prairie dog shooting trip (no "gross" pics)

When I worked for the Ag Dept,I used to have to kill thousands of Beechey Ground Squirrels plus check their colonies for plague carrying flea samples now and then. Was challenging shooting but I prefer to just shoot paper. Despite being raised in a hunting family, I never much liked killing critters.

Here on the ranch we have the most magnificent ground squirrel, the Rock Squirrel, a huge black rascal that is truly gorgeous. We had a big plague die off a couple of years ago but they are bouncing back now. When they get numerous enough to be pests, I live trap them and move them to the other end of the ranch away from the house and the wife's bird feeders. They are by far the tamest and stupidest ground squirrels I've ever seen. Most the time they are in the trap before I can hardly get back in the house. Then they stuff all the sunflower bait into their cheek pouches and sit patiently waiting to be relocated. Kind of amusing to watch really. I'm sure they'd make a beautiful pet if one could get by the sylvatic plague issue.....Mel

Scott, *L* I just got back from running my latest catch out to the creek These have got to be the goofiest, prettiest ground squirrels ever. Dang things have a distance tolerance of about ten feet. Just sit there and watch you. The ground squirrels in California were bad AG pests and very numerous. I'd sometimes take a single stand and shoot them up all day without making a dent in a big colony. I did the shooting just to determine embryo counts for proper poison timing. We used to have our own mixing station and put out tons of poison bait every year as shooting was not really very effective and in many places we could not shoot because of homes, livestock etc....Mel

The PD's on his ranch covered ~3500 acres until about 2 years ago when they nearly completely died off. They aren't near the house, they are at the far end of the ranch but they do a fair job of clearing the grass off the land that would normally feed cattle. When we went 2 years ago almost every hole in every colony was covered in spider webs. We counted 12 on the entire ranch when the previous year there had been thousands.

This year, after leaving them alone for one complete year, they are back on ~500 acres and we saw probably 500 of them. The late spring will probably mean they haven't had one of their litters this year so there will be more in the fall.

Scott, I am working on finding someone who has feral pig issues and wants them gone so I can take a few coolers and load up on some wild pork. The issue I am having is that everyone is charging to get at the pigs, in spite of the damage they are doing. For now I'm holding off until I find someone who really wants them gone.

Prairie Dogs and cotton tails (eat our garden and my wife's flowers) are the only critters I shoot without eating them. I'd eat the cotton tails but in the summer you don't want to eat them due to parasites.

well feral pigs anywhere would be great. There are some reported in SE Colorado, but I haven't been able to get any reliable info on shooting them.

John, let's go visit Mel! If Mel doesn't, I do have contacts we can kill pigs near there. Plus we can see his rocks in person! lol

Yeah my crossman pellet rifle gets a lot of exercise with the rabbits this year. The quality of the plastic hardware is (not surprisingly) bad - I was going to toss it because it is broken and loose. Since I've been working the rabbit boom over in our yard it has proven to be surprisingly effective so it sits by the back door all the time.

I have a .22 camo air rifle with a nice scope, but it is HUGE and almost as loud as a .22 rimfire so I save it for targets on a friend's place with the kids.

I will eventually reload but have other financial priorities these days.

I think I paid $30 for mine from WalMart, pretty sure I have the lowest-end model, but it does the job.

[Gamo, not camo - typo in my earlier post]

Yeah I went to a range to sight mine in and was amazed at how loud it was. We shot it at the ranch one time at night at some roosting pigeons and it spooked all the horses.