WOODCHUCKS, CAMERAS, RIFLES 
U NLESS you have shot the wood¬ 
chuck with both rifle and cam¬ 
era you have missed a lot of fun 
and experience, and also the knowledge 
of how easy it is for a colony of edu¬ 
cated ground-hogs to make a person feel 
foolish. Nevertheless, the sport is well 
worth the time and trouble, and once 
you try you will be sure to go again. 
There will be plenty of instances, 
particularly while using the camera, 
when you will end an hours’ careful 
stalking by seeing a red flag suddenly 
dive down a hole. But this is a part 
of the game—that is easily forgotten 
after you have made a couple of un¬ 
usually successful long-range shots or 
have taken a couple of photographs, 
the like of which you may get only 
once or twice in a lifetime. 
And then there will be funny inci¬ 
dents; these you will remember best 
because they will usually be entirely 
at your own expense, but you will sel¬ 
dom appreciate them fully until you 
have had plenty of opportunity to con¬ 
sider all of the details. 
The most laughable experience I ever 
had in “chuck” shooting occurred one 
evening while carrying a twelve-pound 
Graflex camera, and a very heavy dead 
“hog” in one hand and a sporting 
Springfield in the other. I had just 
climbed to the top of a bank and while 
•By C. S. LANDIS 
standing in knee-high weeds looking 
out over a clover-covered meadow—a 
favorite feeding ground—I saw a very 
wild-looking chuck poised on top of a 
den about 100 yards away. He was 
apparently taking a last frightened 
look at the odd-looking object that was 
puffing up the bank. I knew that if 
I straightened up for a steady off-hand 
shot the chuck would dive in before I 
could fire, and if I dropped the camera 
and “hog” and sat down to shoot I 
would land on my neck in the gutter 
at the foot of the bank. And so I tried 
it kneeling, or partly so, and as that 
is the most unsteady of all the shoot¬ 
ing positions for me, the 170-grain 
bullet struck just far enough beneath 
Mr. Chuck to knock him about six feet 
in the air and ten feet farther down 
the bank where he landed head first 
exactly in the mouth of another den. 
He stuck his head out of the hole, gave 
one shrill, angry whistle and dove in— 
as much as to say, “Ya’ah, that for 
you!” I would have traded my rifle 
for a movie film of that little tableau. 
Chuck shooting is fine or poor for 
exactly the same reasons that trout 
fishing is either good or no good. In 
the first place, there must be enough 
“chucks” about to make it worth while; 
and second, they must be hungry or 
else have some other good reason for 
making their presence visible. And 
then they must be reasonably wild to 
be worth hunting, but usually this is 
the last of the chuck hunter’s troubles. 
If there is such a thing as a “fool¬ 
ish” chuck in a locality where they 
have been shot at pretty steadily for 
several years, it is usually a silly little 
flapper whose mamma didn’t know she 
was out. And generally this type 
doesn’t live long enough to transmit 
such foolishness to the rest of the 
woodchuck race. Those that survive 
do so by using their wits and by learn¬ 
ing the exact range at which they are 
safe. Woodchuck hunting, therefore, 
seldom lacks the thrills that come with 
spectacular, long-range rifle shooting. 
The resounding “thwack” of a high- 
power bullet and the wild waving of 
the stubby tail as the chuck goes down 
one hundred or occasionally even two 
hundred yards away, are the details 
that bring delight to the seasoned rifle¬ 
men. 
The chuck is probably the hardest 
animal to kill, in proportion to its size, 
of any animal in North America. This 
makes it almost obligatory to use a 
bullet that will fully expand or ex¬ 
plode as soon as it strikes. The hide 
of a chuck is extremely tough and hard 
to penetrate with either bullet or knife 
blade, and as the body is soft and 
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