Annual prairie dog hunt!

[crazy2medic]

well the annual prairie dog hunt is over, this year I took my dad along with me, so it was my boy and my dad and me, 5hr drive to dumas, when we got there we found that the plague had killed off most of the prairie dogs, with very few to shoot it got boring and frustrating very quickly, spent about 3hrs of fruitless attempts at locating some active prairie dogs, had one dog pop up about 65yds in front of my shooting table, .204 at 65yds will launch a prairie dog about 15ft in the air! this shoot was turning into a bust, the next day about noon, the Rancher came and found us, said he show me one small dog town that was in the back of his property, so after driving about three miles on dirt roads we found a small dog town of a dozen or so mounds, very active but still disappointing, the rancher also stated that we could shoot all the jackrabbits we saw, now I'd seen about 2 dozen on the way to this location, the Rancher took me about a 1000yds to a field that had previously been a huge prairie dog town, this field was approx. 500yds by 800yds, after the dogs had died out from the plague the weeds had taken over, as we are driving across this field, the jackrabbits are leaping up one after another! I have hunted west Texas all my life, I have never seen that many jacks in one place! jackrabbits by the dozen! he told me they moved into his wheat fields and ate there fill, well guess what became the subject of our hunt? yep jackrabbits became the targets! at first we sat about 100yds from the prairie dog town and shot at the dogs that did pop up, while at the same time watching the wheat fields for the jackrabbits, one of the first rabbits I shot was 220yds away grazing in this wheat field! my dad managed to get a couple of prairie dogs, but the real killer of jackrabbits was my boy! holy cow no rabbit within 400yds was safe, he dropped one out at 240yds, so we go walking out to see what a 40gr v-max will do to a rabbit, about half way there another jack jumps up and heads for the weed field, my boy snap shoots this jack, he hits it with his first shot, rolls it, and a .204 at 40yds does really bad things to a jackrabbit! after about an hour the jack population in this field was non-existant, so we took to driving through the weed field and scaring them up! we all had a ball, was loads of fun, the rabbits would take off running, we'd wait until the rabbits stopped running, when they paused any where from 100yds to 300yds, we'd take the shot! some got away but not many! hopefully I'll get pictures posted soon!

[Arizona Hunter]

Sorry to hear about the plaque. Glad you got to help out the rancher with a his Jacks, though.

So, now what are you going to do for p-dogs the rest of the summer?

[Captqc]

Wow! After shooting PD's those Jacks must have looked like horses in your scopes! Can't wait to see the pictures from your trip. We love pictures! Gary

[Rick in Oregon]

c2m: Glad you were able to salvage your hunt after all that driving. Like Captqc said, those bunnies must have looked huge in your scope. It reminded me of shooting our ground squirrels all spring, then come deer season, a nice buck at 400 yards is like shooting a pickup! Of course when we get a bit smug after hitting squirrels way out there past 400, we have no excuse for missing any deer!

It's great to have a "substitute varmint"! Glad you had a good time.

[crazy2medic]

Here's the Pics

Me shooting

my boy shooting

my dad shooting

my shot

my boys shot

my dads shot

my boy claims another!

my 220yd Kill

65yd kill

picked the wrong hole!

our Rifles! my Custom .204, my boy's howa heavy barrel .204

[acloco]

AWESOME!!!!

[Super 91]

Very cool! Take a busted hunt and turn it into lotsa memories!!! Sounds like you guys had quite the blast! And seems the jacks did too!!

[crazy2medic]

we are hoping that the prairie dog population will have recovered somewhat by next year! but the jackrabbits are now part of our shooting agenda!