Impact on PD Hunting with little Ammo ?

NDAR15MAN

Member
I use to live in ND and did a lot of PD hunting. I was wondering if the low amount of Commercial ammo available really impacted the numbers of guys Hunting them in 2020 ? I am afraid with no one shooting them there is a good chance farmers and Government Did a lot of poisoning on them ? thinking about planning a trip this 2021. I really hate shooting 223 ammo at 1.10 a shell. Man this virus is bad news for us shooters. Waited my whole life to Retire and shoot a lot and now no ammo at any price. Will be interesting what 2021 brings us. MD
 
Some of my regular guys were no shows more due to covid travel restrictions than ammo shortages . On the other side of the coin a couple of new groups who hadn't tried the area made contact and shot some . On the whole I would say that rifle man days were slightly down but nothing dramatic .
 
I reload and know what it costs me for the components and shutter at the thought of buying commercial ammo at the rate we shoot. Last summer there was no shortage of prairie dog shooters in SW North Dakota.
 
OK.....Just was wondering what 2020 was like. I just talked my friend who lives in ND and he said local game warden said the Ranchers and some of the County Farm Bureau's have a already brought up a big poising program with DNR. I guess we will all be watching the ammo situation too from now to June. I just cannot believe I am even thinking about shooting 1000 rounds of 223 in 3 days for $1250.00. It will be a very expensive 5 day vacation. Almost as much as a out of state deer hunt and you will not be bringing the meat home. UNBELIEVABLE. I cannot believe the ammo Mfg companies have not been able to keep up with demand. I think they have choose not too. They dont understand they are killing the Goose that laid the golden eggs. Just UNBELIEVABLE. MD
 
I was out west last Summer, twice. As posted, I think Covid worries curbed shoots more than ammo availability & prices. Most doggers reload, don’t rely on store ammo.

I think most any serious rancher/farmer goes to poison much more than allowing shooting. One guide out west said you never can ‘shoot out’ a dogtown, they tried it. They smarten up, stay down, & reproduce. Of course the numbers are reduced, but many remain. Most of us cherish that seldom shot town with plenty of mid-sized pups.

Land ownership is also key whether poison may be used or is viable. As I understand, there are limits & restriction on the use of poison. Just like plague issues, one needs to work around the possibility, have alternate plans.
 
Made it out 2x last summer. Didn't run into any shooters where we were. Usually a couple staying in the hotel we stay in. In the 2 trips we shot 2000 rounds each. I worry about what I can do to replace what I will shoot in the next 2 years. Hopefully things will settle down and components will become available again. A couple of the ranchers started poisoning but they said they came back with a vengeance. Fires and smoke where we were really put a damper on the shooting.
 
Totally agree, you can't shoot out a dog town. If the rancher gets the permit to poison, he usually needs to poison several times for a couple years, as the prairie dog is a survivor.

I checked out a "poisoned town" once - at a 1,000 yards the few remaining dogs went to ground at the site of my vehicle. I stopped and sit up in a location where I could have shot if they re-appeared with the distances between 200 and 500 yards - not one dog showed his head in over 2 hours of waiting.

I didn't hear of any ranchers wanting to poison in SW North Dakota and getting on private land isn't difficult. I'm familiar with a few ranchers and always give them something to show my gratitude and appreciation but that isn't a requirement for approval to shoot.

In case you're wondering about the gifts? - very good chocolates (usually fancy chocolate turtles) for the Lady and Pendleton 1910 Rye Whiskey for the rancher - of course, another bottle of Pendleton to fill your flask up each morning.
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I am coming to realize what a bunch of cheap bastards I let hunt my ground LOL. Maybe this year I will make them cough up 100 rounds of ammo ... That should hurt enough to kick start the free booze lol .
 
Towns may actually be better for those that go to work them over. Most towns we hunted last year had piles of brass here and there like the locals were just doing a mag dump.
Prairie dogs are much like coyotes to a point, you either kill them or educate them.
Coyote hunted a couple of places years ago where the rancher shot at them to scare them off. The would get out of 22mag range and sit and watch till he drove off. An AR, I dumped three sitting and looking within a few feet of each other.
Prairie dogs last year most of our shooting started at 300, mirage determined how much further you went.
 
Leaving brass laying around is usually a no-no. I have lost a case or two but I did spend time looking for it.

It's not because I'm a reloader or a cheap bugger (I'm that too) but ever since I got clubbed upside the noggin a couple of times by Pa around the age of 10 for leaving a couple 12 gauge hulls on the ground.

