The last time I hunted in this dog town was on July 17, 2009, and I had real good shooting that day. The first photo shows my old 1997 Ford Ranger pickup I was driving back in 2009 parked along a fence line looking to the SE. The area you see over the top of the pickup is the same area you see between the Chevy pickup and where I stood to take the second photo.
The second photo is my newer 2009 Chevy Silverado looking to the NE. There’s was a lot more tall grass in the dog town on Tuesday than there was back in 2009, but for the most part, I was able to find good shooting lanes.
I parked my pickup in a spot where I could use my tailgate for a shooting bench. I set up my target box 100 yards away from my pickup. I had four rifles along and three of them needed to have a couple fouling shots down the barrel. I was planning on using my Predator action .17 Remington in the morning shoot and my new/old Savage 12VLP in .204 Ruger in the afternoon (I call this one my Ohlsen .204R in honor of the fellow I bought it from). I had shot about 20 shots through this Savage on an earlier prairie dog hunt, so all I needed to do with that one was check the point of impact. Here’s a picture of the target from two shots with my hBN coated 40 gr. V-Max loads at 100 yards.
My trajectory and wind deflection chart on the side of my stock is for the bullets hitting .9" high at 100 yards and while these two holes aren’t exactly .9", I can’t adjust the scope (1/4" clicks) any closer this. I put the rifle back in the soft-sided case.
I was not going to shoot prairie dogs with the .17 TAC today, but I wanted to foul the barrel and get the point of impact adjusted. Before I could shoot a shot at the target, a prairie dog, some 125 yards away, sat barking at me. I turned the rifle his way and dispatched him. It took me four more shots to get the barrel fouled and settled in and to get the point of impact exactly where I wanted it. I also had my Savage target action in .204 Ruger along and took two shots with that to get the barrel fouled and they were right on the money. My .17 Predator took three shots to get it fouled and settled down and then I shot two shots to make sure the POI was on—it was OK for vertical but took one click left for windage. Two prairie dogs were barking right after I got the Predator .17 Remington adjusted and I took the opportunity to dust them off before getting all my gear together for the morning shoot. I figured bagging three prairie dogs while sighting in rifles must be a good omen for things to come. OK, now I was ready to hunt.
I got started on the hunt at 10:20 a.m. I could see a few prairie dogs and shot one on my way into where I wanted to set up. I got onto a fairly tall PD mound and used my Leica 1200 range finder to glass the area to the south and southwest of my location. The young of the year were out in the grass feeding and there were quite a number of them. I had a box of 19 cartridges to start with. By 10:50 I had shot 13 shots and hit on 13 singles. There was just a wisp of wind out of the WNW and since most of my shots were from 197 to 217 yards I didn’t have to allow for any windage. I would shoot 3 or 4 shots and then sit and let the barrel cool. At 10:55, I shot a prairie dog at 200 yards and spotted another one in that general area. I assumed it to be around 200 yards away and missed the shot. It moved a little to the SE and I shot again, but this time I only hit his rear foot. He moved to another mound, I shot again and missed again and down the hole he went. I decided I better range that mound and discovered that he had been 245 yards away NOT 200 yards away. No wonder I was shooting low. Those three misses didn’t help the hit count. When I finished the box of 19 cartridges I had 16 dead prairie dogs, 1 wounded PD, and 2 missed shots.
I moved to the SW about 50 yards and set up on another fairly tall prairie dog mound. At 11:06 a.m. I took out a box of cartridges that had 44 reloads in it and started using that. By 11:48 I had shot 17 more shots and hit on 17 singles. The last shot was at 18 yards from the muzzle and totally evacuated his insides. I wanted a photo of some of the PDs I had shot so I started to gather some of the bodies and on one of the trips back to where I had my rifle sitting a large adult PD was barking at me. I took a break from gathering bodies and popped that loud PD. When I had 24 or 25 bodies stacked on the side of a mound I paused to take some photos. Here’s the stack of bodies and my Predator action .17 Rem. There were only four adults in this pile.
