I had planned my prairie dog hunt for August 3 in a dog town about 45 miles from Williston. When I arrived at the two-track to get to the dog town, there was already someone there. I headed further south to my alternate PD town so I wound up driving 74 miles instead of the 45 mile trip I had planned originally. The extra miles made me a little late, but there weren’t any other hunters at this dog town. I hadn’t hunted in this town this year, so I was anxious to see if other hunters had thinned out the prairie dog herd so there weren’t many left or gotten them so scared of gunshots that the shooting would be slow. Other dog towns I have hunted on public land have had lots of hunters in them and the prairie dogs have been very wary.
I parked my pickup, got my new .204 Ruger out that was built on a right bolt/left port Savage target action that Fred Moreo timed and trued for me. My gunsmith chambered and installed a stainless steel #6 contour Lilja barrel on it with a 1 in 12 twist and three grooves and finished the barrel at 26". The chamber has a .230" neck and .042" leade. The rifle sits in an H-S Precision Pro-Series 2000 stock that is tan with black webbing. I installed a 9-13" Harris swivel bipod with notched legs (the swivel bipod is very, very handy for my type of walk-about shooting). I haven’t taken time to do a camo paint job on the bipod and probably won’t bother since this is a prairie dog rifle and not my coyote gun.
The scope is a refurbished matte black Nikon Monarch 6-24x50mm side focus model with a Nikoplex reticle. It came with the sun shade and several sets of target knobs. I probably won’t use the target knobs since I use hold over and hold off when I shoot. The scope mounting rail is by EGW and I have a silver colored scope level on this one. The back of the rail and back of the scope are extremely close together, but they don’t touch. If they were any closer, I would have had to use high rings and the center of the scope is a tad over 1.9" above the center of the barrel nowâ€â€plenty high in my estimation.
I am using 39 gr. Sierra BlitzKing bullets coated with hBN. The brass I am using is all Nosler brass. I bought 150 factory second casings and 100 casings of their first run stuff and they have the neck walls turned to .011" thick. I weighed every casing in the two different lots and the factory second casings averaged 99.7165 grains while the firsts ran 97.7926 gr.. The ES for the seconds was 1.660 grains and for the firsts the ES was .940 gr. I can’t really tell the difference between the two kinds when I have shot paper nor could I tell the difference when I have shot prairie dogs and I know the prairie dogs don’t care. I was using the factory seconds on this hunt loaded with 27.3 gr. of IMR 8208 XBR. The Hodgdon reloading data lists 27.3 gr. of IMR 8208 XBR as the maximum load for the 40 gr. Hornady V-Max. (If you plan to try this load, PLEASE START WELL BELOW MY LISTED LOAD AND WORK YOUR WAY UP IN SMALL INCREMENTS).
My supply of drinking water, lunch, Leica 1200 laser range finder, cartridges, and other necessities were in my backpack as I left the pickup around 9:50 a.m. I only had 50 shells along for my new Savage target action .204 Ruger and ran out of shells at around 2:25 p.m. The first shot I took was a double! The pup was sitting in front of the adult PD with its head right in front of the adult’s heart/lung area. I aimed to hit the middle of the pup’s head and hoped the bullet would get through to the adultâ€â€IT DID!!! I was able to shoot one more pup at this spot before I got up to go over and take some photos.
Here’s a photo of the rifle with the adult part of the double. The shot pushed her off the mound and into some sage behind the mound and she looked like she was resting comfortably!! Well, she wasn’t feeling any pain at this point! This photo gives you a partial view of the new rifle and scope too.
I flipped her over for the next photo which shows the exit wound.
I walked on the east side of a butte, crossed over to the other side where the dog town is and by 10:05 a.m. I was set up on a little point overlooking the dog town. It is a spot I have used for many, many years and from the looks of all the .220 Swift, .223, and 17 HMR casings there, it is a favorite spot for many other shooters. I managed to shoot 13 prairie dogs with 13 shots from that spot before moving on. Shots at this spot ranged from 75 yards away on out to 234 yards. There were lots of other PDs out at the 300+ yard range, but I like to keep my percentage of hits up high, so I gave them a pass.
Here’s a photo of the rifle and a dead dog with some of the beautiful scenery in the background. This land sure is pretty when it is green like it is this year.
