Rock chuck weight?

[Ryan S Albright]

Has anybody weighed there chucks. I have killed some large ones over the years and have never bothered to weigh one. I have never had any field scales. I Thought I had some up to 35lbs but maybe I am wrong. I do have some old pictures but I didn't have the digital camera back then. How heavy do chucks get?

[Lenard]

Ryan, when I killed the one that measured 28" from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail. My partner and I estimated it had to weigh at least 25 lbs. When I really look closely at these monster size chucks, I don't think a pound per inch of body length, is out of the question. They are so wide and thick when you find a mature, really fat one.

In fact, we both thought this particular chuck weighed quite a bit more, but to be conservative, we estimated 25 lbs.

[Verminator2]

Biggest one we ever killed was 12.5 pounds. We should have had one that would have gone 15+ today, but after missing twice we checked the sights and we were way low. They are smart beggars though, they won't come back up after 2 shots.

[Ryan S Albright]

I have seen some very old and large chucks and put my hands on some very large ones that I shot. I just don't know about weight or how large they get.

[Glen]

They don't get much bigger than this around here. And this is actually out of the norm for my area here in Ohio. We do get quite a few in the 11-12lb range every year tho.

[Rick in Oregon]

This has been posted elsewhere, but the largest chuck I've taken here weighed 16.5 lbs, taken back in the early 80's with my Sako Vixen sporter in 223. He was a big old grizzled boy, very muscular body. This is one of his buddies checking out if it's safe or not to emerge from his rock den:



This is the old boy himself (rifle shown is a new that day Ruger 77/22 Mag, not the rifle used to take the chuck):



Owww, that HAD to hurt!



Chucks are truly the "medium game" of varmints, and a real hoot to shoot.

[stevecrea]

The Rock Chuck Derby (rockchuckderby.com) all time biggest chuck is 15 lb. 8 ozs. That chuck was taken last year. The biggest I have shot this year was 11.5 lb, and it was a good sized chuck.

I am sure that the food source, and the time of year has a lot to do with the weights. Chucks that are feeding on rich food sources such as alfalfa will get bigger and fatter than those on grass. If they are being fed grain, well, I suspect that they can get very fat.