The weatherman was correct about the winds in the morning. I planned to use my Predator action .17 Remington in the afternoon after the wind died down a bit. This action has a 1 in 9 twist 26" SS Remington Varmint contour fluted barrel from Lilja. I would be using 30 gr. FBHP Starke Red Prairie Varmint bullets coated with hBN in this rifle later in the day. However, in the morning, I would use my old Savage 12 VLP in .204 Ruger with a stainless steel BLACKNITRIDE™ treated 3-groove, 1 in 11 twist super match grade Pac-Nor barrel. The 39 gr. Sierra BlitzKing bullets would be better suited in negating the wind’s affects a bit. I had 44 loaded rounds in new Norma brass that I wanted to get fire formed. I arrived at the dog town I at about 9:30 and got all my gear gathered up, put the GEMTECH TREK-Ti suppressor on the .204 Ruger, loaded the magazine, put 9 shells in the shell holder on the stock, and started walking toward the north end of the dog town. The wind was definitely blowing 8 to 9 mph with gusts to 15 mph. There were cattle in the pasture on the east side of the north/south fence on the east side of the PD town so I had to avoid shooting in that direction.
My first shot at a PD was about 75 yards, the second shot 100 yards and the third shot was a 248 yarder. Eight minutes passed between my first shot and third shot and I hit on all three shots. I could guess by all the vehicle wheel tracks all over the dog town that there had been plenty of people shooting in this dog town since I was here back on June 9th of this year. This dog town is on National Grassland acreage so it is illegal to drive your vehicle off of established trails so it was disgusting to me to see all the vehicle tracks. I shot a few more PDs and then I walked SSE and set up on a PD mound and managed to get off 10 shots ranging from 98 yards to 245 yards by 11:05 a.m. and so far had hit on 19 of 19 shots.
I noticed a ferruginous hawk sitting about 200 yards to the west of me so I got out the camera and snapped a few photos of the hawk. I zoomed in to 300x, but I wasn’t able to hold the camera still enough to get decent quality photos. The photo below is the best I could do.
I went back to shooting prairie dogs and saw the PDs scattering towards their dens and noticed that the hawk was flying over the PD town. It landed on a hill just SE of the PD town. I got back to PD shooting.
I have entitled the photo below and to the left, “STUFFED” because the impact of the bullet stuffed the PD down into his den. The photo to the right is entitled, “UNSTUFFED” because the bullet blew the stuffings out of the PD!! I know, I know, you don’t have to tell me, I have a SICK sense of humor.
I started walking to the SSE again. The temperature was in the mid 70s. At about 11:30 I set up on another mound and took 10 shots ranging from 153 to 300 yard from that spot. I had shot 33 shots and killed 30 prairie dogs. Here’s a photo of my Savage 12VLP in .204 Ruger with one HUGE prairie dog.
By 12:25 I had taken 6 more shots, mostly in the 180 to 210 yard range. One of those bullets hit the ground left of my point of aim by at least 10 yards!!! I don’t have a clue why that happened??? I missed another shot at 175 yards so I had shot 40 shots so far and killed 35 prairie dogs.
Here’s another photo of a PD that ALMOST lost his head. It was attached to the body by a foot long piece of skin you can see stretching out from his body up to the top of the photo so the head was about a foot away from the body.
I had 4 once-fire rounds in Norma brass that I had neck turned and another 4 rounds in Norma brass that had been fired two times and decided to just keep those last 4 loaded so all the casings in that box would have been fired two times. With those last four neck-turned rounds, I had another missed shot, but hit PDs with the other 3 rounds. So for the 44 shots I had taken I had missed 6 shots and hit on 38. Not my best effort, but I’ll have to blame the wind and one bad flyer shot. I left that PD town and headed to my next one.
