Well, my partner and I have just returned from our annual "Northern Az. Prairie Dog Pilgrimage"... We spent 6 days on one of the largest cattle ranches in northern Az. shooting prairie dogs, eating, drinking and trying like hell not to run out of ammo or beer... This year was complicated by a few factors outside our span of control.... The first day of the hunt we were saddled with 45 mile an hour sustained winds that gusted up to 60 MPH... The winds tapered off, but it was still windy and hot the entire hunt.. Also, if the winds weren't enough to deal with, on the 5th day I came down with one of the worst sinus infections I have ever had in my life... (it's hard to shoot when your sweating and shaking from a 104 degree fever....)

At any rate, we still had a great time... (even better once the anitbiotics were obtained!)

On average, between the two of us, we kept a head cound of 50-75 P-dogs a day, per shooter.... We were whacking them from ranges of 6 feet to 350 yards with .22 cal convered 1911's, Savage model 92 .17HMR Heavy barrel Target rifles, .223 Savage 10FP bolt action rifles, .223 Sig 556 rifles, and my .243 winchester barreled T/C Encore rifle. The vast bulk of the killing was done with the .17 HMR rifles.... I lost count of the exact number of rounds fired, but it's a safe bet that it was over 1000 rounds combined by the end of the 6th day.

This years hunt was also odd in that we did not see one single coyote.... Usually we see on average about 2-3 a day. This year we didn't see a single Yote...

Here are a couple pics of the rodents...

Nice, very nice. Glad you had a great trip and enjoyed yourself, despite the crappy weather and being sick.

That .17HMR is death on a stick isn't it?

Thanks guys.... Hmmm... I might have to look at the calendar for opening season next year and see about putting something together... there is plenty of room, P-dogs and opportunities to test your mid-long range shooting.

RR556- We leave them for the ravens, hawks, vultures and coyotes.... Beyond being self-animated pop up targets and food for everything that eats meat (dead or alive) that travels on 4 feet, wings or slithers, Prairie dogs really don't have much use... especially on a cattle ranch where the cows and calfs frequently get injured by stepping in the thousands of holes they dig....

Recoil... Death on a stick is an accurate assessment of that little laser beam.... I was surprised how well it was holding up to the wind. They still got pushed around, but not as bad as I had anticpated.