SmallCaliberCentral

The weather forecast was for mid 70 degree temperatures and 5 to 6 mph SSE winds for Thursday, September 30, so I had all my gear in my pickup before I went to sleep on Wednesday night. There was absolutely no wind when I left Williston Thursday morning and the sky was one of those blue bird skies with lots of sunshine and nary a cloud in the sky. On the drive down there, I thought about stopping at several good coyote calling spots to see if I could lure a coyote into gun range, but decided I’d try that after I got done shooting some prairie dogs. I arrived at the dog town around 9:00 a.m. and parked my pickup. There’s a big sink hole near where I park and it has gotten much bigger since I was last down here on August 3 of this year—WAAAY BIGGER!!! I don’t even walk close to that hole any longer because it has washed out dirt way under some ground I used to walk on to get across the deep ravine to the west. Someday, I’ll come out here and someone’s vehicle will be down in that sink hole.

I fiddled around and got my sun shade up in my windshield and used old bed sheets to cover the inside of the topper windows and the passenger and driver side door windows. I strolled around and checked out the sink hole real close so I wouldn’t walk where there wasn’t solid ground underneath the surface. I decided to use my Pac-Nor barreled .17 Remington with the .1945" tight neck. I use the 27.8 gr. BTHP Hammett bullets (which actually weigh between 27.5 grains and 27.6 grains). I have the bullets coated with hBN and use a load of 23.8 gr. of N-540 and that gives me an average muzzle velocity of 3,832 fps. PLEASE, if you want to try N-540 with your .17 Remington using bullets around this weight, don't start with my load of 23.8 gr. Start well below 23.8 grains and work your way up very slowly!

It was already 51º when I left the pickup around 10:00 a.m. and I noticed some new mounds across the deep gully to the south of me. I decided to drop down into the gully and use the deep gully to hide me from those prairie dogs over there until I got right straight north of them and could creep up to their side of the gully. After forging my way through some pretty deep underbrush and muddy ground, I made it to where I thought I could get to a good vantage point for shooting. I spotted two PDs to the west of my position and picked off those two. The other prairie dogs in that area headed for cover. I looked further to the SE and spotted a few more dogs out eating and sunning. I found a good vantage point for shooting in that direction and picked off two more. There weren’t any more customers coming out so I left my hiding spot to take a couple of photos.

On my way to take photos, I checked for empty casings in the left breast pocket of my digital desert camo jacket. There should have been four in there, but I only found two. I put down my rifle and backpack and backtracked to find those two casings. Alas, I could not find them so I headed back to my rifle and backpack to take some photos. On my way there I felt in my left camo jacket pocket and I could feel casings in there. Unknown to me, there is a pencil pocket inside that breast pocket and I had slipped two empties in there. I was happy to find them, but not too happy about wasting 10 or 15 minutes looking for two casings that weren’t lost in the first place . I walked to the mound where the first PD I shot should by lying and didn’t find a body. I did, however find a big chunk of his intestine which you can see in the bottom of this photo, so I’m sure he wasn’t alive when he fell into the den hole.



I put my camera away and started hiking to the west to get over to the other side of a large hill where I have a favorite shooting spot up above the prairie dog town. I can look to the west from there and usually have lots of prairie dogs to shoot at. However, this day, the cattle were roaming around to the north and northwest of my lookout and I could not shoot towards the north or northwest. This limited the number of prairie dogs I’d have a chance to shoot. The wind started to blow and my Caldwell Wind Meter said it was blowing from 5 to 12 mph, but pretty steady at about 6 or 7 mph. I picked off 6 prairie dogs from that spot and then began walking to the south, while I was still up on the hillside. I managed to shoot a few more and miss a couple too. The first box of shells only had 15 loaded rounds in it and that was empty now. I had hit 14 PDs for the 15 cartridges in this box of shells. Most shots were in the 100 to 150 yard range and for this rifle with a Leupold VX-III long range 6.5 to 20x40mm scope with a fine duplex reticule the dogs seem like they are right in front of your barrel and only a few yards away.

I got out another box of shells and decided to walk to a berm overlooking a nice little area that usually had lots of easy targets. This is located to the SE of where I was. I managed to shoot 2 prairie dogs to the north of me and 3 to the southeast before all went quiet. Here’s a photo of one of the victims of the little .17 Remington. This little 27.8 gr. BTHP really puts a hurt on them, especially when they are under 125 to 150 yards away. It kind of “PEELS THEM OPEN!”



When I got done taking the photo of the prairie dog pictured above, I heard a hawk screeching as it was flying above. It was then I noticed the moon was still shining in the sky. I tried to get a photo of the hawk between the moon and me, but the hawk wouldn’t pose for me so I just took a snapshot of the moon.



It was already 12:30 p.m. so I found a spot on a west facing hillside to have some lunch. Up to this point I had shot 24 shots and nailed 25 prairie dogs. While I was eating lunch I noticed lots of prairie dogs across the valley to the SW, West and NW. I ranged them to be 305 yards, 175 yards and 233 yards respectively. I ranged a nice little rise ahead of me to the west at about 75 yards. There was a little low spot before that rise where I would be out of the sight of the prairie dogs and could take a nap. After my nap, I planned to sneak up to the rise, set up, and shoot the ones to the west and NW. I figured after I finished eating, I would walk down there and all the prairie dogs would hide in their dens. While they were in their dens, I’d take a nap and hopefully they would be up and about after I got my "beauty rest." Well, they didn’t all head down into their dens, so I set up and was able to get off 5 shots before they all disappeared. I hit 5 for 5 on that set. I took a 35 minute nap. The cattle that had been up to the north of me had ambled down my way to the watering hole and were wading in and taking a drink. Here’s what that scene looked like on Thursday viewing it from the SW end of the pond.



