Any Sage Rat Reports?

[Herb g]

I too am a rancher, but rats on my side of the river were exterminated in the '96 flood. My neighbors across the river is where we shoot...and they've been educated after tiring of patching pipes from THEIR own.22rf's.

 

[DuneHopper]

My own experience not that it matters is the 17hmr is superior in every way that and the extra speed and accuracy allows you to shoot a distance and possibly not scare the rodents if you miss and can take a second. A 22LR again my experience requires closer distance hence one one is noticed by the rodent more often. A pellet gun would work I guess too but the distance noise to hit ratio would require again a solid shot. These little buggers move allowing that extra speed. I have I mean had before that BA, a 17hmr with a thumhole stock you coudl nail these guys all day long and often at quite a distance. Not sure about the pipe thing shoot small miss small , if your gonna hit anything else practice more or try and get a better angle. I don't know just my thoughts.

 

[SageRatSafaris]

17hmr is superior in every way

I love 17HMR. Great varmint round. But I'd rather shoot 223 for the same price per round. 17HMR is too darn expensive for what it is.

 

[Blowgunner]

Sage rats have taken up residence on my property this year. I removed the screens from my windows and have been shooting them from inside the house. Using Super Colibris out of an old 53-B single shot, is next to silent. Annoyed about the yard, but it sure is fun shooting them.

 

[DuneHopper]

I love 17HMR. Great varmint round. But I'd rather shoot 223 for the same price per round. 17HMR is too darn expensive for what it is.

I only buy it when its on sale then stock up, but I agree. If I had a bolt action .223 then I would do that, I am considering one some day for the same reason.

 

[Alan12013]

While I will probably never get the chance to hunt little critters as I refuse to track down a private land owner and bother them to ask if I can coyote or rat hunt their land, I would think that an airgun of the modern sorts could be a good tool for the job. Something that can shoot accurately out to 100 yards, there are several decent priced ones that come to mind. I feel like ground squirrels and coyotes are all on private property and grey squirrels are all in public areas so small game is a tough one. When grey squirrel season opens here in Oregon I think I might give it a try, early October I think.

 

[SageRatSafaris]

A quality air rifle would probably work for rat hunting, but guys with 22LR will shoot more rats per day, and frankly a 22LR rifle isn't really more expensive than a quality air rifle. If you want to avoid the hassle of getting permission to shoot a field, there are a number of guided sage rat outfits you can easily google.

 

[CoastRange57]

Not sage rats but the gdamn grey diggers in the orchard across the road started migrating across the road to my place. They were trying to dig under my foundation, into the crawl space I just spent $ 5,000 on fixing and repairing. I whacked about 5 of them in 3 days in my yard and field and they got skittish. Spoke to the neighbor that farms it suggesting he may want to do something and he said well feel free to go shoot them if you want.

So I go over to his place and whack about 4 in two hours. They kept coming and my schedule was not allowing me to sit on them a lot, so I spent some money and baited them. I think I got them finally, but it cost me some bucks. I was whacking the ones close in with a .22 and did make a couple 150 yard shots with the .223. I mowed the neighbors field down and they got real scared. I think the little bastards are all dead now though. Worthless varmits. The farmer said they eat about 200 pounds of filberts each per year, and at $ 2,000 a ton I would kill every damn one of them.