When I got out of my pickup, I could smell the unmistakable odor of some pretty rank cow poop and checked to make sure I hadn’t stepped in it. I hadn’t stepped in it, but three of my tires made direct hits on some huge, juicy wet cow pies—YUCK!!! Because the grass was so high and I didn’t want to step in those juicy wet cow pies, I placed some big chunks of dead trees over those pies and planned to move them out of the way before I moved my vehicle from this spot. As I was readying my gear, I heard a prairie dog barking at me from about 100 yards to the west of my parking spot. He was a rude one!
I took the time to get out my Peltor electronic head muffs, a box of ammo, my Savage target action right bolt/left port .204 Ruger with a 26" stainless steel three groove Lilja 1 in 12 twist barrel and slowly moved to the tailgate of my pickup. I opened the topper door, lowered the tailgate and got into position for a shot at the rude prairie dog. I only had 24 rounds of hBN coated 39 gr. Sierra BlitzKing bullets loaded in Nosler brass, with 27.3 gr. of IMR 8208 XBR powder and use Remington 7½ primers in this rifle. This combination gives me a muzzle velocity of 3,887 fps and is safe in my rifle--use caution and work your load up slowly. I touched off a shot and I could hear the WHAP sound bullet hit about the same time I saw the prairie dog go flying off his mound. Since this was the first prairie dog of the 2011 season, I had to snap a few photos. Here’s the blood splatter on the mound, the victim, and the rifle that did the dirty deed. The scope is a refurbished Nikon Monarch 6-24x50mm with the Nikoplex reticle. This has been an excellent scope for me and I usually run it at the 20x power setting.
Here’s a photo of the entrance wound.
Here’s a photo of the exit wound.
By the time I got done photographing the scene and had my gear ready to go it was 10:13. I started hiking out into the prairie dog town in a northeasterly direction. I had 23 rounds of ammo left that I wanted to fire off in this rifle. This ammo was loaded with the old lot of IMR 8208 XBR powder I had run out of recently and I wanted to test some loads with the new lot of powder before loading up a bunch more rounds.
I had fired off 15 shots by 10:50 a.m. and had 1 miss and 14 single hits. As I passed by a large scoria cinder I noticed there was a barrel-type cactus plant growing on the side of that cinder. Here are a photo of the rock and cactus with a 39 gr. Sierra cartridge near the bottom of the cactus.
Here’s a closer view of the cactus snuggled into the scoria cinder.
I continued my walkabout and shot my last of the 24 rounds at 11:35 a.m. These last 9 shots garnered 8 single prairie dogs and one double. I headed back to the pickup and cleaned some manure off my tires before driving east about a half mile. I parked in the shade of some trees and got my picnic lunch out and began eating at 12:20 p.m.
I didn’t take my usual 30 minute nap after lunch so I got back to popping some more prairie poodles at 12:55 p.m. This time, I had my Savage 12VLP in .204 Ruger that has a 25" super match grade Pac-Nor barrel with three grooves and a 1 in 11 twist. It is a heavy beast, but very accurate with my hBN coated 40 gr. V-Max loads where I use Remington 7½ primers, 27.2 gr. of H4895 and WW brass. This combination gives me a muzzle velocity of 3,841 fps. (AGAIN--if you plan to use this load, start with a lighter weight powder charge and work your way up slowly.) There were several prairie dogs west of where I stopped for lunch and I got set up in a spot right next to a fallen tree trunk where the right leg of my Harris swivel bipod was right on the edge of a prairie dog hole. I managed to hit several PDs from this spot, but when I let go of the rifle to put an empty casing in my pocket the rifle tipped over to the right and banged the scope real hard onto the tree trunk. I felt sick after I heard how hard the scope hit and envisioned the scope being knocked off its settings. I lined up another prairie dog, half expecting to miss it, but WHAP the 40 gr. V-Max made perfect contact with the prairie dog.
I spotted some nice flowers and took some time to snap a few photos.
I kept stalking around on the west side of the pickup and got 7 singles and 2 doubles for 11 dead prairie dogs for 9 shots, but I was out of ammo now!!! Unfortunately, I had left my back pack where my scope bumped into the tree trunk and that’s where I had my ammo so at 1:20 p.m. I walked back and got my backpack. I found some shade and put the empty casings into my ammo box and got out more ammo and reloaded the magazine and placed a bunch of shells in my left shirt pocket. It was 1:30 p.m. when I headed out to the NE for more prairie dog action.