I guess you could say Pa taught me respect for other peoples property and I taught my kids and now the grandkids in the same manner - the cuff upside the noggin reinforces your lecture and gets their attention and then the "look" afterwards reminds them.
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We had been making our prairie dog trip for over 15 years, but the plague has followed us around, and we haven't been in three years. We had a really good shoot in Colorado, the plague pushed us to New Mexico. After two great shoots there, plague hit and wiped them out. It's a long way from Ga. to Colorado or New Mexico and only shoot a few hundred rounds.

I always thought that I would just get too old and broke down to shoot pd's, instead of the plague ending our shoots. I'm sitting here with three pd rifles, and lots of loaded ammo, and no where to go!

For you guys out west in pd country, do the pd's ever come back after the plague? Any idea on the time? I have been pushed to a long range gun club in Tn just to be able to shoot any distance. I'm saving my pd ammo, just in case!
 
Prairie dogs are the cockroach of the plains . They will recover population from anything up to and including being nuked imo . The last " plague " that came through here in SE Colorado seemed to me to be some form of bird flu that jumped species . It was spotty on towns that were actually hit and there was an abnormal amount of dead hawks scattered over the country . Dont get me wrong it was lethal where it hit . I had at the time 4 towns of prairie dogs that were over 1/4 section in size and it pretty much wiped out two of them which I then hit hard with gopher bait . The other two were as far as I can tell unaffected and are still shootable in fact I set on my back porch and plink the vermin with rimfire . IMO ( just from the gut and a lifetime of living here ) it will take 15 years or a bit more for the populations to recover and spread to the pre sickness levels of a few years ago when they were frankly overpopulated for the environment to a real unhealthy level .
 
I agree, leaving spent brass is a no-no, even if it was some I didn’t plan to reload. My son took two dogs last summer with my CC pistol, S&W 638 ‘Bodyguard’. While overseeing two newer shooters I saw some pups that wanted up right behind us. I tapped him on the shoulder & handed him my 38 spcl, two separate times.

I like to put the ‘hunting’ into dogging, seldom use a table or bench. I like my ‘Strutter’ chair & shooting sticks for mobility. Most of our shooting is at targets from 50 yards to 200, longer if you want. That leads to high hit ratios. Mid June being the best time.

Besides spooky dogs, truck tracks, brass, dead dogs, whatever are clues to spot has been worked recently. Even if that is true, there are often outer pockets that have been less educated. That’s another plus for mobility. Also, get across the drainage that prevents truck traffic. Many doggers want to drive right up & set up a table.
 
I do believe ammo companies are at full capacity. Consider how cheap and "unwanted" ammo was for the last 4 years, they probably laid off trained workers during that time. Now they have to train new people which takes time. Also consider the primer bottleneck. Only 4 makers of primers here in the States, including Remington which is offline right now. No primer imports from Russia which helped us during the first Obama scare. And the covid protocols themselves, sick days, quarantine, etc. No different than any other business with multiple people working side by side.

We should all have learned how crazy things get with any kind of political uncertainty. I expected that with the election, but didn't expect the pandemic and riots. I didn't get the stock of primers and powder I wanted to have before the election, but I can get through a few years as is.

As for pdogs, well I won't be shooting nearly what I would otherwise. A neighbor a mile away has a small town (growing) and I'll help keep that under control, but the days of blasting hundreds a day are gone until supplies are back to "normal", if ever.
 
There was some mention of the primer supply going into factory ammo production. I guess there’s more $$ there than sell the bricks of primers.

As to reduced ammo for dogging, say you have a 100 count allotment for the one day. If that is the case, single load that bolt action, be picky about shots. That’s a bit more difficult with trigger happy youg’uns along.
 
Wow . Things are getting tight. Very hard to find components We have already set up the dates for two trips this summer and made the reservations at the hotel. All set with the ammo, but replacing the 4000 rounds that will be used is going to get tuff. We should be good for a couple of years but after that who knows. We try to plan ahead and then things go nuts. Hang in there guys. Hopefully it will get better.
 
Originally Posted By: Al HansenWow . Things are getting tight. Very hard to find components We have already set up the dates for two trips this summer and made the reservations at the hotel. All set with the ammo, but replacing the 4000 rounds that will be used is going to get tuff. We should be good for a couple of years but after that who knows. We try to plan ahead and then things go nuts. Hang in there guys. Hopefully it will get better.

They do make some pretty good air rifles nowadays.

But let's hope it never comes to that.
 
Originally Posted By: KenlguyOriginally Posted By: Al HansenWow . Things are getting tight. Very hard to find components We have already set up the dates for two trips this summer and made the reservations at the hotel. All set with the ammo, but replacing the 4000 rounds that will be used is going to get tuff. We should be good for a couple of years but after that who knows. We try to plan ahead and then things go nuts. Hang in there guys. Hopefully it will get better.

They do make some pretty good air rifles nowadays.

But let's hope it never comes to that.

Thought about that. Hope I don't have to go that way.
 
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