Well I actually have several of these stories, but its late so I'm just going to post one for now. My favorite, I once shot a pack of nutrias with a .35 Remington Game Master pump with 200 grain ballistic tips at nearly point blank range. The story goes, way back in 10th grade me and my childhood best friend were hog hunting on a private 4,000 acre ranch way down deep in the Navasota River bottoms in Northern Grimes County, near Iola, Texas.
Anyway me and my buddy were riding around these levy's near the river on a Yamaha Rhino, we were hunting hogs at the time but not much luck that day after school and they had been having lots of problems with nutrias in their levy's which they used for duck hunting purposes. So we are just riding along and we spot a big family of nutrias playing on the bank and in the water of the levy that we are riding along side of.
I was armed with a NEF single shot youth model .243 mounted with a 3-9 scope and an ancient .35 Remington Game Master pump with open sights. My buddy only had a lever action .243 with a 3-9 scope. So we instantly stopped and jumped out guns blazing as soon as we saw the nutrias. The first one I shot was on the bank just 5 yards from me. I hit him square in the nose with a 200 grain .35 Remington ballistic tip. The shot literally split him in half from his nose to the base of his tail. He looked like a perfectly butterflied fillet whole nutria. It was nuts it looked like someone had took a knife and just split him open length ways about halfway through the depth of his body and then just spread him open just like you would if you were doing a butterfly fillet of a chicken breast or a center cut beef tenderloin or a thick bone in pork chop, but this was a whole entire nutria.
Then the next two I shot were just still 5 yards away on the bank but I hit them broadside in the guts and I blew one into multiple pieces and the other one was only held together by his bare spine. But the craziest one came on my last shot. This nutria was in the water about 7 yards in front of me so I popped him right behind the head in his neck. But when I squeezed the trigger and the gun went off the nutria simply disapeared but I was positive that I hit him, so I'm just scanning the water looking down my gun barrel just waiting to pop another shot off when the nutria resurfaced.
Then about 15 seconds later the craziest thing happened. I was still scanning the water as I had never lifted my head up from my gun since the last shot and then all of a sudden 15 seconds after I had shot at the last nutria he came falling from the air and splashed into the water in front of me. I was bewildered and my friend just busted out laughing. The impact of that big heavy bullet at such close range on such a small animal floating in the water had literally blown him out of the water and into the air. It was one of the funniest things ever hunting.
My friend also busted 2 nutrias with his .243 in that session. Also years later I busted a big ole nutria in a pond on my parents cattle ranch with my .300 Blackout AR-15 with 110 grain Hornady Ballistic tips. I had to shoot him twice though and it put huge holes in him and his intestines were completely hanging out his body.
Also I have shot a coon under a deer feeder at 75 yards with a .243 100 grain core lokt. I shot him twice also. The first shot took out his entire guts. But he was still kickin but after the second shot there was only a head, tail, some legs, and some bones all barely attached. Crazy times but the nutria in the air is my favorite.
