Never seen one this color... don't normally shoot them but he was tearing up a prized pasture:

Thats pretty nifty there.

You going to have it mounted?

That is quite a critter. Cool!

evil [bleep].....tend to leave them alone unless someone wants them out of their cow pasture......or the mean SOB's tree me in the back of my truck.....

Somebody on taxidermy.net might be interested in the pelt if you are not...

depending on what you shot him with, that is...

nice looking critter

It looks like he didnt give a chit

Honey Badger life cycle

http://youtu.be/4r7wHMg5Yjg

Honey Badger don't give a schit.

Now you're going to be dealing with out of control cobra populations.

Brad, what did you get him with?

That would be a cool mount!

That thing looks PRIME. If he's still in good shape I'd sell him on taxidermy.net -- Oughta bring $75 or so.

I love those little [bleep]. They aren't scared of anything. Got nothing against popping one when he needs it however.

toltecgriz;
I hope this finds you acceptably well this evening.

That is indeed a lovely colored hide on Brad's badger and I don't recall ever seeing one quite that nice before.

Though I believe I've told this one before, one badger encounter that I recall from Saskatchewan was the time I was heading down a rural dirt road with a 935 Versatile tractor with 60' of deep tillage cultivator plus an anhydrous ammonia tank in tow.

The 935 was a fair to middling large articulated 4WD tractor with 8 tires on it that were about 6' high and a couple feet wide. To say I took up the entire country road isn't an exaggeration.

So presently this badger scuttled up onto the road ahead of me and began to travel down it. As I approached in the tractor - and I had to slow down so I didn't run over it - it whirled around and snarling, took a couple quick steps towards the now stopped tractor.

As I sat there marveling at the extreme intestinal fortitude the tough little fellow possessed, he got bored bullying the tractor and I and wandered off back the way he was heading

Come to think of it, the only animal charge I've faced thus far was from a badger that I'd hit badly with a .22.

I hope you have a good rest of the week toltec.

Dwayne

Dwayne, see my reference to treeing me in the back of a truck......lil bastards dont take kindly to you getting between them and their hole and tend to take it personal like....they can absorb alot of lead if you dont hit them right and you just wind up pissing them off more.....

rattler;
I hope you and yours are doing well in our "late spring" conditions rattler.

As to being treed in a truck, I can see that happening without any provocation from one of the little beasties.

My personal theory is that God made them with their shorts a bit too small - thus the seemingly eternally cheery disposition.

I'd hit this one with a Stinger - in the head I'd thought, but of course you know the pitfalls of "thought"....

On the plus side I learned just how fast I could run a bolt gun when I need to that frosty Saskatchewan winter morning, though if I was the admitting kind, I'd admit it wasn't all that very far from my left felt pac boot when I hit him the 2nd time.

All the best to you and yours rattler, lets hope it warms up before fall gets here, no?

Regards,
Dwayne

things are doing ok here but i dont farm like Sam so what works for me doesnt necessarily work for him.....im just waiting for the river to slow down enough to give fishing a serious start, likely by next weekend or a lil after, Sam has more worries than i do with our spring weather.....

rattler;
While I realize you don't farm, my admittedly foggy memories of my Saskatchewan youth seem to recall one does get tired of the snow after seeing it for 7 consecutive months.

We should get out fishing some weekend pretty soon too, but it's been a little chilly and windy most days to sit on the water in our little rowboat.

"They" keep on predicting it's going to warm up, but more and more I believe that "they" look out the window just the same as the rest of us have to do.

Have a good week rattler and good luck with your spring fishing too.

Dwayne

ill fish in the rain, dont bug me we have had some days of sun, yesterday and today were sunny and in the 60's......low 60's but 60's just the same...

Last week I fixed a bunch of snow breaks in some barb wire fence. Walked up to a bad spot and here was a fresh badger hole about 6 feet away.

Circled and kept an eye out of that bastard....grin

Plan was to whack him with the fence stretcher and take off runnin'.

Sammer, 10/22. One shot and he was down. Must have clipped the spine as they're tougher than that. Dropped another that was the normal grey color.

Spent a marvelous afternoon eliminating gophers to boot...

Brad;
I meant to send out a thank you for posting the photo of that very pretty example of a prairie badger. As I mentioned, I don't believe I've ever seen one that color before.

There are a myriad of things that I miss from the flat lands, not the least being the first spring gopher shoot of the year. It's good to hear some folks are still keeping some of the grand traditions alive.

Thanks again and I hope you and yours have a good and safe week Brad.

