Once again we have had lots of windy days, but the weathermen were predicting fairly decent coyote calling and prairie dog shooting weather for Thursday, so I headed down to the National Grasslands. Winds were supposed to be fairly calm in the morning, but were to kick up to from 10 to 12 mph in the afternoon. As I was leaving Williston, the big full moon was a creamy golden color out on the western horizon and the sunrise was absolutely SPECTACULAR. Unfortunately, I didn’t stop to take any photos!!! But here’s a sunset photo from another hunt I was on.
As usual, I had three rifles with me. This time I had my .204 Ruger rifle with a stainless steel super match grade 1 in 11 twist three groove Pac-Nor barrel and my .17 Remington built on a Remington 700 ADL action and both of these rifles had the BLACKNITRIDE™ treatment done on the barrels and the barrels are 24" long and threaded for my suppressor. I planned on using the .17 Remington with the BLACKNITRIDE™ treated barrel for coyotes and keep the .204 Ruger as a backup. The ammo I use in the 17 Remington is made using Remington factory brass, 24.1 gr. of N-540, Remington 7½ primers and hBN coated 30 gr. FBHP T-000 Nagel bullets. Muzzle velocity for this load is right at 3,855 fps. The other rifle I had along was a .17 Remington built on a Stiller Predator action. It sports a stainless steel 1 in 9 twist Remington Varmint contour barrel by Lilja. The barrel on this one is 26" long and it too is threaded for my suppressor. I formed brass for this rifle out of new WW .204 Ruger brass and the casing capacity is just a bit less than that of Remington factory casings so it takes less powder to crank up the velocity. I’m using some old hBN coated 30 gr. FBHP Starke Red Prairie Varmint bullets in this rifle. I’m shooting a light load of 21.2 gr. of IMR 8208 XBR fired off by Remington 7½ primers and getting a muzzle velocity of 3,739 fps. They will work great on prairie dogs and I have had great success with these bullets on coyote too. However, when I was using these bullets for coyotes I had a load that gave me 3,900 fps, so I’ll have to hold off on my evaluation of how this load works on coyotes until I shoot a few of those critters.
I left town until at 6:52 a.m. The temperature was 23 degrees when I left the house. Traffic was moving along at a pretty good pace until we got to the road construction just south of the Lewis and Clark Bridge. They have opened up quite a few miles of the new 4-lane highway between Williston and Alexander, ND, but there are still some stretches where the speed limit is all the way down to 25 mph and some stretches where it is 45 mph. I got to where I was going to park my pickup and walk in to my first calling spot and got the FOXPRO set up and it began to wail at 8:10 a.m. I saw about a half dozen mule deer, but after 27 minutes of calling there were no coyotes coming in so I packed up and headed back to the pickup. I drove to my next calling location, which was a spot I had never called from before and I wasn’t totally familiar with the lay of the land, UNFORTUNATELY!!!
I got set up ready to start the FOXPRO by 9:54 a.m. The wind was blowing about 15 mph from almost straight south when I started. I had noticed what looked like a big growth of sage brush up to the SW of me on a flat spot between two buttes. I didn’t pay much attention to it until about 10 minutes into the stand when it stood up and now I could see it was a very big mule deer buck! It had at least 5 points on each side with a high and wide spread. I know that if I had a buck license for a mule deer buck in this region, I’d be down there trying to bag that one!!! He eventually went behind the butte and came out on the east side of the butte and headed to the ENE and disappeared.
About 15 minutes into the stand the wind switched and began blowing from the SE and so now the little rise over in that downwind direction was an area I could not see if the coyote circled that way. At the 23 minute mark I spotted the white chest of a coyote coming in from the SSW about 600 plus yards away and it went out of sight behind a large hill. I had about 6 head of cattle to the WSW of me. The coyote was heading right at my FOXPRO the last time I saw it so I didn’t even try to move so I could cover the downwind side (BAD MOVE). After about 4 minutes it came from behind the big hill way further west than I expected and it wasn’t heading towards the FOXPRO, but rather it was trotting a little west of the cattle, heading north and east for the wind. I didn’t have time to fling a shot at it and besides the cattle were in harm’s way. Like I mentioned, I had debated whether I should move over to the west so I could see downwind, but from the direction it was coming before it went behind the hill I thought I was OK—NOT SO!!!
