JavaScript is disabled
Our website requires JavaScript to function properly. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser settings before proceeding.
Any updates on rat numbers. Got a few weeks still before our yearly planned trip and curious if it is going to be hot and heavy like last year?
Way out SE Oregon they were out 2-3 weeks ago when we got warmer temps…like 80 degrees, but since then it's been cold with snow off and on and even though 6" of snow evaporates by mid day, the sage rats are still in there holes. The chipmunks don't seem to care, but the rats are still holed up.
 
I have been out to the old rat shooting grounds 3 times so far this spring, the latest was last Monday. zero rats so far. I saw one rat standing at his hole in a freshly cultivated field just out of Prineville and that has been all so far.
 
Had a great time up in Paulina a few weeks ago before the late winter storm came through. Expecting a big day at Crane Thursday. 🤞
 
We just got back home from our third annual rat hunt in Burns area. We had to put it off for a week because of snow last week. We like to shoot off the platform on the back of my pickup, rather than share the glory with other hunters on the big shooting trailers. We went well prepared, with ten bricks each of .22's for three days of hunts. We prefer our Ruger 10/22's, with Nikon 3-9 power, with BDC . But after the first several bricks, the 10/22's began fouling and misfiring. Jim had brought his Ruger American and I had my Henry Golden Boy, both with the Nikon 3-9 with BDC. (kinda stuck on that scope) So Nikon discontinued it. We both still prefer the 10/22's. It's just that Ruger needs to produce a 10/22 that looks like a Golden Boy. Ha! Fortunately we took an ice chest into the field, because we had to ice down our barrels after the first hour. We would lay them down on the shooting bench and it would melt the naugahide covering the bench. We shot for eight hours each day, non-stop, except to get into the pickup several times per hour to reload our mags and recover from the icy wind. Having forty 25-shot mags between us, it took way too much time to reload them, but kept us shooting long enough for our trigger fingers to get numb. The biggest issue came when we reluctantly headed back to the motel for the night. Trying to get out of the field, we were plowing dead rats with our front bumper, until we reached the gravel road. Had to back up a few times, and get our speed up, in order to overcome the slimy blood under our tires. Only after we put on our eight-track Willy Nelson "On the Road Again" tape did we get back onto the highway. Then, of course, it was Arlo Guthrey's "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road." (Stinking' to High Heavens.) Returning to the motel, we maid avail of their fre ice, icing down our trigger fingers for the next day. We'll be back next year. Flashpan turned us on to Nikki's (guide) phone number. He invited us to PM him for the njmber, as I understand that promoting any specific guide service is frowned upon on this blog. If you're looking for a good time, you can PM me for a contact number. Now, you KNOW that I didn't mean it THAT way!
 
We just got back home from our third annual rat hunt in Burns area. We had to put it off for a week because of snow last week. We like to shoot off the platform on the back of my pickup, rather than share the glory with other hunters on the big shooting trailers. We went well prepared, with ten bricks each of .22's for three days of hunts. We prefer our Ruger 10/22's, with Nikon 3-9 power, with BDC . But after the first several bricks, the 10/22's began fouling and misfiring. Jim had brought his Ruger American and I had my Henry Golden Boy, both with the Nikon 3-9 with BDC. (kinda stuck on that scope) So Nikon discontinued it. We both still prefer the 10/22's. It's just that Ruger needs to produce a 10/22 that looks like a Golden Boy. Ha! Fortunately we took an ice chest into the field, because we had to ice down our barrels after the first hour. We would lay them down on the shooting bench and it would melt the naugahide covering the bench. We shot for eight hours each day, non-stop, except to get into the pickup several times per hour to reload our mags and recover from the icy wind. Having forty 25-shot mags between us, it took way too much time to reload them, but kept us shooting long enough for our trigger fingers to get numb. The biggest issue came when we reluctantly headed back to the motel for the night. Trying to get out of the field, we were plowing dead rats with our front bumper, until we reached the gravel road. Had to back up a few times, and get our speed up, in order to overcome the slimy blood under our tires. Only after we put on our eight-track Willy Nelson "On the Road Again" tape did we get back onto the highway. Then, of course, it was Arlo Guthrey's "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road." (Stinking' to High Heavens.) Returning to the motel, we maid avail of their fre ice, icing down our trigger fingers for the next day. We'll be back next year. Flashpan turned us on to Nikki's (guide) phone number. He invited us to PM him for the njmber, as I understand that promoting any specific guide service is frowned upon on this blog. If you're looking for a good time, you can PM me for a contact number. Now, you KNOW that I didn't mean it THAT way!
Sounds like a great time!

Hey, so umm, Browning Performance Rimfire for those 10-22's, or something else?
 
No. I was trying to use up my Armscor ammo, and was getting non-fires (with good firing pin strikes), and non-feeding mags (BX-25 mags). I cleaned my rifle more comprehensively than normal, and tore down my mags. I noticed that the rounds are sticky. Like some of the Federals I found decades ago with parafin wax coating them. My more recent purchases are Aguila Super. They are CLEAN, feed well, and don't misfire.
 