At 2:15 p.m. I noticed some red magic marker writing on the side of one of the shells in my magazine. I removed the casing and found that there was no primer in this casing, but there was powder!!!! I spent a few minutes cleaning a few kernels of powder from the magazine and shook the primerless casing with the flash hole down until all the powder was out on the ground. Up to that time, I had shot 14 shots and had 1 miss, hit on 12 singles and got 1 double. As I was walking along, I spotted some nice looking flowers so I took time to take a few more photos.
I was in the extreme northeast corner of the dog town and on a high hill overlooking the town to the southeast. I shot a few more shots and then spotted some more flowers to photograph.
That last photo of the dainty yellow flowers caused me considerable pain and suffering to snap. I had taken a couple shots of it, but decided to get down a little closer and shoot from a different angle. I plopped my left knee down hard and immediately popped it back up when about 30 cactus needles entered my left knee!!!!! I didn’t know I could still move as fast as I did when I felt those needles enter my knee. I bore the pain and snapped the photo you see above. Then, I pulled down my pants and began to pull the needles out of my knee. Of course, most of them had broken off right at the surface level of the skin so I had to do some painful digging to get them out. I had a considerable amount of blood flowing from some of the puncture wounds once I got the needles out, but I did not require a transfusion. After about 20+ minutes of needle removal, I pulled up my pants and began walking south down the hill.
By 3:50 p.m. I had shot 7 more shots and hit on 6 singles and 1 double. I stopped for a little photo op to get my usual “Hero Photo” of me with four prairie dogs I had just shot. You can tell by the somber expression on my face that this is serious business!!!
After the photo shoot, I kept walking to the SSE and shot 4 more prairie dogs along the way. I spotted another nice purple flower and snapped a photo of that one.
At about 4:10 p.m., I noticed a white pickup drive into the dog town from the west. I was sure they could see me and they got out of the pickup and I took that opportunity to shoot 4 more prairie dogs to make sure they knew I was out here and shooting my rifle. I watched them as they began walking to the north of their pickup and were skirting the north edge of the dog town and heading mostly to the east. They both appeared to have binoculars in their hands and no rifles. So, now I could not shoot in a westerly or northwesterly direction because of these dunderheads. I shot a few more prairie dogs hoping they would walk back to their pickup. When they got to about 400 yards to the NNE of me they stopped. I waved with my arms making a motion for them to get out of there. They just waved back and the female started walking directly towards me!!! I wondered how dumb can these people be to walk right into the area where someone is shooting prairie dogs. I was a bit miffed. I had 12 more shells left in my shell holder and I wanted to shoot them before heading home. When the female got to within about 75 yards she hollered a greeting and asked me how I was doing. I told her I had been doing just great until she and her companion rudely barged into the area I was shooting in. She said something to the effect that she was sorry but that they were hired by the North Dakota Game & Fish Department to walk around the perimeter of prairie dog towns. I asked her if she was aware that I had a rifle and was shooting prairie dogs in the area they were walking into. She said we knew you were shooting but we figured you saw us and wouldn’t shoot our way. I told her they were lucky they barged in on a hunter who respects human life and that I considered their intrusion a very rude and disrespectful act. I asked her why they were asked to walk the PD towns and suggested that taking aerial photos might be a much better way to accomplish whatever they were trying to do. She said Game & Fish wanted to do it this way. I got her name and copied down the license plate number of their vehicle when I left. I was pretty upset—there are five other prairie dog towns real close to this one that they could have gone to and come back to this one later.
Anyway, I hit on 8 singles for 8 shots on this last walkabout and by 4:30 I was packing up and getting ready to leave. The temperature did get up to about 73 degrees, but the wind kept blowing 10 to 15 mph until the two intruders entered my shooting area. Then the wind was wafting at only 3 to 5 mph. I got back to town around 6:00 p.m. and filled my gas tank to check the mileage on my new ride—a 2009 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 extended cab 4x4. I had some wind to drive into but still made 18.7 mpg. That’s better than the 14 mpg I got with my 1999 Dodge RAM 1500 4x4, but not as good as the 21 mpg I got with my old 1997 Ford Ranger 2x2, but a lot better riding and more reliable.
I like the locking topper for carrying semi-valuable items while out hunting. It is also handy for keeping the coyotes and fox I shoot from getting stolen out of the pickup box and it comes in handy as a place to sleep if I want to camp out near a prairie dog town in the summer.
In spite of the intrusion by the prairie dog town walkers and cactus needles in my knee, this was a fun day. With the two rifles I killed 65 prairie dogs with 62 shots. The shots were all 200 yards and under so a fellow shouldn’t miss too many shots at those distances even with a 10 to 20 mph wind.
