Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles New skunk fact.

Skunks with extra white have extra strong smelling power. But one 22 unleashes its power.

That stinks!

The other day I went to visit my old buddy, O.T. at the mower shop. O.T. had just gotten in from turkey hunting. I asked him if he'd had any luck. He said he had not seen any gobblers, but he'd managed to shoot a skunk and a grey fox. They had both come to his tree yelping.

"Why did you shoot the skunk?" I asked.

"Oh, he was sneaking up on the skunk, fixin' to eat him." said O.T.

"So why did you shoot the skunk?"

"I just don't like skunks." he replied.

Years ago while driving home from work late one night I saw a momma skunk with several babies in the middle of the road directly ahead of my vehicle. Momma skunk was obviously having a difficult time herding all her cluster of little ones in the same direction at the same time.

I remembered that my wife had mentioned several times that she would like to have a baby skunk to raise so of course I thought here is my big chance.

Apparently momma skunks will spray their babies if they feel they are threatened and one smells every bit as bad as three.

End of story - I drove on home with all windows cranked open and without any baby skunks.

Gotta ask: what's the source of this little bit of science? Sounds more like folklore to me.

Took a long time for me to figure out how to shoot one without it spraying, and even then, it was an OLD trapper that clued me: mild 22 rim, from a distance, and ribs/paunch....will often (not always) make skunk think something 'bit' them or such, and they'll die slowly, w/no reflex spray. Works way better than head shots. Fact. Cruel or stinky, your choice.

Have heard both ways of doing it. Never wanted one bad enough to find out. Figure if I ever really want one, will just buy one already tanned and save the drama...

I have found no rule that works. Most times they spray. This one went down on his side, started to raise his leg but just moved it a little and stopped. That was it. But it did stink. Used one shot, 22lr at about 40 yards.

Once when I was young and dumb (not old and dumb like I am now), I took a Hail Mary shot at a pheasant at around 150 yards with a .243. Took its head clean off. As visions of a pheasant dinner danced in my head, a skunk ran out of the bushes and grabbed the bird. Naturally I swung on it and splattered him across the landscape. When I got down there the stench was so terrible, and the bird was covered with skunk slime so badly, that I turned my back on the whole idea.

Makes ya wonder if skunk turds stink worse than any other turds.

Great question!

While young and dumb, and now exhibiting such by admitting as much, I too encountered the goo. Had myself a bit of a trap line and one afternoon while checking for success found myself in quite a mess, there being lil' Pepe LePew. This was my first grown-up catch, I'd moved beyond mountain boomers, the occasional weasel in their tunnels and such, thus I applied what I knew. Rather than take a crack with the Woodsman and make a racket, thought I, just one whack with my 'Slugger will do. So I schemed up a plan and preceded with an alder pole to pin him, then I'd just finish him... My plan failed fast as I was hit with a blast - straight to the face - eyes in distress - direct from his ass, and the burning ensued. I managed to flush it out in the creek, the sting hasn't fully gone away I think, and then took out my revenge, avoiding the 22 to the end. It was quite a stench, not a pleasant skunkyness one may endure, a lesson that lingered for days and a fond memory now shared with you

I had one chase me across a field once during bow season! He was hell bent on getting I ran a pretty long ways before he decided it wasn't worth it.

Some years ago a co-worker's nephew was backpacking when he found an old cabin and decided to spend the night in it. During the night a skunk wandered in and he shot it with his 357 Mag. He later burned his high grade down sleeping bag.

How many other turds have you sampled?

I didn't mention taste, only smell.

I had my son laughing so hard he was nearly crying this past hunting season...

Took him on one of Mulie Mike's mgmt buck hunts out in Sonora. While sitting in a blind one afternoon trying to get a mature doe for meat (had already shot a buck that morning, I see something white as can be about 150yds upwind. It keeps moving our way, so I take a look thru the binos... SKUNK! Keeps coming straight at us! Finally at about 50yds I scramble out of the blind, tripping, etc. and start throwing rocks at it trying to scare it off. Didn't want to shoot it as we were still trying to get a doe, but think the commotion I ended up causing was probably just as bad... Haha!

They have to arch their back to spray. If you break their back, they die quickly, without spraying. I have had the best luck using a 12 gauge with #4 buck from 10-15 yards away. Every now and then, a pellet won't hit the spine and they will spray a little in their death spasm, so stay upwind--but they do die quickly!

I will add that I use an Ithaca Deer Slayer with a cylinder choked barrel. An improved cylinder might be more effective.

When I was a teenager I did some trapping and one morning I caught a large skunk and shot it with a 22 rifle and left it for after school to remove. It was a cold windy day and the trap set was in a small ravine picked up the trap with skunk still in it and opened the jaws and allowed it to drop on the ground. The smell was strong and the wind seemed to be placing it everywhere. I felt a little light headed, the smell was that strong. Went back a day or so later and the skunk was gone, most likely a fox?

I had several skunks as pets while growing up. Only had one descented. They use to sleep in the ash bin beneath the coal furnace. You had to be careful to get them out in the morning before you used the shaker to drop all the ashes. When I lived in New Mexico, I irrigated off cement ditch that was higher than the field. So when you wanted to water a border, you opened the gate. Skunks would always be up in that pipe and they got rolled out with slug of water. You didn't want to mess with them as they were sorely pi$$ed. The neighbor would run up behind them grab them by the tail and swing them around until he got near fence post to bash them on. I saw him do it 3-4 times, but was never brave enough to try it myself. Drowning works good if you get them in liver trap as long as they Don't see you, or bang the trapping the water tank.

I was bush hogging some 3-5 foot tall weeds on a small no cab tractor when I was in high school. Rand over and chopped up a family of skunks. Running them through a bush hog mower sure will make them spray.