Here’s a look at the four adults with a young pup above them for perspective on size.
I started my walk back to the pickup around 12:40 p.m. and shot a few more PDs on the walk back. I got to the pickup at 12:55 p.m. I checked the number of rounds I had shot and the tally for the morning shoot was 38 dead PDs, 1 wounded, and 3 missed shots for a total 38 PDs for 42 shots.
I stopped to have lunch and a nap. During my nap time, I had to get my rifle out on three separate occasions to silence three noisy prairie dogs. After my nap, I got my gear together for the afternoon hunt and started my walkabout at 2:40 p.m. I set up on a nice mound and by 3:40 p.m. I had shot 14 more shots and went 14 for 14. The range of those shots: two at 117 yards and twelve at 150 to 190 yards. Again, I was shooting three or four shots and then letting my rifle barrel cool down. I moved to another mound about 40 yards to the west and I did some more shooting.
While I was moving to a new spot I noticed some blossoms that called out to me to take their picture.
Around 4:30 I spotted a huge prairie dog out west of my position that was lying flat on his mound with his back to me. The range finder said he was 238 yards away. It sure didn’t look like 238 yards—it looked more like 180 or 190 yards. I took the reading four or five times and decided I’d trust the range finder. I lined up the crosshairs on the middle of his back and squeezed off the shot. I could see the PD fly to the west as his body disappeared behind the mound and I could hear the familiar WHACK of the bullet hitting flesh.
I wanted to check the distance so I started walking over to that mound and counting my steps. A little over halfway there, I spotted a bunch more PD targets, so I set up on a nice tall mound and shot a few more PDs. I still hadn’t hunted the north part of this dog town and the afternoon was passing away quickly. However, I wanted to continue stepping off the distance to the big prairie dog I had shot that my range finder said was 238 yards away. When I got to the body, I had counted 248 steps, so I guess the range finder was right after all. Here are a couple photos I took of this big old prairie dog.
This first photo shows you exactly the way he was lying when I got to him—check out the layer of fat sticking out from the top of the wound.
The photo below shows the entrance wound.
Here’s the obligatory “Hero Photo” with the big dog.
I started to walk toward the north part of the dog town. There was lots of tall grass interfering with shot opportunities in this part of the dog town, but I managed to get off a few shots. I was getting close to the pickup and the end of the hunt. I had shot 5 shots fouling the barrel and adjusting the scope and took another 85 shots at prairie dogs and the old Predator action .17 Remington with a 1 in 9 twist four groove Lilja #6 contour stainless steel barrel was still shooting very accurately. This is the rifle I formed .17 Remington casings for out of WW .204 Ruger brass. I had two brand new casings with that had not been fire formed yet and I wanted to find some prairie dogs I could shoot with them, but I got back to the pickup at 5:24 p.m. without using them. I started putting my gear away. I still had the two new casings in my magazine and I finally got two prairie dogs to volunteer to let me shoot them with these shells. Thank you prairie dog volunteers!!!
Counting the PD I shot with the .17 TAC while fouling the barrels and the two I shot after I got back to the pickup after the hunt I had taken 88 shots at prairie dogs, had 9 missed shots and hit on 79 singles. I think that’s more missed shots than I have had in two or three previous hunts. Maybe I’m losing my touch!?!?!?!? The day was just great—not too terribly hot, although it was 92 above in the afternoon, and hardly any wind. What wind there was didn’t blow hard enough to cause any missed shots that I can account for. Missed shots were my fault for either misjudging the distance or jerking the trigger. I hate to admit it, but two of those missed shots were when I had my finger on the trigger and was trying to move the rifle around!!! That is scary. NOTE TO SELF: Keep your finger off the trigger when you move the rifle around!!!
I hope you enjoyed today’s prairie dog shoot.
