Jared vrs Skunk

Jared here, I think God loves Skunks more than opposums. After dinner I grabbed my father-in-law's 20 gauge shotgun and one shell as that's all you can load in at one time and headed out to the Have-no-Heart trap where the skunk waited. A little history on this Have-no-Heart trap, it's actually a live trap some call them Have-a-Heart trap and it belongs to a friend of mine at work and has seen it's fair share of raccoons being taken care of...he just shoots through the trap wire mesh and is pretty beat up but still works great. So I gave it the Have-no-Heart name. Typically I've used the .22 rifle when taking care of animals in the Have-no-Heart trap and so far it's all been nice large opposums. Well this was a smaller skunk and I thought the 20 gauge shotgun would be a better fit to make sure a fast kill as I wanted to avoid any spraying. So upon arriving at the Have-no-Heart trap I loaded the shotgun. This is a old shotgun, single shot, no safety just load cock the hammer and fire. So I loaded my shell took aim from ~10 feet back pulled the gun in good and tight squeezed the trigger and ...... click...nothing. hummmm... Well I opened the gun the firing pin hit the shell but the shell didn't go off. Did I mention it was an old gun and old ammo. So I went back inside to get the trusty .22 rifle. This Have-no-Heart trap is in a bunch of tall weeds so a long shot really isn't possible...I was going to have to get close ~10 feet. Read today a skunk can spray 6 to 9 feet away...not sure if that's exactly true or not but I certainly didn't want to find out. So after grabbing the .22 which again is the Father-in-laws on permanent loan similar to the shotgun. I headed back out going through my mind on trying to get teh best head shot possible so as to avoid any skunk action. Now mind you I've shot opposums with this same .22 in and out of the trap and farther away than where this skunk was located. Kimmy and I shot bottles with this .22 from 100 yards out. So I arrived back at the trap take aim with the .22 rifle zero in on his head...think about which way to dive incase of skunk activation. I get the skunk head in the cross hairs, I'm about 10 feet away and I squeeze the trigger and "BLAMMMM!!!" the skunk twitches like I might of hit him and I did not activate the skunk. Thinking he's gone I start to take a step and the little sucker moves around like he's still alive. Well I be he is still alive... I MISSED!!! HOW IN THE WORLD IS THAT POSSIBLE!!! I've got two strikes... so thinking I must of jerked the trigger, pretty sure I didn't I take aim again, this time a little farther back on him still going for the head shot. He moved around a little so I"ve got a bit better shot. I aim.... I pause.... I gently squeeze the trigger and "BLAM!!!!!" Boy this time he moves the tail starts to go up and he stops moving... and he's quiet... I start to take a step forward and the little sucker moves....he moves again... I MISSED AGAIN!!! OH THE AGONY!!! So putting the rifle down, I start to think.....three swings and three misses, I'M OUT!
God made animals for all sorts of purposes, some for eating some for fur, the opposum, I'm not sure what he's good for... figured God must love the skunk more.

So I went back into the house let Kimmy know what the funny story was and we needed to get moving on getting rid of this skunk. I was going to try and cover ithe trap with an old sheet and attempt to move the trap onto our trailer and take him for a ride. After all "THEY" say a good way to move a skunk is to cover it with a tarp or sheet before moving... of course "they" also say that if you don't get sprayed while transporting the skunk consider yourself lucky. Kimmy and the kids wanted to go along...I think they wanted a good laugh. So I went back to the trap and the victorious skunk hanging my head a bit low. Found a sheet and proceeded to get into position to throw the sheet over the trap. I worked my way around one eye on the skunk one eye on the trap one eye on the sheet and one eye on the grownd. Ok more eyes than I have but I was looking everywhere and really watching that skunk butt. I worked my way to one end of the trap so I was partially out of the view of the skunk. I gathered up the sheet and whoosh it sailed through the air and landed on the trap... wait... wait... sniff... sniff... GOOD no skunk activation. Ok so now what.... well that trap wasn't going to magically float to the trailer, so I grabbed the covered trap oh so carefully, slowly lifted the trap and began my walk to the trailer. that trap started to get mighty heavy after a few steps but I wasn't going to set it back down for a second... It was like carrying a box of old sweaty dinamite... don't even breath hard. I made it to the trailer and slowly placed the trap down onto another sheet which I wrapped around the trap just for double protection... wait...wait... sniff...sniff... GOOD no skunk activation. Now we all hopped in the vibe, window rolled up ac on and headed to the City Forest which was more than 5 miles away. Lots of mountain bikers at the City Forest...one more good obsitcle for them I figured. So down the road we went... we arrived at our destination, no other people were at this end of the forest. I unwrapped one of the sheets and lifted the covered trap oh so carefully. I think I was sweating more than the dinamite at this point and time. I walked out into the opening and placed the trap down on the edge of some spruce trees, lots of tall grass and good cover for the little weasel, yes Skunks are a member of the weasel family Mustiladea. So now the hard part, how to open the trap. Hummmmm... so I returned to the trailer to grap the second sheet. I placed this sheet over the end of the trap I was going to open...this trap has a door on each end. I pulled back one sheet so I could now reach down arms exposed and in the skunk firing lane. I opened the door ever so gently... now a delema...the trap is designed to close the doors if the animal walks over the plate in the middle of the trap. In order for the skunk to get to the door he was going to have to walk over this plate and shut the trap door again. So I backed off for a second and noodled on my predicament. I then had a brain spark. I rotated the trap 90 degrees so teh plate was on the wall now and the doors were on the side. Viola problem solved. I pulled the sheet off the opening and pulled the second sheed about half way off the trap. I moved back and waited... nothing moved... waited.... nothing moved. I walked out a ways from the trap... now mind you Kimmy is about 30 feet away and the kids in the car... Like I said I think they were along for a good laugh. I walked around so I could see in the trap...nothing moved. It was at this point I thought I might of actually killed it and went through all this rigamarow for nothing. I approached the trap and nothing moved... closer... <10>

So the Have-no-Heart trap is reset out in the tall weeds... Kimmy mentioned that the skunk we let go looked nothing like the one that surprised her a few days ago. Here we go again. So I'm pretty sure my aim is true, I'd hate to be covered in skunk gue. It seems that when it comes to skunks I'll just have to "let her go". What a fun adventure...I'm glad I missed. However, if I'd been sprayed in this grand adventure I'd be buying a new shotgun.

Your expert skunk transportation specialist

Jared