But does it kill them?

When I was a teen, I used to trap muskrats, weasels, mink etc.

More than once I caught a skunk or two. But I got lucky. Most all of them died and were frozen by the time I got to them the next day.

But, they all sprayed... I was sure grateful that they took care of adding a great cover scent to my trap line.



Jeff

I saw a blip in the last couple of days that the Israeli Defense Ministry had synthesized skunk scent for riot control purposes to replace the "in humane" tear gas.

Personally, I have used CS gas and it generally gets on the user. I will take on gas over skunk any day. (I have had skunk too).

Careful there,

Jack

There has been synthesized for years... used to have A and B bottles to mix a drop of each for hunting cover...

The skunk scent is chemically a mecaptain and is similar to but not the same as the stuff added to natural gas to make natural gas smellable. A company, Meiller Research using a A&M chemist Tex Isebell,in College Station TX first synahisized and marketed, Skunk Screen, the 2 part formulation of real skunk mercaptain.

Back in the late 80's and early 90's when deer archery season started up each fall you could pretty well count on one or more bow hunters bringing skunk cover scent to work and putting some in the forced air duct system that ran throughout the plant. Surprising how just a little bit can be so overwhelming.

Nothing like a fresh, full skunk spray. Back in my trapping days I caught them at times, mostly coon sets.

We would shoot them, then either leave them a bit or take them out and remake the set.

Just watch your dogs reaction when they smell road kill skunk during a drive. Canines enjoy and are curious about the smell.

In general, I don't like to kill skunks as they are an efficient insectivore and eat pounds of grasshoppers. However, when one invades the campground I have to do something about it and have found a shotgun to work best. What doesn't work is me trying to hit a running skunk with a 357 pistol while simultaneously trying to hold back an excited airdale.
A neighbor was telling me he had discovered how to get those skunks. He said he went out into the hayfield at night and there were always a bunch of skunks out eating grasshoppers and he could get them with the 12 gauge. I told him that was good and the last thing he wanted was skunks decimating his grasshopper crop. "Hadn't thought of it that way", he said. GD

Skunk eradication was a pure joy for my dad and he used the shoot-the-spin method to prevent spraying.

It was an optimization of minimizing spray and preventing them from getting back to the den under posts piles or buildings.

I use the deflate method in live traps.

The 12 ga buck shot at 25 foot range never seemed to prevent spray, but it put a smile on my face.

My daughter's dog has been sprayed twice by himself and he and I walked thru a rain mist where one had sprayed next to the house. I use a very strong flashlight to scan when we go out at night and shoot any skunks found. We have only had two so far this year.

Wife and I woke to noise in the wall tent a couple years back. When I switched on the flashlight there was a skunk looking at me from the foot of my sleeping bag. As it ventured to the back of the tent I reached out and unzipped the door so it could escape. We got by unscathed (thankfully our dog was deaf), but wife now insists on a sealed up and floored tent. No encounters yet, but she also refuses to sleep in any tent if we venture into grizzly country.

I don't blame her one bit...and if you don't think the same way you're about one beer short of a sixpack

From what I understand they do a fair job on quail and pheasant eggs also. If I had my druthers, it'd be the quail and pheasant population taking care of grasshoppers.

I don't doubt it. However, we have many skunks, many grouse, many turkeys (quail and pheasant don't live here). The skunks seem to spend most of their time digging for grubs and eating grasshoppers at night (although they occasionaly like to go for Mattie's dog food).
I can tolerate the skunks even though they occasionally make the dog smell bad. I can't tolerate porcupines because their defense mechanism is too costly. GD

Naw, most likely buzzards. Buzzards will literally eat anything they can get down. Dad was driving down the road one day and disturbed one off a roadkilled skunk, and it circled around and puked on his brand-new Ford pickup.
Dad headed for town, and the quarter car-wash. He spent about $5 trying to get the stench off his new pickup.

When I was in HS, we once caught a baby skunk and kept it for several days. Mild odor. Don't remember how it was disposed of - probably released in same area. Probably then died. Teenagers ain't too smart.

Then there was the scheme to get rich, trapping raccoons. Art Mortfedt had the traps, I had the car... the third or so time we got sent home from school for skunk smell, that plan kinda fell thru. I gave up trapping.

Far as I know, Art is still trapping, not in NoDak, but up on the south slope of the Brooks Range (no skunks!). We both wound up in Alaska a few years later, independently. It was about 30 years before I ran into him again at the Sourdough Cafe one morning in Fairbanks. He has been more adventuresome than I. He has a lodge/guides out of S. Slope of Brooks Range and has flown his light plane to both poles, goferred at S Pole research stations, and been on Antarctic meteorite recovery trip, etc..

He said he doesn't like to get south of the Alaska Range, unless its Antarctica. His wife taught for years in Manley Hot Springs, where I stage out of for my remote cabin down-river, but somehow we were never there at the same time.

You can google him, but he neglected the skunk part in there....

In Jr. College, I was home one weekend and took a long evening foot-hunt north of town (pop 400), only turning around near dark, some 5 miles out. It was pitch black with no moon or else an overcast by the time I was a mile or so from home, but I was following a high river-bank game/cow-trail by feel- no light. I literally could not see my hand held at arms length.

A step to the left and it dropped off, a step to the right I was in knee high grass. No problem. Been doing that trail for a decade.

Suddenly I heard a drumming sound right in front of me. Like, 2 feet in front of my toes. I bent way over to see, and there -2 feet from my eyes - was a skunk bore-sighted on me, tail arced over its back, back hunched, front legs furiously hammering the ground.

I took that to mean it wouldn't like the smell any more than I would.....

My respects, Mr. or Ms. skunk!

A year later I was in Alaska, where it is safer.