Here's another photo-filled offering of my ramblings about a September 11 PD hunt up here on the National Grasslands located in North DaColder.
It had been over a month since I was last out pottin’ prairie poodles and I was suffering withdrawal symptoms something fierce!!! The weatherman said the temps were going to be in the mid-70s and the winds were only going to be blowing 4 to 6 mph. If that doesn’t sound like excellent prairie dog shooting I don’t know what does!!! I got a late start, but figured the grass would be wet early in the morning, so the late start would give the sun time to dry off the grass. That’s my excuse and I’m stickin’ to it!!!
I had found some interesting rocks when I was on a PD shoot back on July 31 and forgot them in the shade where I had parked my pickup. I decided to stop by that dog town and pick up those rocks so that took me a good half hour out of my way. I finally got to where I was going to park my pickup around 9:45 a.m. and it was 10:15 by the time I got all my gear together and headed off to the SW where I figured my target dog town was located. I had never come at it from this direction, but I had checked it out on Bing.com/maps and it appeared to be a little under a half mile to the SW of where I parked. On my walk in I found what looks to be some coyote scat that was filled with hair probably from a Hereford breed of cattle.
Anyway, I managed come at the dog town from the east side near a water tank. I noticed several prairie dogs around the water tank and decided to see how my 50 gr. Z-Max loads were shooting out of my Tikka Master Sporter in .22-250. I had checked the point of aim earlier in the week, but then I cleaned the barrel and treated it with Lock-Ease so I figured the first shot or two might be hitting close to where it should be, but not exactly dead on. My first targets were only about 75 yards away so I was confident my bullets would hit my victims with no problem and they did!!! I got explosive action—prairie dogs were flying—or I should say, “prairie dog parts were flying!” These 50 gr. bullets moving out at nearly 4,000 fps are totally devastating. I only had 20 of these rounds to shoot and I used them up quite rapidly. Here’s a photo of the water tank with two PDs off behind the tank and a zoomed in shot of those two “cute” little doggies!!!
I shot 3 PDs that were by the tank in about a minute and managed to get 3 more in the next 3 minutes. These little doggies obviously hadn’t been shot at many times this summer. I walked about 20 or 25 yards to the NNW of the water tank and shot 4 more shots, one of which bagged a double. I stopped shooting to let my barrel cool off and took some photos of the rifle and the double victims. I loaded up the magazine on the rifle and my shell holder on my stock moved about 10 yards to the north so I could see the PDs just over a little rise in front of me and started shooting again. By 11:35 a.m. I had shot all 20 of the 50 gr. Z-Max loads. I managed to get another double so with the 20 shots using the 50 gr. Z-Max loads I had bagged 22 prairie dogs. I crossed my fingers and knocked on wood, I hadn’t missed a shot yet!
Shooting in this dog town was like in the old days when there was hardly anyone out shooting PDs and the prairie poodles were almost like they were tame!!! The 50 gr. Z-Max bullets just absolutely disintegrated the prairie dogs! I wish I had a video camera so I could get the action on video. I could use my smart phone, but that takes a lot of effort to set up and quite frankly, I’d rather be shooting prairie dogs than setting up a video camera!!!
Here’s a photo of my rifle sitting at one of the two spots I shot from on Friday morning.
I was out near the edge of the rise so I could see down below me at the close ones and also had about a 200º field view. Shots ranged all the way from about 40 yards on out to 250 yards. I’d shoot two or three PDs to the north and then spot more PDs to the west and shoot those. Then I would spot some off to the SW or to the south and shoot a few more shots. I think my AAC Ranger 2 suppressor was helping keep those prairie dogs up on top of the ground for more than just one shot. I just kept on working the dog town like that all morning and into the afternoon. I had to stop to let the barrel cool down many times. It was EXCELLENT shooting!!!
