Just got word from my sisters place that its time to go thin the herd. I have 600 rds. of various types of ammo, three rifles (all need sighted in) and 6,000,000 prairie dogs to shoot. Even with me taking a friend we aren't going to make much of a dent. Oh well. By Friday this time we will be dropping them as fast as we find them. Its an annual thing, two weeks later I have two fellas from Louisiana coming out to shoot'em....1100 miles one way. Going to be a busy few weeks for me. Anybody else shootin 'em up yet

Heading to South Dakota this Saturday. Les Baer, Ruger Model 96 HMR and custom 10/22 are eagerly awaiting to create mass carnage.

Leaving this afternoon for three days. It will be good to get out and bust off a few.

Will you be shooting on reservation land?

WTFC, yup we're heading to the Rosebud. Leaving pretty quick here. I was out there in early April on a Turkey/P.dog hunt, but was greeted with 20 inches of snow! The forecast looks good for the next couple of days so hopefully redemption will be ours.

Hey Steve,

Let us know how the shooting was. I can't wait to come and shoot a few that you missed. I hope you left a few.

I hope the weather was good also.

Jimmy

Shooting was excellent with a few weather challenges. With two full days of shooting I used 300 plus rounds maybe more...not sure as I lost count. I used the 17 HMR a little but was less than impressed. It kills them but not like I'm used to and certainly at no bargain to shoot. It was far to windy for the rimfire. My .204s were re-dialed in the first morning and they shot as well or better than ever. I probably shot 85% kills and these were out there as we got very few close in shots. My buddy Tom shot about the same but he didn't get there til Friday night. We got a late start on Saturday waiting for the light rain to stop. The upside is that we shot till 7 oclock in the evening and only stopped then because we had to get back for dinner. Longest confirmed kill was about 400 yds. and the closest was less than 15. Wind didn't allow for anything longer.

I posted this on another site but it truly was a classic in prairie dog shooting world-

".....saw my first split. This is the scenario. Large mound 280 yds. out, little pds stacked on top of it just like bowling pins, my buddy "has the solution" with his Remington SPS 22-250 and a 50 gr. Vmax, catches the front dog slightly off center at mid body, clears the middle of the mound with little bodies flying out the back of the mound, leaves the #7 and #10 dogs standing. In bowling it would have been a split with a tough pick up to a spare. In prairie dog shooting world it was a classic. I could only guess there were four to five possible deaths maybe more. "

Very good Steve. Those multiple hits are fun to watch. Did you shoot on both sides of the (you know where) road?

Jimmy

Had to "dig" way back into the Photo Forum to find this one, but just LUVZ them Splits:

The Split

I'm sure a few more of those are in the future!!

Bob (Will be in Colorado on the 13th of June)

jog - Nope we only shot the south side. As we were shooting the landowner was mending fence on both the south and north pastures. They are bringing cattle in probably today. No problem as he just asked we avoid being on the same end of the field as the cattle. With three miles in one direction from which to shoot and in places 1 1/2 the other way...shouldn't be a problem. He doesn't put that many cows in there anyway. Never have shot the north field, its looks good but hard to find a good place to park the truck where its out of the way of passing farm equipment.

sky - The odds of getting little pds to cooperate and stand still lined up like these were is a one in many thousand. We shot several doubles and even a possible triple but this shot was one that everything has to be just right. My guess is the first dog we got perfect bullet frag to pattern out thru the rest of the 'pins'. This plus the fact that this was quite possibly day one on the outside for these very little pds. Not much mass to them.

Not my only set up but this one will "get 'er dun"

Thought about starting new thread decided this one covers the "farm raised prairie dogs Part II" pretty well. Goin back this Friday for a couple of days...meet up with 'joghotrod' (fellow member here at varminter and other forums) who traveled all the way to CO from Louisiana to shoot the damn things with me. Least I can do is go help the man out. Lookin forward to Saturday sunshine and lots of dogs, no wind.

minimal wind.......no such thing as "no wind" out there.

Sounds like a winner to me. Marcie said to come on over Friday, so we will meet you there Friday afternoon.

Jimmy

Sounds like I'm bringin my buddy Carl with me. Family friend for almost all of my 53 years.

He decided to get into the pd shooting, jumped in with both feet too. Bought a new Remington VSSF II in 22-250, new Leupold VXII 4x12 scope and I put it togethr for him. Sounds like I'll be doin more spottin and less shootin

Take care ....seee ya

Are there any picts? I want to see what kind of damage you fellows are getting! Sounds like fun.

I'll save the pic posting for joghotrod...me I have seen tens of thousands of dead prairie dogs. Shot up in some real brutal messes (ruint is the word they use around here). I don't even take a camera except to get prairie view, shooters or gun pics. One hacked pd looks about the same as the next to me. The truly amazing are the ones that, except for just small fragments virtually vanish.

see ya tomorrow Jimmy.............

With any luck we will get there in time to sight in Carls rifle late Friday afternoon.

Sorry this is as gory as mine get -

joghotrod and I (with the short TC) two years ago on the Butler place hammerin dogs. You could pretty much drive to the same exact spot everyday and never run out of shots, just turn the table.

Got back yesterday from our annual dog shoot. I have to say Jimmy looks older than he did in this last post....me, I look the same LOL .

We had a great time, decent shooting and lots of dead pds. Weather was the best so far this year. I will leave it up to joghotrod to post the gore and carnage. But in the true spirit of the varminter forum "many a dog was very RUINT" by end of the weekend.

Here are pictures of some Ruint PD's.