected by the board. As far as I can ascertain, the pellet hit the board (SMACK!), then the work bench (CLACK!), and a flower pot (CLANK!) before grazing the deep freezer (THUD) and finally colliding into the lawn mower handle (PING!).

Armed with this new weapon against the local marsupials, I marched back into the house and secured a militarily strategic position next to the breakfast nook window and waited for an encroaching possum. As the sun began to set, I spotted a possum waddling into my pellet gun protected territory. Slowly…quietly…I began to slide the window open, but it wasn’t stealth enough. The movement and sound were detected by the possum’s superior natural radar, and he retreated to the safety of the demilitarized zone of my neighbor’s yard.
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Unfortunately, I don’t think there will ever be a different scenario. The only way to get a clear shot is also the way that I will always be detected. So it looks like the pellet gun can only be used as a psychological weapon in what has suddenly became a cold war against the possums.

Tales of the Possum Hunter - Continued

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I woke up to the sound of the wife’s stupid cat Repete calling us from inside the animal trap to come and let him out again. Yes, my wife named her cat Repete after my cat Pete, but I won’t go into that. So, I got up and went to the back door and then noticed something really odd about Repete; he wasn’t in the cage. He was meowing at me from beside the cage. Apparently through the darkness I didn’t see the black animal inside the cage at first, but when I did, I saw something very strange. I didn’t know what it was. It was really tall and had to crouch low to get in the cage. It was maybe twice as long as Repete. The thing had somehow turned it self 180 degrees to face the cage door despite not having much room to move around in there. I thought to myself, what could that be? It definitely wasn’t any kind of dog. We don’t have any big animals like mountain lions in this area so it couldn’t have been one of those. Then I got the silly idea that maybe this is one of those Chupacabra things that people report seeing in Mexico. Yea, that’s it. It’s a Chupacabra.

The thing started to scream and hiss and ram its head really hard into the cage door. It was eerily reminiscent of the zombie like guy at the end of ‘I am Legend’. I usually don’t fear any of the non-predatory scavenger type animals that get in the trap. Like even though raccoons are pretty mean, once the cage door is opened they become more afraid of me than I am of them. This thing however, legitimately began to scare the living crap out of me. I slowly edged around to the front of the cage to get a better look at the vicious creature only to find… HOLY CRAP! That is the biggest house cat I have ever seen. As I looked at it in a horrified amazement, it rammed its head so hard into the cage that it forced the door open and then scrambled around to face me. I was so shaken up by the sheer evil of the animal that I ran back into the house and took a few minutes to shake it off. I watched from safely behind the glass sliding door as the giant, evil, “Chupacabra Cat” darted off into the night.
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A few weeks later, I heard Repete again. Only this time he was much wiser. Instead of standing next to the “Chupacabra Cat”, he was about 10 feet away from the cage. I reacted quickly and grabbed a heavy planter from the corner of the deck and pushed it up against the cage door. I felt much better after making sure he couldn’t break out again. Then it hit me. What the heck am I going to do with this thing? So I ended up bracing the door shut with a lug wrench and threading a long piece of cable through the cage wires in order to be able to safely pull the cage wherever I needed. And then I just did what I always do. I trucked it away to a secret undisclosed location and let it loose. Now, the “Chupacabra Cat” can run free through hillsides of Ohio killing as much cattle as it wants.

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Tales Of The Possum Hunter

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How I Discovered That Dry Possum Poop Is the Stickiest Substance on Earth

OK, so it’s like this. About a month ago I woke up in the middle of the night with some heart burn and really needed a glass of milk from the kitchen. As I was walking by the sliding doors to the back deck I noticed a silhouette of the wife's retarded cat standing up tall with his back arched. I looked out the door to see what that stupid cat was doing and there was a possum poking his head inside the cats’ house. Now since I built this heated cat house with my own two hands to keep my smart cat from freezing his butt off when the temperature drops, I can’t have some grubby little possum enacting squatter’s rights in it over the winter.

After several attempts at remembering to ask about borrowing an animal trap from my grandpa, I was finally able to get one at the house all ready for me to trap me a possum.

I have to admit, I didn’t think I would catch anything on the first night let alone the first three nights of setting the trap. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t that dang possum that I was trapping. I trapped the same stray cat twice and realized that I couldn’t just let it go or it would keep coming back. So the wife and I “evacuated” it to a much safer place. By the way, if you’re from PETA, the word “evacuated” means we tortured it and then killed it and then hung its dead body on a stick in the ground to act as a warning to any other cats that might come to that deck. If you’re not from PETA, the word “evacuated” just means we relocated it to a secret undisclosed location. The very next night a second stray got in the way of my quest to trap that possum. It didn’t look good for this weary possum hunter.
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Then finally on one glorious night early this week, I actually caught that evil possum! In that triumphant moment I found myself completely enveloped with the smell of victory which in this circumstance means the smell of possum poop. Apparently possums are timid and if you spook one by trapping it in a cage, it totally looses all bowel function.
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What Not To Do With a Possum in a Cage

As it turns out, if you catch a possum in a cage, you have to kill it because of the risk that it might have rabies and will bite you when it’s released. There is only one problem with this requirement. I don’t own a gun or a knife that I can safely kill an animal with. So the wife and I get the idea that we can gas it to death via the exhaust pipe of the car. No big deal, right? So we figure we need to enclose the cage somehow in order to keep the exhaust fumes concentrated around the cage, and isolated from leaking to the rest of the garage.

Everything was going pretty well until the possum jumped toward the door of the cage which startled me and I accidentally dropped the cage. When the trap hit the floor, the catch for the door slipped just enough so that the door came open under the weight of the possum and I watched in disbelief as my prized game had escaped from captivity. The screams of my brave wife echoed off the garage floor as she leaped heroically to safety inside the cabin of the car. As I snapped out of the euphoria of my victorious possum capture, I suddenly thought to myself; “holy crap there’s a possum loose in the garage!”
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Luckily I was able to grab a 15 foot pole. (No really, we have a telescoping paint roller stick that extends to about 15 feet.) And then proceeded to “fish” the possum out from between the freezer and some lumber I had stacked there. After forcing the possum out of its hiding place, it ran under the mower and then finally along the wall to the door of the garage. I then watched with respectful admiration as this worthy adversary waddled off into the darkness. The thrill of this hunt will have to be continued on another day.