What's YOUR least favorite VARMINT?

[Rudi]

Cormorants.. by and far cormorants. Only good cormorant is a dead cormorant. Now ifn it is at the seashore.. fine, fill yer boots.. but when they come inland and get into my pond.. I see and I just wanna go get the . 22 and blow that thing right out of the water.

Pretty much anything else can do what it pleases. We have white tailed deer in the back 20 and moose. We have coyotes, great owls, harriers, hawks, peregrines and the ocassional bald eagle comes for a visit. We get blue herons, Canada geese, half a dozen varieties of ducks, we have gophers, muskrat, some kind of martin/weasel ocassionaly and we get our fair share of raccoons, skunks, wild rabbits and hares (yes virginia, there is a difference) and all kinds of fowl including about 3 dozen pheasants.

But let me see a cormorant and I go right off me rocker...

Great Cormorant (pic courtesy Wikipedia)

[Jim Roy]

My least favorite is moles, moles, moles and moles.

[moparado]

Well the first on the list is a coin toss as to whether its the big rat moles or deers! The coin toss came up moles, so here's my list in decending order.

1.) Rat moles These things out here get as big as a small cat, make large foot high three foot diameter mounds and are just about impossible to get rid of. The only way i've had some success is to open a freshly dug tunnel, wait patiently for the thing to stick its head out or start re-sealing its tunnel and let it have a blast from my ol 12 ga. side by side.

2.) Deers, had three deer - car encounters in the last three years, need i say more.

3.) The ordinary run of the mill mouse mole, keep tearing up my lawn.

4.) Mice, get into my tractors and pickup which i keep in the barn not to mention the dam nests they make in my tool cabinets.

Though not considered varmints in the true sense of the word:
5.) Biting black and deer flies

6.) Yellow Jackets, annoying as hell this time of year.

7.) Oak worms, in order to keep my big Oak forest healthy i gotta spray the saplings this time of year. Those dam things will devour every single leaf on a tree!

8.) Ticks, my dogs and occassionally myself get loaded with em

-Ken

[1cubmaster]

This spring a farmer neighbor helped me get rid of wood chucks,we had a 4inch hose hooked to the back of his 6300 gallon manure spreader and flooded them out of their holes to my 2 boys and their cousins with 22s and 410 shotguns,was a great time too. But now I have a mink or some type of weasle killing my chickens,He wont go near a haveahart trap,dont know how to get rid of him. When we flooded wood chucks we also,had skunks,rats and a posom come out of the same holes.Mike

[bob in CT]

I had a weasel in my house last night. My wife thought it was cute. I just wanted it out. The cat brings critters in and lets them go. Usually mice, once in a while a snake or bird. Mice are caught with a coffee can, I just pick up the snakes and birds I snag with a towel. Chipmunks are herded out the door after I "funnel" them with some big pieces of cardboard to block off sections of the house. That is a project. I used the same technique for the weasel last night. I am surprised my cat got the jump on a weasel. I wouldn't want to tangle with one. They are one tough little critter.

One of my other cats brought in about ten snakes in one day. They must have been all coming out of their winter den. My wife was home alone and they were everywhere. She almost sat on one curled up on her office chair. That darn cat. I miss her.

[smigelski]

ground hogs are number 1 and deer are number 2.
I think they work together to cause me stress.
But I have trapped 8 ground hogs in the past 6 days and only use 1 trap.
Deer season starts in a few weeks so I will be enjoying a deer steak on the grill looking out at the fields they devastated

[wrhayes]

SNAKES - Big, small, dead or alive!!!

[Dennis]

Worst season for mud daubers I've seen around here this year. Attached picture is one of the largest (and first I've ever seen like this) nests that was in the bottom of my old unused BBQ grill. It was so heavy, it broke off the side of the grill and fell into the bottom pit.

My wife loved it and made me keep it in a jar Go figure

Attachments

Cliff Dwelling Wasps?

[Mr E]

Dennis, as many mud daubers nests as I've seen, I have never seen one like this!

[bob in CT]

Dennis,

That nest looks like Taos Pueblo Impressive.

[rickguns]

Coyotes, even saw a wolf about a month ago. Came within 15 yds of me. Shocked the heck out of both of us!

[daddydip]

should of said varmint"S" rats are number one on my list, destructive 's second would be any of the ones that attack the garden moles,groundhogs,and coons.

[Lt.Mike]

Worst season for mud daubers I've seen around here this year. Attached picture is one of the largest (and first I've ever seen like this) nests that was in the bottom of my old unused BBQ grill. It was so heavy, it broke off the side of the grill and fell into the bottom pit.

My wife loved it and made me keep it in a jar Go figure

Ever busted open a mud daubers nest? I get them on my front porch so I hosed them off once. They are filled with paralized spiders that feed the young wasps! I dislike spiders more than the mud daubers so they can stay now.
(can't remeber a mud dauber ever causing me any harm)

As for my least favorite varment...we have skunks, rabbits, racoons, opossum, and chimunks that do no harm. Deer munch my hostas to the ground, fox, coyotes, and my neighbors dogs kill my chickens if I forget to lock them in at night. Moles rip the heck out of my lawn for the grubs which I have to treat it for.

But there are two varments that really get me fired up

Comming in second are the fat woodchucks that will ruin weeks of work in my garden eating it all in one day.
I used to trap them with a havahart trap and drive them far off. 20 woodchucks and 3 years later it was clear this wasn't working. I resorted to throwing clorine pool tabs down the holes (the tabs about knocked me out once so I figured it'd work on them) and shooting them if they were in the garden (which has a fence around it and is buried into the ground, the damned things climb who knew?)

Ok my top #1 blood pressure raising varment are squrrels!
I've got pear peach and apple trees on my property that I didn't get any fruit from last year because they either robbed them or shook the fruit off the tree before it was ripe. Ahhhhhhhhhh I about lost my mind with them.
I once used to trap them too but 45 squrrels relocated in a two month period made me throw up the white flag.
Ah, but that was at my old house that was in a neighborhood.
I live rural now... can you say BANG, BANG, BANG! Anyone got any good squrrel recipes ?
Mike.
PS - You can call PETA on me if you want, thats Ok because I'm a memeber too.
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PETA= People eating tasty animals!

[rickguns]

possums, they just plain ugly!

[grumpy]

Neighbor. Grump