Summer Time pdogs & a bonus!
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With summer officially here, I recently figured I should go out and celebrate. One of my neighbors called and said he had some prairie dogs move into his pasture and setup shop. When I arrived, I saw they had spread themselves over about 2-3 acres... so it was a tiny uprising, but one that had to be dealt with none the less. I found a nice elevated position overlooking the town, and began working them over. The vast majority of them were pups, so they presented plenty challenging targets at 250-350yds. Many of them were no bigger than an adult striped gopher! Winds were swirling pretty heavily with intensity from 3mph to 18mph. Despite that, I was getting solid work in.
Here's one of the little critters after meeting his end at the hands of my 6 Dasher.
Wherever I set up, I always like to see how far I can see from my position. That day, this draw in the distance was the farthest point.
The afternoon was going well, and I had 19 of them put to rest. That represents the bulk of what was in the town. I missed 5 times total... but I think those made it back up top and weren't so lucky the next time around. There were mounds out at the far end of the town, that I didn't see any activity in all day. Nothing out there, despite there being obvious fresh mounds. This puzzled me all afternoon. Finally the mystery was revealed. I caught a glimpse of movement out there, and hopped on the Vector to to ping target data to the Kestrel 5700X. Hey! That's not a prairie dog... thats a badger! Pinged him at 408yds and did the deed. Perfect chest hit. Small badger... but still much larger than the tiny pups I'd been shooting all afternoon.
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... 19361. One yard past 11 miles! very cool!
I love the badger too. I want to shoot a badger one of these days.
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It was cooler here in South Texas than where you were assuming that is South Dakota. We had some rainy yesterday and it barely made it to 90 degrees today was around 93 at the peak and humidity hasn't been too bad. I haven't engaged any ground critters except for the lone ground squirrel that took up digging in the yard. The jack rabbit population seems to be down from last year but there is so much cover right now they can hide easily.
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Got out early today before the sun had time to build power. 60 degrees at 6am and had 32 of them dead by 9am with only 30 rounds fired. Doubles are great ways to conserve ammo!
The kryptek UPF 30 hoody keeps me from getting skin cancer.
Hey, those aren't pdogs! Partridge are eating good with the crazy thick grasshopper hatch.
Gotta watch out for those burrowing owls too! They are quite cool, but when the mirage gets up, it can be hard to tell the difference between them and a prairie dog at 600yds. Pdogs have different mannerisms though, and I always make sure I'm not going to kill one of my little buddies accidentally! This one was trying to decide if he wanted to come nibble on that headless carcass or not.
Then there was this suicidal little fellow that popped up at 25yds and cussed me out until I snatched his melon off.