After those 50 gr. Z-Max rounds were gone I got out my 53 gr. V-Max loads. I have been shooting test loads with HBN coated 53 gr. V-Max bullets out of my .22-250 this summer. My Tikka has a BLACKNITRIDE™ treated 1 in 12 twist 4-groove stainless steel Brux barrel on it and it shoots the 53 gr. V-Max bullets into tiny groups. The 53 gr. bullet has a BC of .290 so it should fight the wind quite well. The muzzle velocity is only 3,780 fps, but they worked great today. I had 71 rounds of the 53 gr. V-Max with and most of those casings had been fired at least two times and some of them had been fired 3 or 4 times. I wanted to shoot all of these rounds today so I could anneal all of this brass this coming week.
The 53 gr. V-Max bullets were deadly-accurate and giving the PDs lots of flying time!!! I kept shooting until a bit after 1:00 p.m. and felt a bit hungry, so I started to walk to my pickup. I found many more PDs to shoot on my way back and by 1:50 p.m. I was down to only 29 rounds left. I headed back to the pickup and headed for a dog town I hadn’t hunted on yet this summer. I had taken 62 shots in this first dog town and most of those shots were from two positions only about 15 or 20 yards apart. Here’s a view of the second spot I was shooting from.
When I got to the top of the ridge on the north side of the dog town I stopped and snapped a bunch of photos of the area to the south of the ridge. Here’s a view from the ridge looking SW.
I also saw where my pickup was parked so I knew exactly what direction to walk to get back there. I took some rugged two-track trails to get to my next dog town and did a little scouting for areas to call coyotes from while driving back. I was happy it hadn’t rained a bunch around my road to the next PD town or I might still be stuck out there in that good old North Dakota Badlands gray clay.
It was 3:40 p.m. when I arrived at the spot I usually park at near the next dog town. There were cattle in the part of the dog town I could see from where I was parked. I was hoping the cattle would move out of the area. I decided to have lunch, take my customary nap, and see where the cattle were when I got ready to do some more shooting!!!
I woke up from my nap and used my Caldwell Wind Meter to check the wind velocity and temperature. Winds were blowing 4 to 5 mph with gusts only up to 7 mph and that was Good News!!! The temperature was 75º so that was good news too. Some of the cattle had crossed over a deep gully and moved off the dog town, but I felt there were still too many cows on the north end of the town for me to think about shooting there, so I walked towards the south end of the dog town and could see that the cattle had moved out of there. There were plenty PDs and I had some very good shooting in this dog town, but not quite as good as the previous town. I went 4 for 5 from one spot, 3 for 4 in another spot and finally got to the south end of the dog town. In that area I shot 19 prairie dogs with my last 20 shots. For the day, I bagged 2 doubles, 86 singles, missed on 3 shots had killed 90 prairie dogs with 91 shots. It wasn’t a 200 or 300 shot day, but then I seldom shoot more than 80 to 90 shots in a day anyway.
There were still a bunch of blossoms visible today so I snapped some photos of them at the first dog town. When I was walking to the south portion of the second town, I noticed a May Flower (also called crocus) blossoming all by itself on a hillside and that picture is on the bottom right-hand side of the collage. Here’s the collage of four of the different sets of blossoms I saw on Friday.
On my way back to the pickup I spotted a broken fence wire—it looked like it had been hit by a bullet—so I stopped and fixed it. I didn’t get the wire as tight as I would have liked, but at least the wire was back up. I snapped a few photos of an old green ash tree that has survived for many, many, many years out in this harsh North Dakota grasslands area. I have taken many, many naps in the shade of that tree and had my lunch in its shade too. My son and I snapped dozens of photos of Bluebirds while sitting in the shade of that tree too. It brings back a lot of good memories for me.
I arrived at the pickup at about 7:30 p.m. I stored my gear and was on the road back home at 8:05 p.m. and was parked in my garage at 9:25 p.m. It had been another beautiful day that was made a whole lot better because I had been out prairie dog shooting and that cured my withdrawal symptoms.
