Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Biggest possum I ever saw

Live Action !!! 😀

The eat ticks like crazy. I would think a tick is too small to "hunt".

Our German Shepherd X St. Bernard, Gus, was a giant of a dog, well over 100#. He would patrol the farmstead and bring us the carcasses of any critters caught trespassing. Coons and ‘possums were the most common but badgers, skunks and coyotes were all in the mix too. One night I came home from an appointment about 1:00 a.m. and there was the biggest ‘possum I’d ever seen lying on the sidewalk. I took the toe of my boot and flipped him off the walk. He was playing dead and was unhappy with the rough treatment Gus had given him. He hissed and lunged at me with his mouth open…looked like a freaking crocodile coming at me. I kicked him, with little noticeable effect, and he just waddled away. I doubt he was 20# but he was 10-15#.
Got a small black one that lives in the hollow willow down by the creek. On warm days, like today, he’ll come out and eat birdseed in the middle of the day. I’m afraid our resident eagle is going to catch him doing that but I don’t know if eagles or anything for that matter eats ‘possums?

I’ll take a nocturnal possum instead of a tick any day. A friend of ours is going through hell with a full lown case of Lymes. Our possum takes a whole apple in his mouth and packs it off to under the neighbors deck. He’s more useful around here than the deer chewing on the shrubby.

I read a article years ago that said that opossum size varies by amount of nutrition, sounds like cat food might be a good nutritional supplement! Lol

When I lived in SE Texas, I heard my little wife screaming on the back porch to "let me in"! My twin girls were just big enough toddlers then to have learned how to lock the door knob. They had locked her out when she went into an out building. Upon her return just a s she tried the doorknob, she spotted/heard a big hissing possum on the same porch corner (enclosed back porch) Scared her so bad she didn't think of back tracking, ha. I ran, let her in, saw the possum and closed the door quickly. Ran and got my 357 I kept loaded with snake shot, and shot him several times in the head. I had to get almost touching before it penetrated skull. He was so heavy his tail made a "pop" sound when I lifted him. Huge. My neighbor came to the fence, heard the screams, shooting, said "That's the thief that's been killing my chickens"! So yeah, nutrition helps.

I don't know how to post a link to articles. There is an article by Ken Perrotte, entitled "New Study Says Possums Don't Like Eating Ticks", updated Jan 5, 2022. Perhaps someone more technologically capable than me would be kind enough to post it.

My take on possums has always been to shoot them. I have my doubts that they actually eat many ticks at all. I've never watched a possum for any period of time and thought that it looked like it was hunting ticks, or any other insect. They do eat turkey eggs and partridge eggs. Turkeys eat a lot of insects, including ticks. Just spend a little time watching them. Every egg that a possum eats is one less that can turn into a tick eating bird. I'd rather watch turkeys in my yard and around the pond and food plots than possums.

Sons a bitches is hell on chickens

Bang!

Osky

There are more reasons to get rid of 'em than to keep 'em around. And BGG's is the main reason.

I haven't seen any down this way, but previous experience/understanding is that a big mature male may weigh as much as 14 pounds, and maybe a bit more. If yours goes over 20 pounds, that is a considerable percentage above the norm. As some here have noted, easy/rich food sources can account for the greater weight, but how much?

Yep, all the guys I worked with from East Texas were coon hunting nuts, they all carried coon dicks around to pick there teeth, to get a rise out of the city boys and young hires 😂, any way they would throw a big bore coon in with a possum and bet what would win, said coon never did. This was a long time ago.

As a kid I raised meat rabbits.

Dad and I were in a friend's barn, measuring oats to buy. (He wasn't home, we paid
him whenever we saw him.) Dad saw a flash, as I brained a Grinnin' Fool with
the grain shovel.

It was a dandy, earned his living stealing Tom's cat food.
He and Dad lied to me for years, telling me it was his kids pet.


My feelings for them haven't changed, unfortunately I can't shoot here at this
house. A shovel still works!😉😉😉

Possums are like velcro to a tick. As they meander they accumulate a bunch of the freeloaders , Possums then do what a good dog will and preen and pick themselves clean. I have no hard evidence but this was explained to me by a person of high regard.

As kids we would wait until sundown and catch them by the tail. put them in a dry cow tank till we had a half dozen or so, then let em go. The hay mow was like a motel for them.

I used to catch a bunch of them trapping. 2 or 3 dollars a piece. Some days I would catch 5 or 6. Minimum wage was 2.35 an hour. Did it after school.

As far as eatin' quality. Twas 'splained to me that if you ran them through the dishwasher first and then fed them corn for a week to clean them out that they made pretty fine eating.

'course that fella was from Tennessee and had a neffy named Jethro so he mighta been fibbin'

This. They die.

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Good stuff

Not if it's digging into yer nuts.