Muzzleloading for groundhogs

[musketman]

Keep your hunting skills sharp throughout the (hopefully soon) summer by muzzleloading for groundhogs...

I have taken many groundhogs (a.k.a. whistle pigs, pasture poodles, ground grizzlies) with the ol' smokepoles.

My favorite load with my .58 cal Zouave is a .560 diameter, 260 grain round ball w/.015 pillow tick patch lubed with Crisco on top of 70 grains of FFg...

This gives me 1077 fps and bullet energy of 376 Ft/lps at 100 yards, more than enough for the wild groundhogs on North East Ohio...

Let's also remember that, as groundhogs are hunted in the summer around hay fields, muzzleloaders could set the farmers fields on fire.

(Flintlocks and dry hay)

 

[Curry Mosher]

In this area of Pennsylvania, the early settlers asked the Indians what those small brown ground-living rodents were called. The Indians replied "Wujak", which the settlers immediately corrupted into "Woodchuck". Where the "groundhog" name came from is anyone's guess. The "whistling marmot" as the creature is more properly known, lived mainly in the forests, excavating holes under trees and rocks for their abodes. When the settlers cleard the forests, the marmots moved into the open fields and there they have thrived ever since.