Big Game Hunting by ... Automobile!

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 06 Jan 2009 19:46

Well, OK, not really BIG game, but I almost got me a heron this morning as I was driving to work!

There's a stretch of the highway that runs down the middle of a bunch of rice paddies (which aren't filled this time of year, of course) and this heron rose up out of one of them and started to head across to the other side of the road ... but a bit too low. I saw it coming and thought, "Oh shit ... but at least it's not a deeeeeeeeeeer!!!" and I was just getting ready to slam on the brakes and swerve into the right lane (nothing coming up behind me, fortunately) when the damned bird evidently woke up and circled back the way it had come.

Whew.

What's the biggest or most interesting critter you've killed?

A Thing of Eternity · Post by **A Thing of Eternity** » 06 Jan 2009 20:40

Deer.

Back when I lived in Edmonton I played a gig down in Calgary - the band took the new van down, I drove my car since I had to be back at work the next day. The van broke down on the way down there, luckily another band was driving by and picked up the guys and the gear and took them to the gig. Then, after the gig, I was driving home with some of the guys (going about 140 kph) when WHAM

- a fucking deer jumps in front of me and totals my car, almost killing all of us.

One gig - lost two vehicles. Total pay for gig: $50.00

Not a good weeked.

That said, it WAS better than the gig where we drove to the wrong city, Saskatoon (other band's singer's fault, not ours), then made it to the right city, Regina, and got paid zero dollars.

Post by **Omphalos** » 06 Jan 2009 21:13

I prefer the Moose Jaw music scene anyway.

SandRider · Post by **SandRider** » 06 Jan 2009 22:07

Deer kill's pretty common around here.

Turkey vultures' better. Three or four big ol' turkey vultures will congegrate around
a road-kill. There's always a dominant bird that will wait until the last moment to move
away from an approaching truck. The trick is to slow down until about 75 feet away
or so, then gun it - turkey vultures are real big and real slow to take off. I kill two
or three a month with this strategy. Bust out alot of headlights, too, and cracked a
windshield good once.

Got alot of racoon suicides, too. They stand up on their hind legs at the side of the
highway, and throw themselves under the front tires. More often than reason or
chance can explain.

Good topic, Chig.

{BTW, Thing, I've been to Saskatoon - good buddy was from Estevan. Well, he ended up
in Estevan (draft-thing). I went up to see him in the late 70s. He's a banker in Winnipeg now.
Never did come "home".}

Robspierre · Post by **Robspierre** » 06 Jan 2009 22:58

A couple of deer, hit an elk once, truck was still driveable, several turkey's, some rabbits, a coyote, and a few birds.

Rob

Post by **Omphalos** » 06 Jan 2009 23:30

I once drove through a swarm of insects so thick that in ten seconds I could not see out the window. Got a few cranes in my time, and deer too. My job requires me to handle claims where the critter is a person. Those are never fun.

Crysknife · Post by **Crysknife** » 07 Jan 2009 00:37

When I was in high school I worked a night job at a grocery store and a huge snowstorm swept in so a bunch of us went across the street to the Village Inn to see if it would pass. I mean, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face it was so bad. We were there till two in the morning and I decided to brave it. Didn't get 100 feet out of the parking lot before I hit 3 fully grown geese trying to cross the road. I didn't see them till I hit em. I decided not to stop because other cars might not see me and by the sound of it they were dead anyway.

I felt like shit. I'm sure they were well known birds because they lived right in the middle of the city. Fuck, I still feel like shit even to this day for that. Damn birds were just trying to cross the road.

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 07 Jan 2009 02:47

I killed a small bird, probably a sparrow, soon after I got back over here back in the fall. Little sucker flew up over a concrete dividing wall out of some woods beside the highway and then dropped down low to cross the lanes just in time to kiss my windshield.

Left little dusty wingprints on the glass.

I've killed a few fuzzies and other featheries in my time, but nothing really massive. I was headed home well after midnight one night back when I was doing the late stints working on our English website and I'm heading up a hill and suddenly this enormous(-looking) white thing flaps up from out of nowhere and rises almost straight up in front of the car; liked to scared the shit out of me. Best I can figure it was an owl or something.

Finally, come spring I can't use the same shortcut on the way home that I use in morning on the way to work because the road runs through and beside a bunch of rice paddies and in the evening the wee peepers come hopping out to find 'em some naughty frog lovin'. Even with the windows rolled up and the music blaring you can still sense the little suckers going pop pop pop under your wheels.

I hate that.

TheDukester · Post by **TheDukester** » 07 Jan 2009 03:26

Coyote. Well, technically, my dad hit it ... but that was me in the passenger seat going "What the fuck?!?!"

Very scary stuff. And, as an animal-lover, I felt bad for the critter. Just doing his own thing, but got too close to the road ...

Robspierre · Post by **Robspierre** » 07 Jan 2009 04:03

Omphalos wrote:I once drove through a swarm of insects so thick that in ten seconds I could not see out the window.

When I was a wee little shit, we were traveling to visiting family in Napa and were driving along the North Klamath Lake in Oregon when we ran into a massive cloud of insects that just smeared bug guts everywhere, insane shit that.

Rob

Mr. Teg · Post by **Mr. Teg** » 07 Jan 2009 05:00

I was rounding the bend of HW 37 that cuts through the lower part of San Francisco bay when right in front of me was a mother duck trailed by half-dozen ducklings crossing the road, split second decision, driving off the road into the water or them...

