Although we had lots of cats around on the farm, there were also lots of rats. We saw them mostly in the dairy portion of the barn.
The floor of the barn where the cattle were milked was concrete with rows of stanchions to hold the cow’s neck. There were two rows running east and west and another row running north and south. The ceiling was quite low with hand-hewn beams supporting the hay mows in the second story. Manure gutters ran about five feet behind the stanchions to catch the cow manure in the winter. In front of the stanchions were water bowls for each cow and u-shaped mangers about a foot in diameter where the feed and hay was placed for the cows to eat.
The barn was quite old and had suffered lots of heaving underneath that had split the concrete in several places, and there were several large and deep cracks in the mangers on the south side of the barn. We would often see large rats come out of these cracks to feed on the dairy ration and hay we fed the cows.
We also had a 30-30 Savage, bolt-action, clip fed rifle that my father had bought to jack deer during the very lean years of the early 1950s. I can remember Dad shooting at several deer from the front porch but can only remember bagging one doe that we butchered and ate. (We ground up most of the venison to make deer burger to disguise it in case a game warden came around but that never happened. (When I think about it now, I’m sure the wardens would have recognized it in a heart beat.)
Barry Taylor’s Dad, Clifford Taylor, who ran a general store in Franklinton, NY, jacked a lot of deer at night with a Mossberg .22 semi-automatic and sold the venison to someone who sold it in New York City. (Jacklighters usually used .22s because they were quietest rifle that could also kill a deer with a couple of quick shots to the head without damaging any meat. It was usually an easy shot because the deer were transfixed by the bright beam of a spot-light or “jacklight”, the hunters carried.”
One time Barry, took me up into the woods across “The Fly” as we called it, in Franklinton, NY. and into a closed lean-to type structure that he, his brother Glenn, and his Franklinton buddies had made of saplings and scrap lumber. The walls and floors were covered with deer hides. The floor included several layers of hides for sitting and lounging and was quite the kid’s rustic hangout. That was my first complete, irrefutable confirmation that a thriving, often-rumoured deer jacking business was going on and that my Uncle Clifford was involved deeply in it.
( I just now learned that my whole family has been mispronouncing the name for years and that it was actually a “vly” or “vlaie”: “A swamp or morass; a shallow pond; a depression with water in it in the rainy season, but dry at other times.” It’s on Google Maps as The Franklinton Vlaie, much to my surprise.)
Anyway, one day I got the bright idea of shooting some rats with the 30-30. I went to the barn and set up about 10 feet away from one of the large cracks where we had seen rats scurrying around. It must have been in the summertime because all the cows were out and the barn was empty. I got some dairy ration and put some piles around the crack in the floor and went back to the rifle and waited. (By the way: We used dairy ration as a kind of snack when we were kids. It’s molasses content made it semi-sweet, crunchy and fibrous and we ate it by grabbing a fist full and licking the feed that extended from the top of our fists. Probably all the rat and bird feces in it contributed to our immune system, “Have to heat a peck of dirt before you die”, and all that.)
After a few minutes, a large rat carefully nosed out of the hole, sniffed around a bit, then emerged completely to eat the piles of grain. Very slowly, I drew a bead, fired and hit the rat dead center.
A 30-30 is a pretty powerful rifle and in a confined, walled space with concrete flooring and low ceilings, the shot reverberated like a cannon shot. It was much louder than I expected because we usually only fired it outside. I cringed from the unexpected loudness of the sound and also from the whining ricochet of the bullet as it went cleanly through the rat with out disintegrating or expanding and bounced off the concrete several times.
I also recalled a sharp ringing sound as the bullet bounced off of some metal that seemed uncomfortably close. I sat there for a few minutes looking at the dead rat and recovering from the shock. I got up, picked up the rat and threw it out a small back door of the barn and into the manure pile
And that was the last time I hunted rats with a 30-30.
The floor of the barn where the cattle were milked was concrete with rows of stanchions to hold the cow’s neck. There were two rows running east and west and another row running north and south. The ceiling was quite low with hand-hewn beams supporting the hay mows in the second story. Manure gutters ran about five feet behind the stanchions to catch the cow manure in the winter. In front of the stanchions were water bowls for each cow and u-shaped mangers about a foot in diameter where the feed and hay was placed for the cows to eat.
The barn was quite old and had suffered lots of heaving underneath that had split the concrete in several places, and there were several large and deep cracks in the mangers on the south side of the barn. We would often see large rats come out of these cracks to feed on the dairy ration and hay we fed the cows.
We also had a 30-30 Savage, bolt-action, clip fed rifle that my father had bought to jack deer during the very lean years of the early 1950s. I can remember Dad shooting at several deer from the front porch but can only remember bagging one doe that we butchered and ate. (We ground up most of the venison to make deer burger to disguise it in case a game warden came around but that never happened. (When I think about it now, I’m sure the wardens would have recognized it in a heart beat.)
Barry Taylor’s Dad, Clifford Taylor, who ran a general store in Franklinton, NY, jacked a lot of deer at night with a Mossberg .22 semi-automatic and sold the venison to someone who sold it in New York City. (Jacklighters usually used .22s because they were quietest rifle that could also kill a deer with a couple of quick shots to the head without damaging any meat. It was usually an easy shot because the deer were transfixed by the bright beam of a spot-light or “jacklight”, the hunters carried.”
One time Barry, took me up into the woods across “The Fly” as we called it, in Franklinton, NY. and into a closed lean-to type structure that he, his brother Glenn, and his Franklinton buddies had made of saplings and scrap lumber. The walls and floors were covered with deer hides. The floor included several layers of hides for sitting and lounging and was quite the kid’s rustic hangout. That was my first complete, irrefutable confirmation that a thriving, often-rumoured deer jacking business was going on and that my Uncle Clifford was involved deeply in it.
( I just now learned that my whole family has been mispronouncing the name for years and that it was actually a “vly” or “vlaie”: “A swamp or morass; a shallow pond; a depression with water in it in the rainy season, but dry at other times.” It’s on Google Maps as The Franklinton Vlaie, much to my surprise.)
Anyway, one day I got the bright idea of shooting some rats with the 30-30. I went to the barn and set up about 10 feet away from one of the large cracks where we had seen rats scurrying around. It must have been in the summertime because all the cows were out and the barn was empty. I got some dairy ration and put some piles around the crack in the floor and went back to the rifle and waited. (By the way: We used dairy ration as a kind of snack when we were kids. It’s molasses content made it semi-sweet, crunchy and fibrous and we ate it by grabbing a fist full and licking the feed that extended from the top of our fists. Probably all the rat and bird feces in it contributed to our immune system, “Have to heat a peck of dirt before you die”, and all that.)
After a few minutes, a large rat carefully nosed out of the hole, sniffed around a bit, then emerged completely to eat the piles of grain. Very slowly, I drew a bead, fired and hit the rat dead center.
A 30-30 is a pretty powerful rifle and in a confined, walled space with concrete flooring and low ceilings, the shot reverberated like a cannon shot. It was much louder than I expected because we usually only fired it outside. I cringed from the unexpected loudness of the sound and also from the whining ricochet of the bullet as it went cleanly through the rat with out disintegrating or expanding and bounced off the concrete several times.
I also recalled a sharp ringing sound as the bullet bounced off of some metal that seemed uncomfortably close. I sat there for a few minutes looking at the dead rat and recovering from the shock. I got up, picked up the rat and threw it out a small back door of the barn and into the manure pile
And that was the last time I hunted rats with a 30-30.
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