PD shooting in Montana Day 8

[herb]

Hey Don

The day before was a perfect day to shoot. I was packing up to head out when I got a call from my sister. After catching up with her I jumped into the jeep and headed out to a field I shot last year. I got to the field and there were plenty of dogs so I set up to shoot. I got everything set to shoot and realized that while talking to my sister, I forgot to load the ammo into my grate. I only had 50 rounds, shot those up and packed up to go back to camp. I decided to look around the rest of the field and came over a rise and couldn’t believe the dogs. I decided to go back to camp, get the ammo and head back out. It was a 70 mile round trip but what the heck. I got back to the field and there were a ton of dogs, but after the first shot, down they went. It took forever for them to get back up so I decided to change to the .17. They stayed up longer with the .17 but it’s just not the same as the .204. Had a blast, I forget how much fun the .17can be.

It rained last night so decide to do a little recon. Armed with my Google maps, lap-top and gps I went out searching for Pd towns.

I had my maps, and where I thought there should be a road leading to a PD town, there wasn’t a gate. I could see on the other side of the fence that there looked like there was an old trail but no way to get to it. 100 yards down the road there was a gate but not much of a trial.

I tried to open the gate, a simple 4-wire fence gate but the wire holding the gate to the post was so tight I couldn’t budge it. Taking a closer look I could see that someone had been using a pipe or something to open the gate. I found a post and using my belt got the gate open.

I drove down the trial and it ran into the trial that came from fence.
I figured out that someone had moved the gate, and installed a new gate that was almost impossible to get open. I think the guys that guide people did it to keep the place to themselves. It was a huge PD town but it was too windy to bother shooting, so glassed the town and planned to go back the next day.
I was 8-9 miles back into the country and figured not too many people had shot it.
I found five more places; some were ok nothing to get excited about. All were on state land and someone had put a PRIVATE ROAD AUTHORIZED TRAFFIC signs on the gate. Bullshit, I think it is the guided guys again.

I ran into the guy that does the guided hunts. I saw his add and he advertised that he provides it all, guns, meals, bed; all you do is show up. I thought he was shooting on private property but it turns out it is state land. I’m heading back when the wind dies down.

He was with three fat freak driving around with guns hanging out of the window, smoking cigars. They had all their Cabela’s gear on, hats, muffs, shirts. They look like a bunch of facking clowns. I watched them for an awhile and had no idea what they were shooting at. They were shooting from window rests. One guy would call out corrections for distance and wind. The wind was blowing so hard I don’t know why they were even trying. After every shot he would call out CONFIRMED KILL. It was a good laugh. I don’t think that if they walked 30 yards from the truck and turned around they could hit it. I was thinking, that’s just fine, leaves more dogs for me.

I’ll keep you posted.