Yesterday's Weapons Forums

Was talking to wife about hunting a few days ago, and she sort of hinted that she wanted some of these:



It's a Porcupine, and as a rough guess before field dressing, about 12 Lbs. Taken with the Artemis pumper .22 cal. air rifle pictured. About 15 yds, 16 gr. Polymag Predators, 640-650 FPS.

They are thick skulled. First 2 shots were head shots, and both went where they were placed~ in the right ear. Both exited the left ear without contacting the brain. Porcupine brains are tiny in relation to head size... That same ear shot on rabbits with the air rifle drops them instantly with zero flop....

First shot on the upper vitals collapsed the right lung, and exited through the left rear foot. Second vitals shot collapsed the left lung, and cut the heart. That was the finisher. I think I may have been somewhat under-gunned with the air rifle. I will use the 52 on these in the future, and likely it will be an easier job on them.

Lookin forward to eating this. Wife's gonna do it up in the slow cooker with and equal weight of salt pork....

Skinning is an interesting exercise in caution. Wonder how these manage to propagate themselves with so many razor sharp quills

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

Do you save the quills for native artwork?

My main experience with them is that one person can't get a good photo of one - they are very quick to keep their butt toward perceived danger.

They also like cookies. SW

I had to lower my silhouette, and wait a bit for a side profile for the ear shots. Took my standard kneeling shot position, and simply waited for the little pig to turn. Apparently they don't see all that well, but are quite attuned to detecting motion and sound....

We spent a good couple of hours pulling quills large enough to be made into jewelry. I guess most of them will end up as the basis for earrings. One of wife's cousins will be doing the work.

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

i like that the quills are being used , ive always found them interesting , only time we found a dead one as kids we used the quills as bobbers for panfish , that one looks black - ours here are gray/brown , i know as i go north the squirrels go black , ours are gray , the ones in my home state of iowa are yellow/brown , so i suspect that to be the reason , i love us being an international community so we get things from other countries and continents ,

The quills pull quite easily.
I think dishwater gloves would be an improvement over the bare fingers thing we did.
The flavour of them is sort of rabbit, except rabbitier...
A 1/4 lb of salt pork added in the slow cooker seems to help a lot.
There's a bit more meat on the frame compared to a rabbit as well.

Regards,

Doc Sharptail