"...shoot that close to the ground..." Better and safer to shoot towards the ground than into the air. However, I was out shooting ground hogs with a 10 shot semi-auto .22, long ago. Had a terrible day of it. Missed ever friggin' shot. Including the one where I was literally standing on top of the hole(it went down a couple feet then went right) when the chuck stuck his head around the bend and looked up at me. "Gotcha!", thinks me. CLICK! says my rifle. that had no last shot hold open(Cooey M64). Both the ground hog and I started to laugh.