Rick in Oregon
Well-known member
We just returned from a ten day shoot in the Orygun outback thinning out the ground squirrels for our alfalfa ranchers. It was a grand time, rats flew, smiles prevailed. Calibers ranged from 22LR, 17HMR, K-Hornet, 221FB, 20VT, 223, 7mm PRC.
As we were leaving HQ heading out, I spied this guy at my "chuck barometer". Seemed like a good omen.
I'll share a few pics from the trip. I've got about 200 of them, so just a few to post for the crew here. This one shows one ranch that had more squirrel mounds than we've seen in a while. Considering each mound has a family of rats below, you can imagine how many of the little buggers are really there.
Rifle on the bench at the time is my Anschutz 1715D HB in 17HMR;
Setup is easy....park truck, set up bench, shoot varmint. Nothing fancy. Simple, right?
My Cooper M38 Varmint in 20VT got much use on the trip, accounting for a truckload of rats.
The rock escarpment has a colony of rockchucks. Dan nailed one with his 7PRC at a lasered 600.6 yards at the far end of the outcropping. Dan is in black with his spotting scope scanning for chucks.
This little female rat has her borrow just outside my trailer window, same place I saw her last year. She got a pass just 'cuz she's cute and a good squirrel model.
This setup allowed shooting as far as your rifle is capable. Rats were everywhere providing good LR targets.
We usually clean our rifle in the field and rotate hot ones for cool ones. Truck tailgate is a perfect cleaning platform.
My casual rat shooting setup in camp, as camp bordered a good rat field that had just been harrowed. Locating the brown squirrels in all that dirt was a challenge, but big fun anyway.
We lost two days of shooting due to high 30mph winds. When we left, the area got rain and winds at 40mph, so we considered ourselves fortunate to get a decent shooting window which as we all know doesn't happen all the time.
Time to unpack and get those empty cases back into action as the season is just getting started.
As we were leaving HQ heading out, I spied this guy at my "chuck barometer". Seemed like a good omen.
I'll share a few pics from the trip. I've got about 200 of them, so just a few to post for the crew here. This one shows one ranch that had more squirrel mounds than we've seen in a while. Considering each mound has a family of rats below, you can imagine how many of the little buggers are really there.
Rifle on the bench at the time is my Anschutz 1715D HB in 17HMR;
Setup is easy....park truck, set up bench, shoot varmint. Nothing fancy. Simple, right?
My Cooper M38 Varmint in 20VT got much use on the trip, accounting for a truckload of rats.
The rock escarpment has a colony of rockchucks. Dan nailed one with his 7PRC at a lasered 600.6 yards at the far end of the outcropping. Dan is in black with his spotting scope scanning for chucks.
This little female rat has her borrow just outside my trailer window, same place I saw her last year. She got a pass just 'cuz she's cute and a good squirrel model.
This setup allowed shooting as far as your rifle is capable. Rats were everywhere providing good LR targets.
We usually clean our rifle in the field and rotate hot ones for cool ones. Truck tailgate is a perfect cleaning platform.
My casual rat shooting setup in camp, as camp bordered a good rat field that had just been harrowed. Locating the brown squirrels in all that dirt was a challenge, but big fun anyway.
We lost two days of shooting due to high 30mph winds. When we left, the area got rain and winds at 40mph, so we considered ourselves fortunate to get a decent shooting window which as we all know doesn't happen all the time.
Time to unpack and get those empty cases back into action as the season is just getting started.
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