It was 1:41 p.m. when I left the first PD town and headed to my parking area for the next PD town I planned to shoot in. I arrived at my parking place at 1:56 p.m. and had my noon meal, albeit quite a bit after 12 noon. I took my customary 1 hour or so nap and then got out my Predator action .17 Remington and put the Ranger II suppressor on the barrel. I left the pickup at about 4:15 and started walking the 1/2 mile to dog town. When I got near the south end of the town, I spent about 10 minutes blowing on a closed reed call and then sat and watched for a coyote for another 5 minutes. No coyotes showed. I had hung my Caldwell Wind Meter on a fence post before I started my calling session it read 105º above. I still don’t believe it was that hot. My other thermometer was giving me a reading of about 95º and that was about what it felt like to me.
As I mentioned earlier, I was shooting my .17 Remington rifle this afternoon. I had this rifle built on a Stiller Predator action. I hadn’t been able to find Remington factory brass with a neck wall thickness that satisfied me so I formed WW .204 Ruger bass down to .17 Remington. My reamer has a .201" neck and I turned the neck walls to .0125" thick on all those casings so I have a decent fit. The loaded ammo I was shooting had not been fired since I formed it, but it shot very accurately. I walked a little closer to the PD mounds and saw three or four PDs about 100 yards from me but my bipod wasn’t tall enough to get the barrel above the grass so I set my backpack down in front of me and rested the bipod legs on it. I had to be up on my knees to get my eye to the scope and that proved to be a very unsteady rest. The crosshairs were waving back and forth across the PD. I squeezed off a shot and missed. I decided that I needed to get up to a PD mound for a good steady rest so crept into the dog town. I hit on the next 14 shots I took. By about 5:00 p.m. the wind had died down to maybe 2 to 4 mph and the clouds had covered the sun. I traded my prescription tri-focal sunglasses for my clear lens trifocal glasses.
At about 5:30 and I was lining up on another PD when I thought I could hear a motor vehicle. I looked over to the horizon to the west and there was a John Deere Gator coming down the hillside. The driver parked, got out, and I got up from my shooting position and walked over to greet him. I introduced myself and he gave me his name and told me he was a hired hand of a rancher who rents the National Grasslands acres I was shooting on. We had a little chat and parted our ways. He disappeared over the hill and I shot a few more shots and then took time to snap some photos of my victims. The second PD from the right is a real HOG!!!
After the photo shoot I walked NE to the top of a little rise and was greeted with the sight of dozens and dozens of PDs just posing for me to shoot them. I had a couple of times when the temperature strips on my barrel hit 122º and I had to take a long break from shooting. When 6:32 rolled around I had taken 48 shots. I hit on 46 singles and hit on one double for 48 dead PDs for 48 shots. I got out a little 20 shell container and found some PDs way up north of me. I took six shots up in that direction and those shots lasered from 230 to 280 yards. I went 3 for 6 on those long shots. Then I turned my attention to some PDs to the east and some to the SE of my position. Those shots ranged from 100 to 180 yards and I went 10 for 10 on those shots.
By 7:08 p.m. and I had 4 rounds left out of this new box of 20, but I decided to head back to the pickup. I shot at and nailed 2 more PD shots on the walk back. For the afternoon hunt I accounted for 63 dead prairie dogs with 66 shots. Total for the day was 101 dead PDs for 110 shots. It was a GREAT day for me, but not for the prairie dogs!
I was able to take some photos of blossoms today too. Here are three of those photos.
I hoofed it back to the pickup and got there at 7:40 p.m. The old moon was up in the ESE, but the clouds were gathering.
I took some time to get the suppressor off my rifle, and get all my gear packed back into the pickup. I still had a couple cookies and a can of soda left to drink so I got those out before heading back home. It was 8:00 p.m. when I left my parking place and 9:22 p.m. when I got parked in my garage. Here’s the photo you have all been waiting for, the “Hero Photo”.
I am jealous, wish I had prairie dogs that close to me. It is a 12 hour drive for me so sure glad that you take us along with you on your trips to fill in the need for the trigger time! Thanks for the post.
I just gotta get that prairie dog fix in once a year and then sage rat time when I can.