Here’s the “Hero Photo” for the day. The two dead PDs were the victims on the first double of the day.
It had been over a month since I was last out pottin’ prairie poodles and I was suffering withdrawal symptoms something fierce!!! The weatherman said the temps were going to be in the mid-70s and the winds were only going to be blowing 4 to 6 mph. If that doesn’t sound like excellent prairie dog shooting I don’t know what does!!! I got a late start, but figured the grass would be wet early in the morning, so the late start would give the sun time to dry off the grass. That’s my excuse and I’m stickin’ to it!!!
I had found some interesting rocks when I was on a PD shoot back on July 31 and forgot them in the shade where I had parked my pickup. I decided to stop by that dog town and pick up those rocks so that took me a good half hour out of my way. I finally got to where I was going to park my pickup around 9:45 a.m. and it was 10:15 by the time I got all my gear together and headed off to the SW where I figured my target dog town was located. I had never come at it from this direction, but I had checked it out on Bing.com/maps and it appeared to be a little under a half mile to the SW of where I parked. On my walk in I found what looks to be some coyote scat that was filled with hair probably from a Hereford breed of cattle.
Anyway, I managed come at the dog town from the east side near a water tank. I noticed several prairie dogs around the water tank and decided to see how my 50 gr. Z-Max loads were shooting out of my Tikka Master Sporter in .22-250. I had checked the point of aim earlier in the week, but then I cleaned the barrel and treated it with Lock-Ease so I figured the first shot or two might be hitting close to where it should be, but not exactly dead on. My first targets were only about 75 yards away so I was confident my bullets would hit my victims with no problem and they did!!! I got explosive action—prairie dogs were flying—or I should say, “prairie dog parts were flying!” These 50 gr. bullets moving out at nearly 4,000 fps are totally devastating. I only had 20 of these rounds to shoot and I used them up quite rapidly. Here’s a photo of the water tank with two PDs off behind the tank and a zoomed in shot of those two “cute” little doggies!!!
I shot 3 PDs that were by the tank in about a minute and managed to get 3 more in the next 3 minutes. These little doggies obviously hadn’t been shot at many times this summer. I walked about 20 or 25 yards to the NNW of the water tank and shot 4 more shots, one of which bagged a double. I stopped shooting to let my barrel cool off and took some photos of the rifle and the double victims. I loaded up the magazine on the rifle and my shell holder on my stock moved about 10 yards to the north so I could see the PDs just over a little rise in front of me and started shooting again. By 11:35 a.m. I had shot all 20 of the 50 gr. Z-Max loads. I managed to get another double so with the 20 shots using the 50 gr. Z-Max loads I had bagged 22 prairie dogs. I crossed my fingers and knocked on wood, I hadn’t missed a shot yet!
Shooting in this dog town was like in the old days when there was hardly anyone out shooting PDs and the prairie poodles were almost like they were tame!!! The 50 gr. Z-Max bullets just absolutely disintegrated the prairie dogs! I wish I had a video camera so I could get the action on video. I could use my smart phone, but that takes a lot of effort to set up and quite frankly, I’d rather be shooting prairie dogs than setting up a video camera!!!
Here’s a photo of my rifle sitting at one of the two spots I shot from on Friday morning.
I was out near the edge of the rise so I could see down below me at the close ones and also had about a 200º field view. Shots ranged all the way from about 40 yards on out to 250 yards. I’d shoot two or three PDs to the north and then spot more PDs to the west and shoot those. Then I would spot some off to the SW or to the south and shoot a few more shots. I think my AAC Ranger 2 suppressor was helping keep those prairie dogs up on top of the ground for more than just one shot. I just kept on working the dog town like that all morning and into the afternoon. I had to stop to let the barrel cool down many times. It was EXCELLENT shooting!!!