Coyotes – 1, LeRoy – 0!!!
As I was walking back to the pickup, I checked the lay of the land over on that west side of my calling stand and could see a good spot to call from that would have put that coyote right in my lap. Isn’t that funny how hindsight is always 20-20 and “if I woulda done this—I coulda done that” and all those excuses!!! I felt like kicking myself all the way back to the pickup.
I drove further south on a lease road and parked my pickup on the west side of a well site. I gathered my calling gear and headed off to the SE of the oil well and set up and started calling at about 11:30 a.m. The area looked like prime coyote country, but I saw lots of ATV and pickup tracks on this National Grasslands acreage where there shouldn’t be those tracks. I drew a blank on this stand and headed back to the pickup, still kicking myself for messing up on the earlier stand. I was back at the pickup and headed to another calling spot by 12:35 p.m.
I was going to call in a couple more places several miles to the SE of where I had been calling, but there were lots of vehicles involved in laying pipe lines and setting up power lines so I figured all that traffic probably had the critters pretty riled up and I decided to head down further south to a little prairie dog town and see how my Predator action .17 Remington worked on prairie dogs with the 30 gr. Starke bullets. I had this rifle built in May of 2010 and had been using hBN coated 25 gr. V-Max bullets in this rifle through July of 2011. Then I switched to using the 29 gr. Genco bullets coated with hBN in this rifle from August 2011 through June 3, 2014, when I shot the last 29 gr. Genco bullet I had. I had been trying to work up a load for the 30 gr. Starke until I finally found a very accurate load on September 11, 2014 (left target), and got my scope adjusted on September 15, 2014 (right target). I then cleaned the barrel thoroughly and treated it with Lock-Ease and hadn’t shot it since then, so I hadn’t shot any prairie dogs with that load until today. Shots 5-7 measured .235" center-to-center.
I should have fired a couple of fouling shots to make sure what the POI was, but I didn’t do that. I just started shooting prairie dogs. I went 7 for 7 on shots from 50 yards to 144 yards. Then I took a shot at one that was standing facing me out at 177 yards with the wind blowing from left to right at a 90º angle to my line of fire. I allowed 3 inches of drift and missed the prairie dog on the right side. I decided it was time to check to point of impact. I shot a couple shots at a dead tree located 55 yards away and had to crank my windage adjustment 1/2 inch left so it is no wonder I missed to the right on that 177 yard PD. After getting the scope adjusted I had a prairie dog barking at me at a distance of 50 yards. He would only show his head, but that’s enough for me. Here’s the “Hero Photo” showing the rifle and the PD with major head injuries!!!
I didn’t miss any more shots after that and went 12 for 13 for the day. I was disappointed there weren’t more PD out, but it was very windy and cloudy and not a nice day for prairie dogs to be out and about. The time/date stamp on my photos is off one hour because I didn’t set the clock back.
I shot another one that was 25 yards away and barking at me. He fell back into the hole, but there was brain matter all over around the top of the mound and I could see his carcass down in the hole so the 30 gr. Starke made a bad mark on him too.
This next prairie dog was shot from an elevated position (where the black arrow is pointing) and was about 145 yards away.
The prairie dog had just run up on his mound from the rear and was facing me. The shot tipped him over backwards and off the mound. I looked and looked for the entrance hole and couldn’t find it??? So, I flipped him over to see what kind of an exit wound had been made and there was no big exit wound.
I did find what looked like a place on his back just in front of his tail that could have been an exit of some fragments of the bullet. The bullet had to hit him somewhere under his chin, but like I said, I couldn’t find the spot and I didn’t want to get any jumping insects on me!!! The prairie dogs I shot sure were fat buggers.
