Back country solutions
I live on a vineyard and I am having trouble with Columbian ground squirrels to the point that I am shooting them.
On the lower edge of the vineyard there is an old brush pile about 4 feet tall and twenty feet long. The squirrels like to sit on top of it and survey the dangers of their habitat, namely me and my Air Force rifle.
I had set a chair in the vineyard about 40 yards away from the furthest shot and for the last week and a half I have been having a ball, they go down when they see me coming and then about 20 minutes or so they pop up to take a look and that is when the 15.9 Exact goes thru their skulls.
I shot 8 of them, and a hapless raccoon coming to feed on them,but now they see me coming and the survivors do not come back up.
I have grape bins that are 125 yards from the brush pile they like, they are about 5×5 when set on end and I am going to rest my Cladwell Tack driver range bag on top.
I own two holes in the ground that I dump money into, One is my Audi Allroad with a air ajustable suspension that keeps me broke, but I love to drive fast and at the same time go four wheeling when I must, it raises about 8 inches so it is handy, so I hold onto it. The other hole is this Air Force Rifle.Unlike some of you, when I decided to remarry, and knowing 55 ish american women and their baggage from bad experiences, I went to the other side of the world to get my last wife, men are kings in their culture so I spend my money on what I want and she gleefully looks on knowing full well how much I spend. She is also 85 pounds and drop dead beautiful, and of course a lot younger.
Bottom line is each month when I am going to buy that Chrony, I buy the arriow conversion or another barrel or an Etec, another tank ect..so bottom line I have to guess on velocity. I do this by shooting at 50 yards and then at 100 yards and looking the result up in chairgun.
Well I am geting about 950 to 975 or so from the 15.9 grain Exacts with my Talon tank in a condor frame and hammer and of course a 24 inch barrel.
I have 15% incline, so I figure on Chair Gun that I need to raise 22 inches at 125 yards. I dialed that into the Millet TR1 4X 16 and shot for effect. First three shots were only slightly windy and adjusting for the wind I put them into 1.03 inches at the 125 yard range. With the scope set at 5 power @ 50 yards I aim one mildot and a half at the slash on the reticle to hit right on. I like low power at 75 yards and under so this seems just right.
I know I should be using the Condor tank and valve, but the Talon tank with those Exacts is my most accurate combination, so realizing at an early age that nothing is killed from a loud bang, I am sticking with the Talon tank.
Sure a 17 hummer would work better, but I would run out of squirrels and get in trouble with the vino growing sandel wearers around here not to mention other factors as well.
Next month instead of getting a Chrony, I will get another frame to use with the airrow device and use that Condor tank on it. I have some elk in mind that need my attention this fall. Like I said it is a hole in the ground. My dear brown wife looks down inside that hole from time and smiles because her man is having fun.
In the next few hours I will see if this plan works and report back. The wind is the major factor here, at 125 yards and not having wind flags set up yet, it is hard to tell where to aim. It swirls a lot, but for a few squirrels this will work.
Roachcreek
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Both Lucky 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆
SAW
I am dealing with a ton of “digger squirrels” here. I also live in Oregon and these things reproduce like rabbits in a giant railroad tie pile my neighbor has. He told me to clean them out of there so its no holds barred.
They are getting wise to me too. What I do is hit then one day and then wait for about a week and then go back.
Last week I got 6 of them 5 if you want to count the partial kill I had help with. A donkey that lives on their property saw one of the diggers flopping around on the ground and came over and stomped on it. 😆
That was funny to see.
I still see at least 3 of them, maybe more. I have only seen 3 at one time so its anybodys guess.
From the post you see in the foreground it is about 60 yards to the pile.
Here is a picture of the pile.
Lucky 😀
With all my planning, the nature God, the one I worship, provided a couple of big Turkey Vultures to dine on the rotting corpse of last weeks Raccoon. Squirrels do not know the difference between a Vulture and a Redtailed hawk, so they decided to stay down and safe.
There were a few Western Fence lizards hopping from stick to stick, I thought about trying to best Varmiters’ Whisper shot by 75 yards but in the end decided against the embarassment.
Tomorrow I get and hopefully install the canted ETAC so all is not lost and of course the money pit gets just a trifull deeper.
I have to take my wife out dancing, not quite a ‘Honey do’ for it is a passion we both share, so I shall give up on the squirrels for today, Hank Williams and Corona are calling.
Roachcreek
Roachcreek
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mdimdi,
I suspect these ground squirrels just move into the territory made vacant by our killings. I too have seem to shot them out, with just one or two kills in a day, just to see a couple more there in a few days.
I used to live around Burns, we had the ground squirrels there that we called picket pins. They inhabit the alfalfa fields literaly in the thousands.
Before my son went off to the marines, he and a friend drove into a field in his aToyota pickup. They had two bolt action Chinese copies of the Bruno .22’s and a 400 round brick of ammo.
They moved the truck twice, shot all 400 rounds and had 30 misses, all this in about 2 hours.
I grew up shooting them on the ranch I was raised on in Sisters Oregon with a Crosman 101, my parents gave me 5 pellets for every tail I brought home.
Good thing we did not have rattle snakes on the ranch, I was always sticking my hand down a hole trying to retrieve wounded sage rats.
In Burns you would be snake bit in an hour doing that.
Roachcreek