Prairie Dog Busting with Ghosts X3 I met Tony and Barbara a couple years ago through Xtreme Field Target events at Phoenix Rod and Gun Club. (yes, Tony is married to THAT Barb, the one with the fancy red Ghost)
Sometime in the past 8 or 10 months Tony inquired about pesting opportunities here in Arizona. He and Barb had recently moved from Cali and he was having withdrawals from the ground squirrel shooting that he enjoyed while he lived there. At the time I explained that ground squirrels in my slice of heaven are few and far between, but that in the summer months, some decent prairie dog pesting opportunities are available. The pdogs around me are Gunnison's prairie dogs, and in about 2008 the AZ Game and Fish decided to close down the hunting season for a few months in the spring to give them a chance to reproduce. So, season opens on July 1st, and runs until March 31st. And at my elevation, about half of that season is a moot point, because they hibernate once it starts freezing at night, usually mid October. So, combining state regs and habits of local Gunnisons populations equates to an effective/legal season from July 1st to about the first week of October.
After getting back from the recent field target event over in New Mexico this past weekend, I realized that I was off work yesterday. Scheduled day off + the above described pdog situation+minimal ground cover right now+my wife being due to deliver our daughter in the next few weeks = perfect opportunity to invite Tony up for a day of pdog pesting. I was afraid if we put it off any longer we'd maybe not get to squeeze it in this year, with the new baby and all. Despite the short notice, Tony was able to rearrange a prior commitment.
Tony posed a few questions about what to expect, and I could tell he was trying to settle on a gun/guns that would fit the situation best. I told him expect shots from 10 yards to as far as you're willing to attempt a shot, and that some of my "permissions" (as the Brits say) would require low power, while others would be safe to use unlimited fpe, and even slugs, if we so desired. He settled on his .22 Ghost Carbine, and his .30 Ghost HP. With the review Ghost being my current best long range option, as well as the only bottle gun (shot count) readily available to me, I also chose to campaign a Ghost, using the .20 barrel.
So we ended up with 3 Ghosts on the hunt. I found it interesting that it played out that way. This wasn't a sponsored hunt, nor was it a promo event for the Ghost. In fact, it was a simple as 2 guys who enjoy airguns choosing to use the gun(s) they each thought was most appropriate for the situation. And we both chose Ghosts. It was a bit of a "hmmmm, yep" moment for me.
Tony arrived early enough for us to get a good early start to the day. The first permission we hit is less than 1 mile from my house. It's an arid area next to some irrigated pasture land. The dogs don't like to be flooded out so they set up shop as close to the irrigated land as possible, but keeping their holes outside of the irrigated land. This results in the fencelines being destroyed by their burrowing, and in this case, the north side of the field doesn't get as much water so they've established their burrows in the drier part of the field. There are three houses right there next to the pdog infested field and this was where we needed to use the low power stuff, as the closest house is only about 75 yards from the main area we were shooting the dogs in. I'm an acquaintance to all three homes (two of the homes are lived in by the families of two brothers, and the third is the family of one of the brother's grandsons) and I have permission to shoot here.
Tony utilized his .22 Ghost Carbine first, shooting the 18.1grain JSBs at 880 if I remember correctly. I chose the .20/15.89 at about 915. Both of us were right around 30fpe. We stayed there for an hour or so, killing probably 30-40 dogs in that field. I was mostly spotting and range-finding, but there was enough action that I simply couldn't resist shooting too. Most of these were taken from 50-75 yards, but there were a couple on the far side of the dog town that were taken at 95-110 yards. We even had a surprise guest from a guy out for his morning walk. He lives about 1/4 mile from where we were shooting. He announced his presence with, "what are you doing?" in a somewhat gruff manner. My initial thought was that we were going to have a tree hugging hippy experience, with somebody angry that we were out killing cute little animals. But I couldn't have been more wrong. I responded simply and factually, "we're shooting prairie dogs" as I gestured out to the field where they were scurrying around. He seemed to soften at that, and proceeded to tell us how a pdog had gotten into his garage (there are a bunch in the land that borders his subdivision, I've never tried to shoot them there b/c of all the houses and that I'd need to talk to a whole neighborhood to get the green light to do so). So he explains how he's got a springer and tries to shoot them. He asked a couple details about the guns we were using and how well they worked for the task, etc. The conversation wound down and he continued on his walk, calling over his shoulder, "carry on guys." And that we did, shooting until the action slowed down.