I quit shooting PDs and started walking back to the pickup at about 3:54 p.m. and drove to a spot that I shot a coyote at several years ago and called for about 30 minutes without any takers. I headed home. That doggone wind just played me out.
Well, that’s how my day went, which was pretty good except for the fact I educated a coyote in the morning. I hope you had a good day too.
As usual, I had three rifles with me. This time I had my .204 Ruger rifle with a stainless steel super match grade 1 in 11 twist three groove Pac-Nor barrel and my .17 Remington built on a Remington 700 ADL action and both of these rifles had the BLACKNITRIDE™ treatment done on the barrels and the barrels are 24" long and threaded for my suppressor. I planned on using the .17 Remington with the BLACKNITRIDE™ treated barrel for coyotes and keep the .204 Ruger as a backup. The ammo I use in the 17 Remington is made using Remington factory brass, 24.1 gr. of N-540, Remington 7½ primers and hBN coated 30 gr. FBHP T-000 Nagel bullets. Muzzle velocity for this load is right at 3,855 fps. The other rifle I had along was a .17 Remington built on a Stiller Predator action. It sports a stainless steel 1 in 9 twist Remington Varmint contour barrel by Lilja. The barrel on this one is 26" long and it too is threaded for my suppressor. I formed brass for this rifle out of new WW .204 Ruger brass and the casing capacity is just a bit less than that of Remington factory casings so it takes less powder to crank up the velocity. I’m using some old hBN coated 30 gr. FBHP Starke Red Prairie Varmint bullets in this rifle. I’m shooting a light load of 21.2 gr. of IMR 8208 XBR fired off by Remington 7½ primers and getting a muzzle velocity of 3,739 fps. They will work great on prairie dogs and I have had great success with these bullets on coyote too. However, when I was using these bullets for coyotes I had a load that gave me 3,900 fps, so I’ll have to hold off on my evaluation of how this load works on coyotes until I shoot a few of those critters.
I left town until at 6:52 a.m. The temperature was 23 degrees when I left the house. Traffic was moving along at a pretty good pace until we got to the road construction just south of the Lewis and Clark Bridge. They have opened up quite a few miles of the new 4-lane highway between Williston and Alexander, ND, but there are still some stretches where the speed limit is all the way down to 25 mph and some stretches where it is 45 mph. I got to where I was going to park my pickup and walk in to my first calling spot and got the FOXPRO set up and it began to wail at 8:10 a.m. I saw about a half dozen mule deer, but after 27 minutes of calling there were no coyotes coming in so I packed up and headed back to the pickup. I drove to my next calling location, which was a spot I had never called from before and I wasn’t totally familiar with the lay of the land, UNFORTUNATELY!!!
I got set up ready to start the FOXPRO by 9:54 a.m. The wind was blowing about 15 mph from almost straight south when I started. I had noticed what looked like a big growth of sage brush up to the SW of me on a flat spot between two buttes. I didn’t pay much attention to it until about 10 minutes into the stand when it stood up and now I could see it was a very big mule deer buck! It had at least 5 points on each side with a high and wide spread. I know that if I had a buck license for a mule deer buck in this region, I’d be down there trying to bag that one!!! He eventually went behind the butte and came out on the east side of the butte and headed to the ENE and disappeared.
About 15 minutes into the stand the wind switched and began blowing from the SE and so now the little rise over in that downwind direction was an area I could not see if the coyote circled that way. At the 23 minute mark I spotted the white chest of a coyote coming in from the SSW about 600 plus yards away and it went out of sight behind a large hill. I had about 6 head of cattle to the WSW of me. The coyote was heading right at my FOXPRO the last time I saw it so I didn’t even try to move so I could cover the downwind side (BAD MOVE). After about 4 minutes it came from behind the big hill way further west than I expected and it wasn’t heading towards the FOXPRO, but rather it was trotting a little west of the cattle, heading north and east for the wind. I didn’t have time to fling a shot at it and besides the cattle were in harm’s way. Like I mentioned, I had debated whether I should move over to the west so I could see downwind, but from the direction it was coming before it went behind the hill I thought I was OK—NOT SO!!!
