Couple pests...

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Franklink

Member
Sep 3, 2017
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AZ, United States
Took these guys out in the back pasture a bit ago. 

PXL_20210914_155201734.1631635785.jpg


3 shots and 3 birds in the dirt. 

15.89s (.20) @ 910ish

36, 41, and 47 yards. At those distances, almost feels like cheating with this gun/scope
 
Add a couple mangy ground squirrels to the mix.

PXL_20210914_170229624.1631639166.jpg


That was the only one that didn't fall down the crevice between the dirt and the planks. 

PXL_20210914_165650040.1631639204.jpg


Got this one on top of a little pile of tires about a third of the way from left side of pic. 

Pellet went right through him and "teeennged" off the guardrail corral. 

If you look close it's evident that the planks on the left end are newer. They were recently replaced b/c they previous ones had collapsed, courtesy of all the diggers. 

Shot two more at this location, head shot and vitals shot. 

Two at about 30 yards, vitals shot @63. 
 
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I lived at a place in 2007 that had 18 walnut trees. The owner had been live trapping the persistent squirrels on his back deck and driving them about five miles and releasing them on the other side of a major free way. After the fist month of me living there I asked if I could work on solving his critter problem. I had several marauders and a cometa lynx v10. The first month the head count was 112. The owner was very happy.
 
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Add a couple mangy ground squirrels to the mix.

<img src="
PXL_20210914_170229624.1631639166.jpg
" />//www.w3.org/2000/svg%22%20viewBox=%220%200%20210%20140%22%3E%3C/svg%3E

That was the only one that didn't fall down the crevice between the dirt and the planks. 

<img src="
PXL_20210914_165650040.1631639204.jpg
" />//www.w3.org/2000/svg%22%20viewBox=%220%200%20210%20140%22%3E%3C/svg%3E

Got this one on top of a little pile of tires about a third of the way from left side of pic. 

Pellet went right through him and "teeennged" off the guardrail corral. 

If you look close it's evident that the planks on the left end are newer. They were recently replaced b/c they previous ones had collapsed, courtesy of all the diggers. 

Shot two more at this location, head shot and vitals shot. 

Two at about 30 yards, vitals shot @63.
Click to expand...

@Franklink If you don’t mind me asking, how are you using the tires behind the planks?
 
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@Franklink If you don’t mind me asking, how are you using the tires behind the planks?
Click to expand...

Don't mind at all.

Those old tires are used as weights for the coverings of the silage once those pits are full. The silage is a mixture of chopped corn and sorghum, and they'll occasionally chop alfalfa and add it to the mix when it won't make good hay (too wet to get into fields on time and stems get too coarse, or gets rained on or has too many weeds in it to make good baled hay). Once the pits are full, they'll cover the silage with thick felt tarps, and then another sort of thick plastic mesh, and then put the tires all over it to hold it down as insurance against our average 20mph winds and occasional 60mph winds. As they feed the silage through the winter, they'll roll back 10 or 15 feet of tarp at a time. They've got old modified trucks (kinda like dump trucks) with chain driven belts that dispense it out a spout on the side. Load it into the top of the truck out of the pit with big industrial front loader in big scoops. They have a couple places in various locations on the ranch with troughs set up. The cattle typically spend most of the winter in close proximity to those troughs and the nearby water ponds. There are also some small feedlots (one of the pens can be seen in the background) there right by the pits that they also feed in. 

Back to the airgunning though, the scruffy ground squirrels like the silage b/c of the corn kernels. Being a critter of opportunity, they make burrows in the dirt in the sides of the pit. True to their nature of climbing atop whatever is convenient to scout for danger, they use the tires as sentry locations (and sunning on cold winter days). I've popped many a ground squirrel out of those piles of old tires. 
 
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@franklink Now that’s interesting. I wasn’t expecting you to say the tires were used for fodder storage. Then I looked up silage and that process is entirely new to me. Thanks you for the explanation. Man, those ground squirrels sound like a real PITA! And you have prairie dogs digging as well? That must be hell on your livestock stepping through the burrows. 


Good shooting, especially that 73 yard shot. I’d been looking at the Athlon scopes and it’s hard to chose with all of their offerings. Thanks for the info. Nice focus wheel too. 