Post by **Freakzilla** » 07 Jan 2009 10:29

I ran over two cats doing it in the middle of the road. Only killed one though, the male, I think. I see deer all the time though. Last time I saw about five does and or fawns, I'm lucky I've never hit one.

GamePlayer · Post by **GamePlayer** » 07 Jan 2009 11:51

An Owl. And when I hit it (or it hit me), the thing looked like an airliner. I stop and get out of my truck after nearly running off the road and the bird is on the ground a few meters away, wing span is almost longer than my truck! Never knew Owls could get that big. It was very light for it's size though. Fortunately, the Owl was killed on impact, so he went out quickly.

I've shot and killed one wolf and one rabbit. Never been much of a hunter.

Only thing I've ever killed with my hands was a rat. Didn't feel any remorse; it's just a rat.

GamePlayer · Post by **GamePlayer** » 07 Jan 2009 12:12

Baraka Bryan wrote:Now I had just been working on a polisci paper and had a number of large texts in my room. I grabbed an 1100 page book on torture (:D) and threw it across the basement. It strikes the rat and knocks him out.

LOL! Comedy gold

Post by **Freakzilla** » 07 Jan 2009 12:21

I've got mice in my house. Cute, tiny, grey mice like from a Disney movie. My wife is terrified of them so that makes me exterminator but I'm to lazy/tired to keep up with it. I've caught (killed with a trap) a couple of little ones and a fat one. Maybe the eleven-year-old is responsisble enough to bait and hide the traps without being a danger to himself and others. Problem is, I can't hide them while the younger kids are watching because I don't want them to know where they are and mess with them. Which they will do. They have rellocated a trap with a dead mouse on it.

Savages...

I don't mind the mice so much, the bugs creep me out. Especially in the winter, those big palmetto bugs come inside. I've put out bait traps for them and I haven't seen many lately.

Post by **Omphalos** » 07 Jan 2009 13:33

I used to have a dog named Fox that was a Schipperkkee; a Flemish ship captain's dog by breed. They are excellent, excellent ratters. I used to take her walking along the highways that crossed the flood plains here in Sacramento. She could spot mice and rats 50 feet away, would bound over to them and nail them, then bring them back to me and stack them at my feel like a pile of cord-wood. She must have dispatched tens of thousands of rats and mice in the 21 years that she lived, and all of them were killed in my name. I could have had a throne made of mice bones if I wanted, or a long coat made of mice skins, like they did in teh Gobi.

Post by **Freakzilla** » 07 Jan 2009 13:42

Ever seen the movie Never Cry Wolf? A biologist is sent to the tundra to find out if wolves were responsible for dwindling carabu and discovers the wolves subsist only on mice. He doubts if a large mammal could live off just mice and experiments with the diet on himself.

I just had a visual image of you eating mice on crackers.

Post by **Freakzilla** » 07 Jan 2009 13:48

Baraka Bryan wrote:
Freakzilla wrote:Ever seen the movie Never Cry Wolf? A biologist is sent to the tundra to find out if wolves were responsible for dwindling carabu and discovers the wolves subsist only on mice. He doubts if a large mammal could live off just mice and experiments with the diet on himself.

I just had a visual image of you eating mice on crackers.
i've read Mowat's book but haven't seen the movie (which i'm assuming is loosely based on the book)

I haven't read it so I don't know how loose it is.

Post by **Omphalos** » 07 Jan 2009 16:57

Freakzilla wrote:
Baraka Bryan wrote:
Freakzilla wrote:Ever seen the movie Never Cry Wolf? A biologist is sent to the tundra to find out if wolves were responsible for dwindling carabu and discovers the wolves subsist only on mice. He doubts if a large mammal could live off just mice and experiments with the diet on himself.

I just had a visual image of you eating mice on crackers.
i've read Mowat's book but haven't seen the movie (which i'm assuming is loosely based on the book)
I haven't read it so I don't know how loose it is.

That's what she said.

Eyes High · Post by **Eyes High** » 08 Jan 2009 22:04

The largest animal was a doe. (White tail Deer)

The strangest was a bat. (Don't know the species)

SimonH · Post by **SimonH** » 08 Jan 2009 23:52

just a cat or two when I delivered pizzas.

I drove from one side of Aus to another and had a 7-8 foot emu (~300 pounds) walk out in front of my car as a 50m (150 foot) long truck overtook me. Luckily the truck driver used his horn and the emu ran off the road at the last minute.

No other close shaves. My friend drove into a large kangaroo at ~130km/hr and destroyed his car. Cut the kangaroo clean in half

. No people/surfboards or guitars hurt

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 09 Jan 2009 00:11

Run-me-kangaroo-down sport?

SimonH · Post by **SimonH** » 09 Jan 2009 00:20

SandChigger wrote:Run-me-kangaroo-down sport?

one day I'll find that man without a pun ...

(what was the quote again? Duke Leto to Gurney...)

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 09 Jan 2009 06:43

"Someday I'll catch that man without a quotation and he'll look undressed," the Duke said.

On mousing:

A couple of summers back I got home to discover that a family of mice had taken up residence during my absence. One of my cousins told me about those new (to me at the time) mouse traps like big plastic clothes pins, that basically break the neck or smother the little suckers? Anyway, I got three traps and over the course of the next week caught about 20 mice.

Of the horde (herd?), two were still alive when I found them. Really didn't know what to do with the first one. Considered dropping it into a bag and beating it with something, but eventually settled on dropping the trap, mouse and all into a coffee can full of water.

Took longer to drown than I anticipated.