Regards,
Dwayne

That is the furriest damn badger I have ever seen. You gotta get him stuffed Brad.

Gold fur to boot, must be one of Turner's badgers.....grin

Good plan, Sam. Sounds a lot like "Hold my beer and watch this" with similsr results. Video when it happens, please.

River slow down? If you have burbot in it, fishing is hot when you have to reel in to save your tackle from the ice flows coming down. Or so I learned on the Missouri and Knife Rivers in NoDak as a boy. Didn't get out (yet anyway) to nail any of those ugly SOB's on the Lower Noatak this spring, and probably won't, but next year.... Them things is good eating!

That is indeed a unique-looking Badge. I'd have it mounted...

I would at least have a rug made, I was debating a life size mount or a rug...the rug won! You have a very unique looking badger! Congrats!

i know that but my new fishing spot(this one does not require sliding down a 25 foot near vertical bank) is on a bit of a flat making shore fishing interesting until it drops some....ice has been gone for several weeks, its just high due to melt now as scenershooter's is upstream from me all his flood waters come my direction....

[quote=Brad]Never seen one this color... don't normally shoot them but he was tearing up a prized pasture:
If he was tearing up a pasture, he was after p-dogs that will do a lot more damage than a badger ever could. Badgers only dig holes. They don't eat grass.

I have only ever seen 2 live badgers in my life... About 30 road killed but only seen two. One was on a road with my grandpa, and I called the other one in.

They sure are pretty bastids and tough as nails. I had to pop this one twice with my 22-250. Very pretty in December/Janurary here in the desert (and make an awesome rug too!)

Nice rug Casey!

Looks to be about average size for our Montana bruins taken...grin

Dober

I though you had somehow run across one of these:

Pero, that was a big ole female for out here. Interesting to watch her come in. As soon as I put down the call to get the rifle ready she turned around to leave.

BTW, that rug was done by our own Rost495

Mathman: Yes, he had me going with the subject line too. Couldn't envision a true honey badger turning up in the wild.

At least "the wild" outside of Africa.

Used to release the ones that weren't prime. Put a cable around their neck and let them out of the trap and marched em over to the tailgate, got up on it and let em out. They would usually run about 50 feet, turn and snarl at you as if to say they can't be intimidated. They do have one of the prettiest of all furs, IMO, tough pelt too.

I saw a honey badger on some nature show do battle with a hollow log full of killer bees. It didn't quit until it ran off the bees and got the honey. True hardass attitude!

Thanks for stating the obvious.

If you'd read we shot gophers as well... actually in the 100's as well as two other Badgers.

Brad, you got it right when you said they can tear the hell out of a pasture...here's one I trapped on a big ranch near Ringling, Montana back in the mid 80's. The guy that owned this place gave me coyote trapping permission, only if I promised to trap as many badgers as I could first....it was worth it and by the end of February I had 28 badgers and 81 coyotes.



I did more shoveling the first couple weeks than setting traps...

Always amazed me how they could dig a stadium and seldom dig themselves out.

Good stuff there Pat!

That's a great way to put it.

Oh, there's SO a story there...

I hope you did something with that thing. I've only seen one and I regret being too cheap to have it mounted.

It started snowing about 10:00 am and I shot this thing a little after 1 o'clock. I felt like a sheep killing dog when I saw I had ruined his lunch.

couple actually.....i seem to have the rotten luck of getting between one and its hole on more than one occasion.....if tall weeds are involved, giving you no clear view of the whole process it sometimes takes yah a second to realize whats going on when your mid-piss

First time Ive seen a rattler in the snow...

The snake had about 2 feet of dirt on top of it before the badger got to it.

I've shot several of them out of self defense. I saw one in the bottom of a big canyon 200 yards away from me on the deer hunt. He saw me, turned and started running straight up the side of the canyon towards me. He was snarling and not happy. I hadn't done a thing to him.

At 20 yards, I chambered a round in the .30-06. I knew he was serious about getting his teeth into me. I shot him at 5 yards. The bullet entered the eye and exited out the bung hole. I had his pretty yellow hide tanned. I have had to do this a couple of times. They just don't back down to anything. They have a really testy attitude for sure, but are extremely pretty. Flinch

Hey Brad,
I thought the US F&W Service put those honey colored badgers on the endangered species list last year! Let's see, the statute of limitations run out in.............

I'd be heading straight to the taxidermist with it. If your not, send it to me.

Likewise! I did a double take to see if that's really what it was.

Very neat picture, I must say!

B8