Lost my 2 oldest gold fish

[mcp]

Was sitting eating my lunch and looking out the window at the pond. Noticed some dark movement around the rocks. Stared harder and what do you think I saw: A MInk! He jumped down into water and started after my fish. I knew I definately had some big problems. Sorry folks but I knew what I had to do. I got my 22 cal. rifle out. Went outside by the pond. Next problem what if i shoot and miss. Shoot a hole in my liner or glance off one of rocks and hit my house or some one like me! Well he finally came out to where I had a good shot and I hit him. He fell in the water and there was blood all over in the water. Then he came out and got in to the rocks of pond. I thought i would have to tear every thing up to get him out but lucky he came out and was able to finish him. I hated to shoot him but he was after my koi. They have finallystarted coming out to feed but am missing my 2 oldest gold fish. They were just common fan tails from Wally World but had them 4 years and pretty good sized. They could not swim as fast as koi so were easy picking for the mink.
A friend of mine had a mink get in his koi  pond and cleaned it out. Now he has an electric fence around it and a net  over top. Hope I dont have to resort to that but will if it ever happens again. Funny thing we are quite a ways from a stream. Never dreaned a mink would come up here.
Hope this doesn't offend any one but thought I would share and let off a little steam.

[Mucky_Waters]

Hey MCP, You gota do what you gota do.

I like squirrels, but I had to pop one the other day that was developing a taste for my garden veggies. We got lots of squirrels around, but for the most part they don't bother with the vegetables in the garden, but I started noticing chew marks in tomatoes and corn and leaves chewed off some of the other plants. I was suspecting a marmot or a packrat, because I have had them before, but I came home from work one afternoon this week and actually caught the squirrel in the act, so I had to do what I had to do.
This is the time of the year when the squirrel population around here reaches it's peek and by the looks of things it has been a good breeding year for them this summer, so there is probably a lot of competition for their normal food sources.
If events play out as they normally do soon I'll see a few owls hanging around and the squirrel population will (naturally) get under control again

[barb]

There should be some kind of warning in the titles of threads about animal killings, it upsets me to read about it.   

[Ky Kim]

Glad you took care of the problem.  Hope you don't have any of its friends visit.

Kim

[Mikey]

Hope this doesn't offend any one but thought I would share and let off a little steam.

Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.  If you set out a live animal trap and waited you likely would have lost even more fish and still no guarantee the critter would have been caught in the trap.  Sorry you lost a couple of your pets.....

[PondmaninAL]

So, what does mink taste like? I've had squirrel before.

Happy ponding,
Scott

[Bonnie]

Sorry to hear this.   I still miss my first fantail, Miss Piggy.

[miguynmkoi]

Sorry about your GFs.  Glad you caught the culprit.  Good Luck!

[bunny56lbc]

You gotta do what ya gotta do . Too bad about your goldies . It's a good thing u got him before he got any of your more fish .
bonnie

[happyoutsidegirl]

Right on! I've only had to blow a few snakes away so far. But like they said ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

[Julles]

So sorry about your fish.  Yes, "they're just fish," but it really hurts.

I, myself, am sitting over here with a loaded live trap in the yard, waiting for my own chance to catch a coupla scoundrels. 

They eat my fish, they deserve to GO!

[frloplady]

good shot! 

[milliemax]

  I'm a very good shot, but I'm pretty sure the culprit is my neighbor's kitty!
  My cats don't pay a bit of attention to the pond!
  I can't use one of those sprayer thingies cause my kitties eat on the back porch.
  I'm resorting to spraying some chicken wire with black primer and covering the pond (at least where kitties will dine)
  Anyone have a plan for how to do this? I have some tall plants that would not fit through the 1 inch wire.
  TIA  Nancy
 

[happyoutsidegirl]

Maybe you could use the fiberglass hot wire posts that have the wier hooks on them to hook the fincing up and over the plants? Just put one in the pots of each plant to tall? They are about 4' long and you just poke them in.