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[chancers]

Last week I decided to hang a 2nd motion sensor in the yard to do some more late night critter pest control. Around 10pm one of the sensors goes off. I run to the window, turn on my night vision scope and see a coyote briskly running into the woods. It turns out he stole one of the dead squirrels I left under the motion sensor. That yote knows better than to eat the squirrel guts under the sensor (about 22 yards from my shooting window). Bummer, the yotes are onto my tactics.

I go to bed later and get woken up at 4:50 am by the motion sensor. I go to the window, stealthly open the window and see nothing under the sensor. But, as I scan the rest of the back yard, I see this little possum about 15 feet from the sensor. He's munching on something while his glowing beady eyes are looking in my direction. A 25 Predator pellet is loaded into the chamber and I send a 25 Predator to the varmint. The pellet hits between the eye and ear and the rat goes down. It is completely motionless. I wait a few seconds - still motionless. Normally I would put another send another pellet for a head shot. But, all I could see is the possums ass. So, what the heck, because I like the sound of that pellet thwacking varmint hide, I send another Predator. It hits the rat's butt and the rat slowly starts crawling into the bushes (and I lose sight of him). I figure he won't go far and I can pick him up in a few hours (for photo op).

So, I go to bed and within 20 minutes the other motion sensor goes off. I'm not sure what to expect in the new location. I open the window and look with the night scope and see nothing near the sensor. But, as I start looking more, I see an armadillo about 25 yards away near the base of a pecan tree. Holy cow! I have been waiting a long time to finally get a shot at one of these lawn wreckers. But, the problem is that the armadillo doesn't really stop moving - kind of aimlessly moving away from me. In a few seconds the dillo would be out of sight. So I decided to take an off-angled center mass shot on the moving dillo. The 25 Predator hits the dillo shell (abdomen/chest region) with a loud THUD. The dillo does this running jump (about 4 feet in the air) and does 2-3 somersaults before hitting the ground. Then, it starts tearing right towards me at top speed and just about 12 feet before my window it takes a quick turn around the side of the house and into the woods. Boy, if that were a boar and if I were outside, I'd probably would have been castrated by the animal.

The next morning I go out back to look for the possum carcass and, of course, it's gone. Crap. No photo op. This is the second possum that got away (same scenario).