SmallCaliberCentral

My partner and I decided to go to S. Central Oregon a couple weeks ago to shoot some chucks. It became obvious they had gotten a lot of rain from the thunderstorms that they had. I was told that they had them four weeks straight.

The weeds had grown to over knee high, so seeing some of the dens was near impossible. We ended up shooting 6 chucks. It was apparent, they had put on lots of weight. I noticed that when examining them after being shot with a 32 gr VMax, that it was not tearing big holes. In fact, I had to look hard for the entry hole and an exit hole was not to be found. Quite different than when shooting them the middle of May. That fat must act as a buffer.

We also got the opportunity to shoot a bunch of gray diggers. The little 204 bullet literally send them high into the air. It also appears there was a lot of jack rabbits born this spring, as they were all over the place. I shot them with the 22 mag.

Too bad that the shooting is about over on the ground squirrels. Even though we did see quite a few rats on pasture land, we had no permission to shoot them. Now I will spend my time shooting starlings.

Lenard

We also got the opportunity to shoot a bunch of gray diggers. The little 204 bullet literally send them high into the air. It also appears there was a lot of jack rabbits born this spring, as they were all over the place. I shot them with the 22 mag.

Lenard, That's what we call teaching Skippy to fly! How about some pictures of your adventure? Gary

Gary, I don't do pictures unless I kill one of the giant chucks, of which there were none this time.

By the way, if the growth in late may and early june, is what happened in most of e. oregon, the chuckars will have lots of good cover.

Lenard

Lenard, The weather was a little different this year and it kind of threw our usual rat shooting trips out of sync. We ended up going later than usual to northern Kalifornia and the rats were already staying down to avoid the heat. I did shoot a rock chuck that was stupid enough to come out into the field. Hopefully next year will be back to "normal". Gary

Gary, this is the second time in almost 20 years I have seen such growth in E. Oregon. The course weed crop that year, around '98, hid all the chuck dens. We just could not see them for the cover.

I am quite concerned about the farmers who grew alfalfa both in the Burns/Crane area and Klamath Falls. For all intents and purposed, they lost any profit on most all of the first cuttings getting wet. Plus, the price of alfalfa is 50% of what it was last year ($220 a ton). I am told the cost to get it processed is about $100 and the going price is $110 per ton. Milk prices are just a little over $10 per hundred weight with production costs running about $14.50. The question comes to mind, since much of the alfalfa production goes to dairies, will the farmers be able to sell their hay? We might just see quite a few dairies go down also and take the farmers with them.

I just hope not.

Lenard

The ground squirreling is about done here too. We went out last friday morning and didn't see one single squirrel but did see three badgers. Missed one and got two. I saw a rockchuck running down the side of the road on my way to work saturday morning so they must still be out some.

The Townsend ground squirrels have pretty thoroughly rolled up their sidewalks here in Southern Idaho for the year. About two weeks ago it was lights out for them where I hunt here. There may be some Columbia ground squirrels out in the higher elevations and mountain areas.

Some of the rockchucks are still out some on irrigated fields. This time of year, the juvenile chucks have been pushed out of the dens by the adults and they are out seeking their own dens.