And then there wuz the time my Old Lab Lynda (rest her soul) Got into a Fight To The Death with the Biggest Nutria I ever saw.

It might have happened on the same hunt.

I heard an extreme growling and scuffling and splashing in the mud behind me, and she had locked horns with a monster nutria.

They have no problem killing yore dawg.

I had my Winchester .22 automatic, but they were so completely covered with mud and fighting so fast that I couldn't tell who was who.

She only weighed about 55 lbs.

Both had webbed feet and were about the same size, and mud looked like it was being spun off the tires of a 4X4 rig.

After a few seconds, one of them got a death grip on the other.

Lynda emerged victorious, and walked off acting like nothing had happened.

We marveled over how big that rat wuz.

Anytime grouse and woodcock flush at your feet it gets pretty wild.

A squirrel hunt sticks out in my mind. I must have been 13, and had just heard about a guy that grabbed a wounded squirrel in a hollow and got a finger chewed off. I shot a squirrel that ran up the hollow of a dead tree. I looked up the hollow and could just see the tip of its tail. Figured the only way to get it out was to yank it out. A friend had heard the story, too, so thought I was nuts reaching up there.

I was a bit jumpy as I reached up and grabbed the tail. Lost my grip. It was in there good. I began to worry about my fingers. I got those shrugs you get when you take a leak. Figured I couldn't just leave it there wounded so reached up, got a good hold of the tail, yanked, and spun it around so it couldn't latch onto me, and threw it. It ran up another tree but my friend worked it back around to me. Squirrels aren't supposed to be intimidating.