sagerat hunt or prairie dog

[misskitty]

I found NWFA when I was searching for a sage rat hunt place I could take my family without costing me an arm and a leg. We live in Washington but love Oregon Idaho Montana.

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[lowly monk]

Welcome.

 

[MLP]

where is this place you are speaking of. I would like to take my new Henry for a Sage Run hunt but do not know any of the local farmers. Can you give any advice.

 

[Larrytpdx]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Joe13]

I found NWFA when I was searching for a sage rat hunt place I could take my family without costing me an arm and a leg. We live in Washington but love Oregon Idaho Montana.

Unfortunately, from my personal experience, no one will have a location for you.

Some may suggest you talk to farmers, I think meeting them at a feed store was the best advice I ever got.

In the end I got invited to go to private property in eastern Wa but we shot a grand total of one varmint that day...

I've been trying to find a place to hunt rabbits and sage rats (ground squirrels in WA) for a few years now with no luck.


Welcome to the forum! You'll probably find loads of other interesting stuff if your into guns.

 

[DuneHopper]

I found NWFA when I was searching for a sage rat hunt place I could take my family without costing me an arm and a leg. We live in Washington but love Oregon Idaho Montana.

Another thought is post up at granges and coop's .
Make a small flier, it sometimes easier if the land owner contacts you.
Our ranch has ground squirrels so we get some practice but the horses hate guns
( darn liberal anti-gun horses ). But those are some ideas.

 

[Brutus57]

40 years ago in college a buddy of mine would go out and shoot gophers, ground squirrels whatever the little varmints were called on farmer's property. we got permission in advance and used only .22LR. usually get a couple dozen in a couple of hours. probably harder to do these days with all the crazy liability stuff going on. Ask around. Less than 4 years ago on the main highway near Crater Lake in OR ran in to a couple of locals in a diner we ate at that were headed east to shoot sage rats in mid June.

Brutus Out

 

[2A2Dend]

The good in me is against it, although I'd enjoy a good prairie dog day given the opportunity

 

[fredball]

Welcome Aboard

 

[Joe13]

The good in me is against it, although I'd enjoy a good prairie dog day given the opportunity

I felt that way too until I did some research and found that they are an invasive species that destroy a lot of farmers crops.

Now I think of it more like pest control.

 

[2A2Dend]

Yup, them ground dogs cause a lot of damage. Fun day with my .22 magnum.

 

[Mark W.]

For Prairie Dogs plan on some driving the closet ones to Oregon are going to be in Central Montana. As I have said here multiple times Oregon has no Prairie Dogs. For Beldings Ground Squirrels (slang "SAGE RATS") look to the Alfalfa growing areas on the East Side of the Cascades. In Oregon Christmas Valley has been popular (though the farmers and ranchers are about done dealing with A Holes shooting up their equipment and hired hands) Keep in mind all this type hunting is on PRIVATE land and you need direct permission. Last time I was in Christmas Valley there was still at least one huge outfit using a signup sheet and signed permission slips. Ask at the Big Gas station in town where to find them. And they were ONLY allowing .22LR NO centerfire at all.

 

[Certaindeaf]

It's fun to shoot them little buggers.

 

[DuneHopper]

I felt that way too until I did some research and found that they are an invasive species that destroy a lot of farmers crops.
Now I think of it more like pest control.

When we had cattle I cant tell you how bad it gets with a 4inch hole and a 1000lbs steel
when we had cattle they were always getting injured by these holes that are small and shallow making the hole as big as 2feet once stepped on.

 

[shotsfired]

Welcome have fun

 

[Mistman]

Even 25 years ago it was starting to get pretty popular. A friend and I would drive to Wyoming in the 1st part of summer for few years in a row. On the way we would stop at a ranch in Oregon on the Idaho border and shoot 'rats' in his alfalfa. We had talked to the owner who was more than happy to have someone shoot the rats eating up his alfalfa. It became illegal to poison them as the birds of prey would eat them and die also. He would put us up for the night, we'd shoot a solid day and head east. We read an article in one of the popular gun rags at the time and headed for the ranch named in the article outside of Gillette Wy. We ended up talking to the owner who opened our eyes to the popularity of the sport. He was booked up for a couple years solid for dog shooting, had a lot of stories about some of his clients and their passion for shooting dogs. He owned or managed over 120k acres. He called one of his 'neighbors' who had about 20k acres outside of Crazy Horse who said to 'send 'em by'. He already had a waiver for us to sign and rules for shooting, set us up in a quonset hut and said enjoy yourselves. We had to walk and set up on his place, I was packing a bull barrelled 700 BDL in 22-250 with a 24x scope and a bipod, about 300 rnds in a bag on my side and various other stuff. By lunch of the 1st day we were back at 'camp' when he came riding up w/some ranch hands on horses and asked us how we'd done. We each had a little spiral notebook we kept tabs on confirmed kills. Between us we had 440 by lunch. He was pleased. He told us about a couple other places if we wanted to try them out.
I would take a .223 mini mauser I put together w/a Interarms action, Fajen stock and douglas barrel with a 16x scope and a bi-pod along w/the 700. About 2k rnds of handloaded .223 a little over 1k in .22-250 handloads and a couple handguns w/ammo. I learned a lot about real world shooting, over holds, adjusting for wind, getting off 2nd shots, ballistic coefficient, sectional density, powder burn rates, etc. Spent a lot of time reloading and zeroing the rifles. Fun years. Just now starting to get back into shooting like I was back then.
Once we got in w/a rancher he would give us names of other ranchers who could use help w/their dog problems. We camped in the back of a truck so were very mobile and could take our shooting gear right out to the shooting spots. We enjoyed just exploring the area and shooting. Had contacts in Montana and Idaho also.
Ask around, co-workers ended up being good contacts as some would have relatives who may have or know someone w/squirrels, rats or 'dogs'. If you're willing to drive and are respectful, friendly and even helpful w/the ranchers it helps alot. Not everyone was real friendly about a knock on the door but after a while we didn't need to. There's very little accessible public land that has prairie dogs, and no, there are no 'dogs' in Oregon. We were pretty excited when we saw our 1st signs of them along the Madison river in Montana.
It's a lot of fun, shooting rabbits in the sagebrush is also a lot of fun on public land. Not as much shooting but still fun. There are Thompson ground squirrels down around K-Falls that are a lot of fun but permission is required on the big ranches. You can still find some good digger squirrel shooting if you get into clear cuts the right age on accessible land. I've already gotten 4 off the stump pile behind the house this year, 7 last year.

 

[2A2Dend]

A buddy of mine's, dad lives in Montana, I'll mention maybe goin dog hunting next time I speak to him. That'd be a fun time.

 

[Sgt Nambu]

Welcome to the site! I hope you enjoy it and find a place to hunt those nasty little rodents!