I checked my watch and it was 11:05 a.m. when I started walking to another spot just east of a stock dam that has lots of water in it this year. By the first part of July in most years this stock dam is dry or almost dry. The PD mounds at the base of the far hill are about 350 to 400 yards away.
At 11:15 a.m. I found a nice high point with some PDs out in front of it and shot 5 shots and killed 5 prairie dogs on shots from 167 yards to 180 yards. My rifle barrel was pretty warm and the PDs had headed down into their dens so I walked a little further south and found another little rise and set up there at 11:23 a.m. The barrel had cooled off and I shot 5 more PDs with 5 shots and stopped shooting to let the barrel cool off. I shot 5 more with 5 shots and let the barrel cool down. I looked at my watch. It was 12:25 p.m. and my barrel needed to cool down and I needed to eat a little lunch. My count to that point was 31 prairie dogs with 30 shots. Some flowers were still blooming.
The temperature, while I was up on the little knob in the photo below, was 98º and the wind could hardly be felt--a rare happening in North Dakota. The humidity felt like it was at least 98%, but it probably wasn’t quite that high. I had to take my big old red bandana out of my pocket and use it as a sweat band. I think I lost about 5 pounds of water via my sweat glands that afternoon. Later in the morning, when the clouds covered the sun, the temperature went down to a more comfortable levelâ€â€ONLY 88º!!! Here’s a look from a prairie dog that was 180 yards from one of the vantage points I shot from. You can tell by the heavy vegetation that the prairie dogs aren’t keeping the stuff chewed down to the ground. There has been a lot of rain around there this summer, so things are still quite green.
Here’s a photo of the tree I sat under to get some shade during my lunch break and it was also a good backrest for me when I took a short nap. This tree is in a low spot where runoff from the surrounding area runs through and collects a little bit. No doubt that is why this tree grew so big and contiues to survive. If you look real close you can see my rifle, backpack, and cap in the shade by the left side of the tree trunk. I had a couple of noisy prairie dogs that were interrupting my nap, so I had to get up and put them to sleep so I could rest a bit. I even had magpies come into this big tree and screech so I had to throw sticks at them to scare them off so I could nap a bit.
I didn’t get back to shooting again until about 1:30 p.m. I only had 18 shells left to shoot so I wanted to try to get a few more doubles. I finally got two young pups to line up at about 100 yards away and got my second and last double of the hunt. I had shot 47 shots to this point and had killed 49 prairie dogs. A couple of those shots were through a few inches of weeds that were in front of the prairie dogs, but the bullets got through. Well, on shot #48 I had a PD that was about 175 yards away and it wouldn’t stand up out of the weeds to give me a clear shot, so I shot anyway. I didn’t hear the familiar WHAP sound and saw the prairie dog scramble back into its den, so that was missed shot #1. I was able to connect on prairie dogs with both of my last two shots.
I started my hike back to the pickup and spotted a pretty orange colored butterfly on some thistle blossoms sticking its tongue in the blossom getting some nectar. It kept its wings flapping almost constantly and prevented me from getting a good, clear photo. Sorry if the photos don't show up. I'll keep trying to get them uploaded to PhotoBucket.
There were some bumble bees interested in those thistle blossoms too.
Then I spotted the black and white spotted wings of a tiny butterfly or moth trying to get some nectar from a small purple blossom, but by the time I got my camera out of my backpack, it had flown away. I decided I’d be ready next time and kept my camera out with the strap over my neck. That was a good move because I got several more opportunities to take photos of similarly colored butterflies. Here's the moth/butterfly sitting on the groud:
Here the butterfly/moth is attempting to get some nectar from a purple coneflower. I tried in vain to get a photo of the long tongue, but never succeeded. Fascinating little insects.
The shots I took today ranged from about 45 yards on out to 234 yards with most shots in the 100 to 180 yard range. This new Savage target action rifle in .204 Ruger is one accurate rifle. I did the Greg Tannel colloidal graphite treatment on this barrel and use his Graphoil instead of the Lock-Ease I have been using for a few years. I can’t believe how easy this barrel cleans up. I wish I would have used Greg’s treatment on all my barrels!!! My body count for the day was one miss, 47 singles and two doubles for a total body count of 51 dead PDs for 50 shots.
My son still hasn’t been out pottin’ prairie poodles with me this summer. We have marked August 14th on the calendar for an outing. I hope he can clear his schedule so he can get out there with me. I also hope the weather cooperates for us.