Here’s what the same watering hole looked like on August 3 of this year when I was down there shooting prairie dogs, viewing it from the NE end. It was certainly a lot greener in August, but I think the water level might actually have been a little higher here on September 30. They had some huge amounts of rainfall down there in the last couple weeks so the stock dams have quite a bit of water in them.



When I woke up, I could hear a prairie dog about 75 yards to the east of me doing his scolding bark. I finally spotted him, slowly moved my gun over and crawled up toward him so I could get up out of the little low spot I was in, acquired him in the crosshairs and PLOP, he was a history. There were two more to the SSE and I popped them too. I kept shooting and by 1:55 P.M. I had shot a total of 33 shots for the day and nailed 32 prairie dogs.

I turned my attention to the PDs to the NW of me about 175 yards away. I hit 7 prairie dogs for 7 shots. I noticed two more PDs at around 190 yards away, took 2 shots and missed both of them! It looked like I was hitting a bit low. I spotted another prairie dog at 192 yards, aimed just below the top line of his back and whacked him. So, I had hit 8 prairie dogs out of the 10 shots I took and my watch said it was 2:40 P.M. Another box of shells was empty and I took out a box of 20 rounds that had the necks partially turned and the neck walls were not totally uniform. I hit 3 for 3 at first and then missed the next 2 shots at 145 yards. One of the bullets hit way low and left. I was about ready to put that box away, but decided to give them another try. I hit on 9 of the next 10 shots I took, so it must have been a bad couple of rounds earlier. It sure couldn’t be the fault of the shooter?!?!?! By mid afternoon it had hit 80 degrees and the wind had gone down from the 5-12 mph range back down to nearly calm. If you miss shots in these conditions it is your own darn fault!

On my way back to the pickup I shot targets of opportunity. I stopped to take a photo of the old tree I usually sit under to have lunch. Here’s the way it looked back on August 3, 2010. Nice and green.



Here’s the way it looked on Thursday. It still has lots of leaves and provides plenty of shade, but the leaves are turning shades of gold and the surrounding grass and weeds are pretty well all dried up and brown.



When I got back to the pickup at 4:30, I checked all my empty shells and figured I had taken 67 shots and hit 61 prairie dogs. I didn’t get any doubles today and for the amount of time I spent out shooting, I didn’t get as many shots as I thought I might. Like I mentioned in my report about my hunt here back on August 3, 2010k, I don’t think I’m the only shooter who visits this place and the prairie dogs are pretty wise to the sound of rifle shots.

Here’s a beetle that crawled out from under one of the prairie dog carcasses. It had very bright orange and black on its back and reddish orange balls on the end of its antennas. Very different:



There were some plants with beautiful blossoms still out there too. There were purple, yellow, and white blossoms, but I only snapped the purple and white ones. I was too busy pottin' prairie poodles to get pictures of all the flowers





I decided to eat another sandwich before driving away. After a little supper I drove a mile and a half to the southeast, walked in about a quarter mile and tried to call in a coyote. I set up my Enticer decoy and placed my FOXPRO about 10 yards behind the Enticer. The original Enticer decoy had small bundles of feathers on a spring and the motor would spin that spring at timed intervals and the feathers were very animated and caught the predator’s attention nicely. Eric Lenz, the creator of the Enticer and owner of Come Alive Decoys, had sent a new faux fur bundle on a coil spring and I wanted to try it out. It works great. I got back about 60 yards from the FOXPRO and started calling. I was about 30 minutes into my stand when a rancher came driving his big 3/4 ton diesel pickup down the trail behind me and busted my set. I picked up my decoy and FOXPRO and headed for the pickup.

I thought about doing another stand, but decided I had already had another great day and started for home. I had a lot of fun today without calling in a coyote, but it would have been the icing on the cake if I could have bagged a coyote too!!

Silverfox,
We have that beetle in abundance around here. Never have heard an official name for them. I can tell you they are a meat eating son of a gun. I've seen two of them walk away from a dead mouse after maybe 3 hours and leave nothing but hide and bones. I have wondered if I broke my legs around here, if they would let me die before starting on me!

Thanks for the story and pics SF. Dont feel bad i hate loosing brass to.

SF: Thanks for the sharing the adventure with us. Even with the perceived brass loss, you still had more fun than I did last week! (It's always great to find those little jewells we work so hard preparing, eh?)

Great pics as always....felt like I was tagging along with you.

Thanks for the replies fellows.

RAMOS--I'm not sure, but I think they would probably not be attracted to you until you were dead. They are attracted to the smell of dead animals.

That beetle I photographed is a Burying Beetle and probably a (Nicrophorus defodiens) I think I spelled that right?!?! They do eat meat and usually mate and make the carcass of a mouse or other small mammal their home where they raise their young until they are mature and can go out on their own. Since a mouse carcass on top of the ground would be appealing to lots of other insects and other creatures, the burying beetles usually bury the carcass in little or no time so they don't have to constantly defend their home. This gives them their little underground shelter and meals all in one tidy package!