Ground Squirrels cause lots of damage in pastures and crops and their holes can cripple cattle and horses. Pest control methods such as poisoning, etc. is too expensive. So, you call out the snipers to reduce the population.
Enjoy the ground squirrel hunting video below.
– flatlander
I read an article put out by the Colorado State University Extension Office where they were discussing the damage and control of the Wyoming Ground Squirrel populations. Among the various control methods was, of course, shooting.
Here’s an excerpt from this article:
Small, isolated colonies of Wyoming ground squirrels can be effectively controlled by shooting. Shooting lowers the population by removing individuals and disrupting their life cycle. However, if there are other colonies of ground squirrels nearby, individuals from those populations will migrate into the area where squirrels are being removed. For effective control of problem ground squirrels, a population must be kept under constant shooting pressure.”
Ahh…. music to my ears! Keep them under “constant shooting pressure”. Makes me want to get out and send a few .17 HMR Hornady V-Max bullets down range!
There’s nothing like hearing the crack of the rifle and smelling the burnt gun powder out in the field! I guess if you’re going to be on crack, that’s the crack to be on.
Take a kid hunting – teach them gun safety – get them out in the field. Get ‘em hooked on the crack of rifles and pistols and you won’t find them in trouble on the streets.
– flatlander
It’s time to build up a new rifle to share with my kids (uh, yeah honey, it’s for the kids :>).
I’m waiting for the Savage .17 HMR to go on sale at my local stores or Cabelas. I picked the Savage .17 HMR due to the cost/performance/accuracy and overall value. It’s really hard to beat.
I found the BSA Sweet 17 3-12 x 40 scope on sale at Cabelas online for $49.95 (hurry – there’s still some left). This scope is normally $129 – $149. I know the BSA Sweet 17 isn’t preferred by a few marksmen but I have found it to be very adequate for 100 – 150 yds for varmints.
I’ll keep this rig in my truck when traveling around the back roads in rural Nebraska. There’s plenty of opportunities here, especially in the West.
Oh – gotta put a camera mount on it, too. I wanna share the fun through recording videos (only the hits, of course!).
Stay tuned….I’ll post the build up as I go.
Shoot straight – stay safe.
Crater Lake Buffalo Company, in Southern Oregon, is offering sage rat shooting this year. For any of you shooters that live in the Willamette Valley, they are a much easier drive than trying to get to Unity or Baker to shoot squirrels. And, if you mention that you saw them on ShootingSquirrels.com, they will give you an additional 15% off the price of your hunt.
Some of the guys in the forums have shot at Crater Lake Buffalo Company, and say the hunting is great. If you want to talk to any of them, the guys in the Tacoma Death Squad, including OblitaRat and RedMister have both been hunting there. And, according to Adrina, from Crater Lake Buffalo Company:
I had some guys shooting yesterday who went through about 3000 rounds each with a 75% kill rate.
Now that’s some fun shooting!
They only have a few spots left for the rest of the sage rat season, which ends around the middle of July, so if you want to go, you need to contact them quickly. Here’s what you need to know:
Crater Lake Buffalo Company Squeak Hunts
Ranch Phone: 541-365-2227
Cell Phone: 541-810-3956 or 3955
Address:
HC 63 Box 291 Hwy 97
Chiloquin, OR 97624
E-mail address: sales@clbcsqueakhunt.com
craterlakebuffalo@hughes.net
I’m running a little experiment on Digg to see if we can pick up some new members in the squirrel hunting forum. While you’re on the site, can you click this link and give shootingsquirrels.com a thumbs up on Digg?
http://digg.com/other_sports/ShootingSquirrels_com
If we all give it a thumbs up, then when new hunters come to read the site, including this post, they might wander over to the forums and give us some new blood….
Guess what we might have access to? Remember 2 years ago, when the winning team at the Unity Squirrel Shoot came in with 996 dead squirrels in 5 hours of shooting (They quit picking them up at 1pm, when they thought they had a thousand dead squirrels, and then just kept on shooting squirrels for the next 3 hours.)? And then last year, when I was all up and excited about the 700-1000 squirrel that the Verminator, a newbie and I shot in an 8 hour day? Well, squirrel shooters, that hay ranch might be willing to let groups of hunters reserve days if they’re willing to pay for it.
Before you get all uppity about paying for shooting squirrels, remember how it sucks driving around all day and not being able to find a rancher that’ll let you shoot on his place, especially when the weekend already cost you $400 in gas, hotel, food and licenses? Remember how he took one look at your pretty pickup or shiny SUV, and just knew you were a Portland or Seattle hunter, and didn’t want you within 20 miles of his stock? Or, the 3 years that you waited to get a team into the Unity Squirrel Shoot for $450 bucks, and then only ended up getting 23 squirrels in 8 hours, and that was split between 6 shooters (real story)? So quit your bitchin about the money already….
I’ll let you know when I know more.
I finally broke down and spent the day going through dvd’s from last year’s squirrel shooting trips. I didn’t try to do anything artistic with this video, but it does quell the basic need for seeing squirrels getting whacked… I’ll try to get up some more videos in the next week or two, so check back.
All of these squirrels were shot using my Savage 17hmr accutrigger, with Hornady 17gr ballistic tip bullets. On a side note, there’s nothing like having a video camera mounted on your rifle to show you when you jerk the trigger.
It’s winter, and I’m weary of it. Here’s a 9 minute squirrel shooting video to get every body thinking about the new squirrel hunting season. The squirrels will start popping up in March, and as soon as they start popping up, I’m going to start popping them.
These guys are using a 22 magnum and a hand held camera, so the camera work is a little shaky from time to time, but we all started out that way.
Monroe shocks and struts is running an ad campaign about how squirrels make bad decisions and that drivers who want to save the lives of squirrels need to make sure they have good shocks and struts for quick and even stopping power. It’s a pretty creative ad campaign for the average citizen, but it makes me want to go take the shocks and struts off my truck…
Monroe is running their ad campaign on a site called SavingSquirrels.com, I wonder if we should sue the people over at Monroe shocks and struts… Doesn’t SavingSquirrels.com sound a lot like ShootingSquirrels.com?
The people at Monroe put a frogger-like game on their site. The object of the game is to get your squirrel across the road while picking up all the nuts. You can also pick up shocks and struts to stop the traffic and get extra points… I think. If you want to play, wander over to the Squirrel Frogger Game Page at SavingSquirrels.com. It’s all I can do not to run the squirrel under the tires of the monster truck. The game makes me “Conflicted”, I want to win, but I don’t want to help the squirrel. LOL
Have fun “NOT” squishing squirrels.