After those 50 gr. Z-Max rounds were gone I got out my 53 gr. V-Max loads. I have been shooting test loads with HBN coated 53 gr. V-Max bullets out of my .22-250 this summer. My Tikka has a BLACKNITRIDE™ treated 1 in 12 twist 4-groove stainless steel Brux barrel on it and it shoots the 53 gr. V-Max bullets into tiny groups. The 53 gr. bullet has a BC of .290 so it should fight the wind quite well. The muzzle velocity is only 3,780 fps, but they worked great today. I had 71 rounds of the 53 gr. V-Max with and most of those casings had been fired at least two times and some of them had been fired 3 or 4 times. I wanted to shoot all of these rounds today so I could anneal all of this brass this coming week.
The 53 gr. V-Max bullets were deadly-accurate and giving the PDs lots of flying time!!! I kept shooting until a bit after 1:00 p.m. and felt a bit hungry, so I started to walk to my pickup. I found many more PDs to shoot on my way back and by 1:50 p.m. I was down to only 29 rounds left. I headed back to the pickup and headed for a dog town I hadn’t hunted on yet this summer. I had taken 62 shots in this first dog town and most of those shots were from two positions only about 15 or 20 yards apart. Here’s a view of the second spot I was shooting from.
When I got to the top of the ridge on the north side of the dog town I stopped and snapped a bunch of photos of the area to the south of the ridge. Here’s a view from the ridge looking SW.
I also saw where my pickup was parked so I knew exactly what direction to walk to get back there. I took some rugged two-track trails to get to my next dog town and did a little scouting for areas to call coyotes from while driving back. I was happy it hadn’t rained a bunch around my road to the next PD town or I might still be stuck out there in that good old North Dakota Badlands gray clay.
It was 3:40 p.m. when I arrived at the spot I usually park at near the next dog town. There were cattle in the part of the dog town I could see from where I was parked. I was hoping the cattle would move out of the area. I decided to have lunch, take my customary nap, and see where the cattle were when I got ready to do some more shooting!!!
I woke up from my nap and used my Caldwell Wind Meter to check the wind velocity and temperature. Winds were blowing 4 to 5 mph with gusts only up to 7 mph and that was Good News!!! The temperature was 75º so that was good news too. Some of the cattle had crossed over a deep gully and moved off the dog town, but I felt there were still too many cows on the north end of the town for me to think about shooting there, so I walked towards the south end of the dog town and could see that the cattle had moved out of there. There were plenty PDs and I had some very good shooting in this dog town, but not quite as good as the previous town. I went 4 for 5 from one spot, 3 for 4 in another spot and finally got to the south end of the dog town. In that area I shot 19 prairie dogs with my last 20 shots. For the day, I bagged 2 doubles, 86 singles, missed on 3 shots had killed 90 prairie dogs with 91 shots. It wasn’t a 200 or 300 shot day, but then I seldom shoot more than 80 to 90 shots in a day anyway.
There were still a bunch of blossoms visible today so I snapped some photos of them at the first dog town. When I was walking to the south portion of the second town, I noticed a May Flower (also called crocus) blossoming all by itself on a hillside and that picture is on the bottom right-hand side of the collage. Here’s the collage of four of the different sets of blossoms I saw on Friday.
On my way back to the pickup I spotted a broken fence wire—it looked like it had been hit by a bullet—so I stopped and fixed it. I didn’t get the wire as tight as I would have liked, but at least the wire was back up. I snapped a few photos of an old green ash tree that has survived for many, many, many years out in this harsh North Dakota grasslands area. I have taken many, many naps in the shade of that tree and had my lunch in its shade too. My son and I snapped dozens of photos of Bluebirds while sitting in the shade of that tree too. It brings back a lot of good memories for me.
I arrived at the pickup at about 7:30 p.m. I stored my gear and was on the road back home at 8:05 p.m. and was parked in my garage at 9:25 p.m. It had been another beautiful day that was made a whole lot better because I had been out prairie dog shooting and that cured my withdrawal symptoms.
Here’s the “Hero Photo” for the day. The two dead PDs were the victims on the first double of the day.
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