Coyotes – 1, LeRoy – 0!!!
As I was walking back to the pickup, I checked the lay of the land over on that west side of my calling stand and could see a good spot to call from that would have put that coyote right in my lap. Isn’t that funny how hindsight is always 20-20 and “if I woulda done this—I coulda done that” and all those excuses!!! I felt like kicking myself all the way back to the pickup.
I drove further south on a lease road and parked my pickup on the west side of a well site. I gathered my calling gear and headed off to the SE of the oil well and set up and started calling at about 11:30 a.m. The area looked like prime coyote country, but I saw lots of ATV and pickup tracks on this National Grasslands acreage where there shouldn’t be those tracks. I drew a blank on this stand and headed back to the pickup, still kicking myself for messing up on the earlier stand. I was back at the pickup and headed to another calling spot by 12:35 p.m.
I was going to call in a couple more places several miles to the SE of where I had been calling, but there were lots of vehicles involved in laying pipe lines and setting up power lines so I figured all that traffic probably had the critters pretty riled up and I decided to head down further south to a little prairie dog town and see how my Predator action .17 Remington worked on prairie dogs with the 30 gr. Starke bullets. I had this rifle built in May of 2010 and had been using hBN coated 25 gr. V-Max bullets in this rifle through July of 2011. Then I switched to using the 29 gr. Genco bullets coated with hBN in this rifle from August 2011 through June 3, 2014, when I shot the last 29 gr. Genco bullet I had. I had been trying to work up a load for the 30 gr. Starke until I finally found a very accurate load on September 11, 2014 (left target), and got my scope adjusted on September 15, 2014 (right target). I then cleaned the barrel thoroughly and treated it with Lock-Ease and hadn’t shot it since then, so I hadn’t shot any prairie dogs with that load until today. Shots 5-7 measured .235" center-to-center.
I should have fired a couple of fouling shots to make sure what the POI was, but I didn’t do that. I just started shooting prairie dogs. I went 7 for 7 on shots from 50 yards to 144 yards. Then I took a shot at one that was standing facing me out at 177 yards with the wind blowing from left to right at a 90º angle to my line of fire. I allowed 3 inches of drift and missed the prairie dog on the right side. I decided it was time to check to point of impact. I shot a couple shots at a dead tree located 55 yards away and had to crank my windage adjustment 1/2 inch left so it is no wonder I missed to the right on that 177 yard PD. After getting the scope adjusted I had a prairie dog barking at me at a distance of 50 yards. He would only show his head, but that’s enough for me. Here’s the “Hero Photo” showing the rifle and the PD with major head injuries!!!
I didn’t miss any more shots after that and went 12 for 13 for the day. I was disappointed there weren’t more PD out, but it was very windy and cloudy and not a nice day for prairie dogs to be out and about. The time/date stamp on my photos is off one hour because I didn’t set the clock back.
I shot another one that was 25 yards away and barking at me. He fell back into the hole, but there was brain matter all over around the top of the mound and I could see his carcass down in the hole so the 30 gr. Starke made a bad mark on him too.
This next prairie dog was shot from an elevated position (where the black arrow is pointing) and was about 145 yards away.
The prairie dog had just run up on his mound from the rear and was facing me. The shot tipped him over backwards and off the mound. I looked and looked for the entrance hole and couldn’t find it??? So, I flipped him over to see what kind of an exit wound had been made and there was no big exit wound.
I did find what looked like a place on his back just in front of his tail that could have been an exit of some fragments of the bullet. The bullet had to hit him somewhere under his chin, but like I said, I couldn’t find the spot and I didn’t want to get any jumping insects on me!!! The prairie dogs I shot sure were fat buggers.
I quit shooting PDs and started walking back to the pickup at about 3:54 p.m. and drove to a spot that I shot a coyote at several years ago and called for about 30 minutes without any takers. I headed home. That doggone wind just played me out.
Well, that’s how my day went, which was pretty good except for the fact I educated a coyote in the morning. I hope you had a good day too.
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