ANY ONE HERE LOVE TO HUNT CALIFORNIA GROUND SQUIRRELS???

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billygoat

New member
I live in northern cali in the western mountains and my favorite past time during the summer is sniping ground squirrels with my remington 700 vls in .243 with 58 gr. barnes burner coated varmint hollow points. just wondering if theres any fellow ground squirrel hunters out there.
 
nope. Haha, sorry to be blunt, but its all about the Alberta Gophers with the 7mm! In my humble opinion
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In Utah they are called Uninta ground squirrels but everyone calls them pot-guts.

Most people here use a 17hmr or 22 hornet something in a light caliber.
But they are popular to hunt.
 
billygoat I grewup in Elko and my Brother and I went to School with some kids that had huge Alphalfa fields and the Ground Squirrels were thicker than Fleas. The kids told us to come out and shoot as much as we wanted. My Brother and I would take 2 Thousand rounds of 22 Shells and shoot so much at the end of the day you couldn't squeeze the Trigger anymore because your Finger was cramped up. In the Winter time it was the same with the Rabbits. They would come in and eat 3 feet into the base of the Hay stacks. We could almost hunt 365 days a year there. Now the Ranch is under South Fork Reservoir.

Two years ago I found a Mountain Meadow that was loaded with Squirrels and almost burnt my 223 up shooting them. It was a blast in more ways than one
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. I went back this year and the Meadows were still to wet for the Squirrels so I didn't get much shooting.
 
I started going this year to New Pine Creek and Cedarville in the far North east corner of California to shoot the Belding ground squirrels. I use a .17HMR and a .204 Ruger. I added a Ruger SR22 and a Thompson Contender Encore Pro Hunter in .22-250 handgun for the 2010 season.
 
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Originally Posted By: atavuss Cedarville in the far North east corner of California to shoot the Belding ground squirrels.

Ive been going there for 12 yrs for the annual squirrel shoot & BBQ.
Course its nice that a pal has a ranch there. I remove no less than 2000 of them the week I stay at the ranch. Last year me and a pal shot a tad under 4300 rounds total in 4 days....even in the snow they were all over the property.
Those little suckers are so darn fun to pop off, they fly pretty good also, some as much as 20 feet in 2 directions....
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Shooting Ground squirrels is one of my favorite things to do. I'm in the bay area and have a few places where I can shoot a bunch. I use my AR-15 with a 24" heavy barrel 3x9 Leupold only get me out to 250yds so far. I need to get a better scope. I started using 40gr Vmax's recently and love the way the fly up as their parts go different directions!
 
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I live in the Concord area and shoot California Ground Squirrels up near the Cache Creek casino. I use a M77 in 22-250 with hand loads pushing Nosler Balistic Tips 55 grains at 3550 FPS. Tons of fun!!! Alec
 
I used to hunt them back when I lived near Fresno. In the Foothills, they were always laying on rocks. I mostly hunted them with a 22mag but I hit some with my .308 too. The .308 was more dramatic. If they were broadside, or standing up, it would cut them in half and both ends would still try and run away. if they were looking directly at me or directly away, there would not be much left after the impact. It was fun sometimes if I aimed a little low and let the bullet hit the rock directly beneath the little pest. I was using more of a big game style bullet so hitting the rock acted like more fragmentation. I'm guessing that you don't have that problem with your .243 and 58 grainers. One time, when I went to look at one I "rocked" I found a pretty neat pelt with the head and front legs attached. A 2 inch strip of fur from the body/back and the tail was all still intact. everything else was gone. Sometimes I couldn't find anything! Have fun.
 
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