I went squirrel shooting on Saturday, and got 86 dead squirrels on tape in about an hour and a half. It was awesome, considering how the day started out.
I was supposed to meet the Verminator and some new meat in Unity at noon on Saturday to go shooting, but nothing went right, and I ended up not getting into Unity till around 1pm. I went to the bar, ate a burger and tots and waited for them to come and find me. They showed up around 2:30 and told me that they had only dropped like 60 rats in the last 2 days.
Well, 2 days and 60 rats sucks, so I told them to go ahead and head back to the ranch they were shooting, and I would try to line something good up for the next day. This of course entails driving a bunch of gravel roads and knocking on doors, but that doesn’t usually bother me too much, since it’s for a good cause. The only drawback was that I was driving my truck, which has Washington plates, which makes them think I’m some damn Seattle city slicker instead of the good-ol-boy that I am. (In the past I’ve actually borrowed my Dad’s truck with Oregon plates…)
I drove into Ironside and headed down the first gravel road on my left. I knew that I could hit up the first ranch, because I’d shot squirrels there before, but they hadn’t been that good, so I drove on. I ended up stopping at the Oakes place, at least that’s what I think the name was, but it could have been Doaks or Oaks; I suck with names.
The short version is that they have a killer view over thousands of acres of grass, but they are a Century Ranch, which means that they have been around for over 100 years, and have tons of friends and relatives who like to shoot squirrels, so the answer was no. But, read the next post, because they have some fun stuff going on next weekend as far as shooting and squirrels go. (By the way, the Unity Squirrel Roundup is next Saturday…)
I then wandered Northeast for a few miles until I came to some road signs. By then, I was afraid I would spend the rest of my life on gravel roads in Oregon, so I followed the sign pointing me back to highway 26. As I got to the highway, there was a pickup coming down the road, so I waived the guy over and asked him if he knew where I could shoot some squirrels. He told me to follow him, and took me to meet his boss.
I’d tell you his name and all, but I’m still debating it in my head whether to tell anyone or not where it’s located. (When you shoot 86 squirrels in less than an hour and a half, it’s not human nature to want to share that location with others.) The ranch owner did tell me though, that he was interested in having shooters come out for around $35 a day, so you may get your chance yet. I’ll let you know…
The ranch is 2600 acres of hay, watered by those huge center pivots, so you know that it’s prime squirrel land. As a matter of fact, it’s where the winners of the 2007 Unity Squirrel Roundup were shooting when they took 1st place. According to the owner, that group of 6 shooters only picked up squirrels till 1pm, instead of 4pm, because they knew they had already won and were tired of picking up squirrels. They won with 992 dead squirrels, which comes out to 33 squirrels shot per shooter, for 5 straight hours, and that includes the time they took to pick them up. (When was the last time you shot 1 squirrel every 2 minutes for 5 hours straight?)
I’ll continue this post later…
SS