From there we moved on to the honey hole. A few years ago I pulled into a small little alfalfa operation (I'd guess maybe 20-30 acres, spread out over a bunch of small fields), with the goal of talking to the guy who I know farms it. Living in a small town, we knew each other previously, and he told me to get as many as I could, with open invitation to return and do the same as often as I want. So I've killed hundreds of them from those fields and the surrounding area in the last couple years, and the ground still crawls with them. Like I said, I consider it the honey hole. That alfalfa must up the pdog reproduction rate or something, cuz I just can't get ahead of them there. So that's where Tony and I headed next. Depending on the direction of shots, and ever changing location of the farm hands, this spot mostly is power unlimited. Tony pulled out the .30 Ghost, using the JSB 44grainers. I spun the power wheel on the Ghost .20 and switched to the new NSA 18.9grain slugs. The first couple shots I took were in the 175-188 range, with the 188 yarder being the furthest I can remember connecting on. Initially I worked on the further ones and Tony busted the 100-135 yarders. He had 3 or 4 dead dogs within the same 20 yard circle at about 115 yards out within the first 5 or 6 shots. Man o man, when that .30 hits em it sounds like somebody dropped a cinder block on a water balloon! POP!!! He was able to get much cleaner kills with the .30 than I could with the .20 slugs. Through the day we concluded that the .20 slugs were just ice-picking them. I could connect on them as far out as I wanted, but unless it was a head shot it simply wasn't anchoring them. Even a good vital shot from the .20 slugs and they'd walk around for a minute before keeling over dead. It was killing them, humanely even (at least as humanely as a broad-head shot to the vitals of a whitetail deer), it just wasn't splattering them like the .30. One of the reasons I consider this the pdog honey hole is because, again they like to live in the unirrigated margins around the fields, and when it's early in the season like yesterday, there isn't much ground cover for them to hide in. So it's LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of shooting. We moved around a couple times in the fields, and ultimately lost count of how many we'd gotten. After a couple hours we decided it was lunch time and headed into town for a sit down at the local Mexican food restaurant.
After lunch we went to check out my latest "permission." This one was acquired just last week, through a cousin, also a farmer. The cousin told me about a farmer on the far end of town, who was complaining about his prairie dog problem. Cousin asked if I'd like to get after them so I met up with cousin and landowner/farmer on Monday. Farmer was excited at the prospect and guided me to the highest density of pdogs. He doesn't live on the property but happened to be there when Tony and I pulled up yesterday. I introduced them and he was interested in our guns and was generally pretty chatty. Once we were able to move on to the task at hand, this turned out to be a bit different situation than the other permissions, as his irrigated fields border the small creek that runs through the area. The pdogs were primarily out in the grass versus in the foliage free margins like the other areas, and the grass was deep enough for them to disappear in, unless they were standing up. Really pretty little area, more secluded than the others, with boulder strewn bluffs on the far side of the creek, creating an effective and safe backstop. The main concern for downrange safety here were some horses and a donkey. They were sort of like the farmhands at the previous location, constantly changing location. So we just made sure not to take shots when them in the background. Tony was running low on .30 pellets so chose to wield the .22 Ghost again. I went back and forth between the .20/15.89 pellets and the .20/18.9grain slugs, depending on how far out I was taking shots. The first 6 or 8 we took here were either offhand or kneeling, but we quickly regrouped and went back to using fenceposts or whatever other support was readily available. The average distance for the shots at this creek location was probably around 80-100 yards, and the wind had come up by now so we had to factor that in as well. Tony had no trouble connecting, but I must admit that when we spotted one on a hill at 115, and noting the stiff crosswind, I was skeptical. I gave him the lasered distance, and he drilled that dog!!! No sighter, no walking it in like we were needing to do at times, just a huge hold off for the wind, muffled sound of the Ghost being fired, and dog slumped over and rolled off his hill, literal DRT. Had to have been a head shot for it to drop the way it did. We concluded that was Tony's new record for distance with his .22 Ghost. Pretty impressive for 30 fpe with 18.1grain pellets.
By now it was around 3pm. We decided to head back to the honey hole for another quick session before Tony needed to drive home. Arriving back at the honey hole and using the number of them that were running around as a guide, you'd never guess that we'd probably killed 50-75 there that morning. We shot another 50 or so before we called it a day. After we'd put the guns away the dogs were still running in every direction as we headed out of the property.
It's really hard to keep count but a reasonable estimate was that we EACH probably got around 100 pdogs. All three Ghost's functioned flawlessly, requiring no further maintenance than air and pellets/slugs. That's how this airgunning thing is supposed to work, no chasing impact points or tinkering and tuning, just simple and trouble-free enjoyment.
It was a great day. We were having too much fun to even stop and take a picture, so no photo to share here in the write-up.
