Originally Posted By: RustydustOriginally Posted By: ackleymanA type of gas poison is started to be used heavily in N. Nevada by the hay farmers.
I went there several weeks ago and had a good time. But just a few days ago I talked to a fellow who let me shoot out there in the past and he said that they are now poisoning and with great success. I asked him if everyone was and he said that everyone that he knows is. Fooey! Not making a 500 mile or more round trip and hope that I will find some. I just stayed home and shot our local ones. Luckily it has been a great year for the sage rats.
When the farmers first started using poison it was pretty expensive and the product they used worked pretty good, but not great.
Unfortunately, if you're a sage rat or a sage rat shooter, the poisoning process not only has gotten more effective, but with more and more farmers doing it, it's become more affordable and this new poison they've been using is considerably more effective.
I've talked to a few different hay farmers that have done the poisoning process on their pivots and they told me in the early days of poisoning it would do a pretty good job of getting most of them but within a year they'd be back and the numbers would continue to climb back up over time, but with this new stuff they've been using they said it flat wipes them out and pretty much eliminates them from the field.
It kinda sucks for us that like to shoot the little buggers, but I can't really fault the farmers for wanting to increase their yields, either.