Thread: Shooting Possums in trees

About 3 years ago a group of tree huggers [five of them] asked if they could camp up in a tree on my property for the night. They all climbed a puriri tree and strapped themselves to it. By all accounts they had a wonderful night but one has to wonder how many other dip shits there are out there hugging trees at all hours of the night.

Originally Posted by Spook

About 3 years ago a group of tree huggers [five of them] asked if they could camp up in a tree on my property for the night. They all climbed a puriri tree and strapped themselves to it. By all accounts they had a wonderful night but one has to wonder how many other dip shits there are out there hugging trees at all hours of the night.

Yeap that's just odd! Can't see the point in doing that to be honest?! Definitely must have a few screws loose

Originally Posted by thomas

Yeap that's just odd! Can't see the point in doing that to be honest?! Definitely must have a few screws loose

Tree huggers have no loose screws...they have all fallen out.
Years ago at the Kakaho camping ground on the edge of Pureora Forest had a convention of them...there is a walkway [cant remember the name] and there were huggers hanging onto trees all over the place. We went for a wander on the track and couldn't believe what we saw and this was all in the dark...

I'd hug a tree with the right lady! I believe if you shoot vertical the spent projectile won't kill you? I've spent many a happy hour lying on my back on a clear blue day in the middle of no where trying to shoot hawks flying in thermals, never had a hit or swallow a spent projectile! Now low flying sea girls, that's a diff story, never swallow a projectile doing that either, I'm not lucky as I haven't won lotto Yet

That tree hugging sounds pretty messed up? lol. So they asked if they could spend the night in your tree by strapping themselves to it. What the hell is wrong with these people lol. This I must see haha

Originally Posted by Maca49

I'd hug a tree with the right lady! I believe if you shoot vertical the spent projectile won't kill you? I've spent many a happy hour lying on my back on a clear blue day in the middle of no where trying to shoot hawks flying in thermals, never had a hit or swallow a spent projectile! Now low flying sea girls, that's a diff story, never swallow a projectile doing that either, I'm not lucky as I haven't won lotto Yet

I do know that a .22 fired vertically comes back down close by...I used my .22 and a level to centre a hole through the ceiling and the roof for a log burner [when I lived in town]...lined it up with the level, popped a round off and then wandered outside to see if there was any reaction from the neighbours and to show nothing untoward was happening at my place...it seemed like forever before the projectile landed back on the roof.

That would be a very accurate placement of the rifle to achieve that, I've fired hundreds of round vertically and never heard one come back done, in fact as a young guy I doubted if they did come back down,now I know why I missed those hawks, every now and then you'd take some feathers from a wing

It'd be way cool to get a non self propelled projectile into space. Gerald Bull was working on it in earnest when he got topped by the Mossad... He was getting shells to an altitude of a couple hundred K's at one stage.

Originally Posted by Maca49

That would be a very accurate placement of the rifle to achieve that, I've fired hundreds of round vertically and never heard one come back done, in fact as a young guy I doubted if they did come back down,now I know why I missed those hawks, every now and then you'd take some feathers from a wing

Two things, the first...the hawks were not vertical to you...and secondly...you are a rotten shooter

Well you just got told Maca.

Happys gongs say different, but your right, not vert to the hawks, one degree off probably is 100 s metres off at a mile high, and no I'm not in that club either, I'm a white knuckle flyer!

a 223 aimed up depending on the angle will go a long way! - so will a 22 of course but a 223 will have more energy at the end of it (especially if still spinning (i.e. fired at 45 degrees or something (not tumbling down)

it may even go straight though the possum as well

Its about risk management - and that is a powerful round to be firing upish

Don't do it -

I used to catch BBs fired from my air pistol straight up, had to be a rather still day

>22 with suppresor&subs is my preferred method .12g is bloody effective(dad was a fan of it)but bloody messy.I nearly used .303 once when a big bugger who'd taken 5 shots in the head/chest area ,wouldnt come out of the tree-.303?yes in an emergency its a cracker chainsaw.in any case as we loaded her up he fell out minus his brainand other important bits. was also present when a possum was hit in the head at 18"range by both barrels of a 12g at once-said area of his body flew through mum&dads house roof and allegedly repainted our neighbours roofs further up the road.this was 1963-64 so attitudes were a tad different then!

I use a 12g 2 3/4 with number 7 - trap load - works very well - doesn't make a mess (unless really close) cheap - they look a bit like they have chicken pox or something