Now I was thinking that those rectangular compartments that you constructed for silage was some sort of wall maybe erected to keep animals in or out. Then I thought it may be some sort of shooting backstop. After wondering, now I’m curious if I could build some sort of backstop wall using a wood frame, placing old tires inside of the frame, and filling the tires and space around them with mulch, sand, or dirt. I’m thinking maybe sand for ease of sifting lead out later. 
 
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This aerial might help.

silage pits.1638554693.jpg


In the photo shared in the original post, I'm sitting about where I placed the green circle, and shooting over the top of that bigger silage pit, in roughly the angle of the green arrow. You can see the piles of tires around the edges of the pits. The red arrows are the two silage pits. The bigger one is maybe 70 yards long and 30 feet wide. They're both empty in the above aerial. The shallow end is basically ground level and can be driven down into with the loader, which is the yellow dot at the base of the bigger arrow. The pits get progressively deeper towards the back, being about 18 feet deep on the back wall (furthest from the red arrows). Planks line the walls, and that's the boards that can been along the long wall in the photo in the original post. When they're chopping and filling the tanks, the dump trucks back up to the edge and dump their loads into the pit. A cousin backed up too far one time (hairy mess to get the truck out of that situation-they throw a railroad tie down now to back into and let the driver know to stop). When they're dumping the freshly cut greens into the pits, it's been a family tradition that there are lots of younger cousins around jumping off the sides, their fall broken by the fresh silage. Once it's been in there a while it ferments and smells pretty bad though, so the playing in it only happens when it's first cut. 

The black dots in the pens are cattle. There's another pen or two to the left of what can be seen in this photo. 

Over the last ten years I've probably killed 50+ ground squirrels out of the sides of these pits. My uncle has jack russell terriers and they'll dig one out or catch one running between holes occasionally. Mean little dudes, the dogs and the squirrels. The squirrels will often bite the dogs on their face and neck and draw blood as the dog is thrashing them to death. The uncle and cousins also set traps and even pop some here and there with .22 rimfire shorts. We've not been able to eradicate them. These ground squirrels are a true airgun trophy as they're very tough to get shots on, at least at this location. With all the pressure they are very cautious. 

As for the p dogs. A MUCH easier airgun quarry. They had a lean year this past summer, but in years past, it wasn't uncommon to get 30-40 total per weekly outing, passing through a couple different dog towns. We're high enough elevation that this particular variety of pdog hibernates through the winter. The ground squirrels will still come out on sunny day's and sun themselves on the tops of those tires though. And then it's airgun time!
 
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@Franklink The aerial shot helps a bunch. Thanks. Those pits are a lot larger and wider than I thought. The loader gives added perspective. That looks to be a couple of pretty good sized fallow fields you have off to the right. So now I see how pertinent and urgent it is to maintain and control of these pest populations. Does taking them out with air rifles put a significant dent in their numbers around your farmland? I’m asking as someone unfamiliar with the life cycles and habits of prairie dogs and ground squirrels. 30-40 prairie dogs per week sounds like they’re everywhere. How many acres are they spread across? With all the burrowing does it pose issues for heavy farm equipment? I’ve read how livestock can break limbs stepping into burrows. Keep droppin em!!
 
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Midas Tac 6-24 and I highly recommend it (although my ft shooting with it has been in Open class so ranging @24x so can't attest to how it does @16x....yet). 

Click to expand...

I have 2 of those scopes, and they are great. The only issue, at the mid power levels, the reticle is not ideal in the woods under weak light. The Athlon Helos has a better reticle for woods use, and it's illuminated as well. But it's a heavy beast. I've used the Midas TAC on a bunch of squirrels, but mostly pesting scenarios in decent to bright lighting.
 
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Midas Tac 6-24 and I highly recommend it (although my ft shooting with it has been in Open class so ranging @24x so can't attest to how it does @16x....yet). 

Click to expand...

I have 2 of those scopes, and they are great. The only issue, at the mid power levels, the reticle is not ideal in the woods under weak light. The Athlon Helos has a better reticle for woods use, and it's illuminated as well. But it's a heavy beast. I've used the Midas TAC on a bunch of squirrels, but mostly pesting scenarios in decent to bright lighting.
 
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