As I write this, I have to acknowledge that I am grateful that this is a first world problem and there are many people out there both nearby and very far away who are dealing with much more tragic and significantly life altering circumstances. My heart goes out to you and my thoughts and prayers are with you all the way.
For those of you who are here to find out about rat shooting in Central Oregon in Spring 2022, here is some news: I had a trip scheduled for 4/28 since last year with 4 shooters scheduled. In the week prior to the shoot, two of our shooters bailed and since there was no deposit held my cousin and I are on the hook for four shooters. We've been with this outfitter for years and don't want to "burn that bridge" so we had to "pay the freight" for four shooters and honor our commitment. Had it been a good day, the "freight" would have been much easier to bear.
I've been watching the weather closely since our 4/14 trip was snowed out. 10 days out I notice that the forecast is calling for full cloud cover, but 58 degrees. That is tolerable for shooting rats in Spring. As we get closer, the forecast turns to rain, starting at 40% and everyday creeping up as the temperature forecast goes down. By the night before the forecast is showing 40 to 80% chance of rain with temps in the mid 40's from 0800 to 1500. That sucks for doing anything outdoors, I don't care who you are. And the 28th is the only day of crappy weather in the 10 day forecast. Just my f$%king luck. I convinced myself that it never rains for a whole day in the high desert and I've shot rats on rainy days before and it was plenty of fun in the breaks between the squalls. We were committed and there was no turning back...
We took off from Bend at 0530 on the 28th and headed out on the 2.5 hour drive. Around Brothers things started getting sketchy. We drove through 90 miles of rain and snow and arrived in Crane in a steady rain at 0800. Drove a few miles south east to the ranch we would be servicing and got set up in the rain. We waited for a break to get up on the platform and get started. The first round lasted about 15 minutes. Over the next 7 hours we got maybe an hour of shooting between rain, snow, sleet, and wind. I used to say that the worst day I ever had shooting rats was great but I can't say that anymore. It was miserable. I went thru about 200 rounds, had some great shots and some really pathetic misses, but anytime I would get on a roll here would come the wet sh!t again and it was put everything away and hunker down in the truck to wait for another break. As luck would have it, the sun broke through at about 1530 and things got fun again for a while. But alas, too soon it came time to pack up. I've had many great days of shooting rats but this was not one of them. I know it is an outlier and I'm over it. There will be more sunny days with rats so plentiful that the ground seems to be in motion. Hopefully I get to enjoy a few more before Valhalla. All of you who have unlimited free places to shoot rats and/or ranchers that give you ammo and let you run free, KMA!
 
We just got back home from our third annual rat hunt in Burns area. We had to put it off for a week because of snow last week. We like to shoot off the platform on the back of my pickup, rather than share the glory with other hunters on the big shooting trailers. We went well prepared, with ten bricks each of .22's for three days of hunts. We prefer our Ruger 10/22's, with Nikon 3-9 power, with BDC . But after the first several bricks, the 10/22's began fouling and misfiring. Jim had brought his Ruger American and I had my Henry Golden Boy, both with the Nikon 3-9 with BDC. (kinda stuck on that scope) So Nikon discontinued it. We both still prefer the 10/22's. It's just that Ruger needs to produce a 10/22 that looks like a Golden Boy. Ha! Fortunately we took an ice chest into the field, because we had to ice down our barrels after the first hour. We would lay them down on the shooting bench and it would melt the naugahide covering the bench. We shot for eight hours each day, non-stop, except to get into the pickup several times per hour to reload our mags and recover from the icy wind. Having forty 25-shot mags between us, it took way too much time to reload them, but kept us shooting long enough for our trigger fingers to get numb. The biggest issue came when we reluctantly headed back to the motel for the night. Trying to get out of the field, we were plowing dead rats with our front bumper, until we reached the gravel road. Had to back up a few times, and get our speed up, in order to overcome the slimy blood under our tires. Only after we put on our eight-track Willy Nelson "On the Road Again" tape did we get back onto the highway. Then, of course, it was Arlo Guthrey's "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road." (Stinking' to High Heavens.) Returning to the motel, we maid avail of their fre ice, icing down our trigger fingers for the next day. We'll be back next year. Flashpan turned us on to Nikki's (guide) phone number. He invited us to PM him for the njmber, as I understand that promoting any specific guide service is frowned upon on this blog. If you're looking for a good time, you can PM me for a contact number. Now, you KNOW that I didn't mean it THAT way!
We just got back home from our third annual rat hunt in Burns area. We had to put it off for a week because of snow last week. We like to shoot off the platform on the back of my pickup, rather than share the glory with other hunters on the big shooting trailers. We went well prepared, with ten bricks each of .22's for three days of hunts. We prefer our Ruger 10/22's, with Nikon 3-9 power, with BDC . But after the first several bricks, the 10/22's began fouling and misfiring. Jim had brought his Ruger American and I had my Henry Golden Boy, both with the Nikon 3-9 with BDC. (kinda stuck on that scope) So Nikon discontinued it. We both still prefer the 10/22's. It's just that Ruger needs to produce a 10/22 that looks like a Golden Boy. Ha! Fortunately we took an ice chest into the field, because we had to ice down our barrels after the first hour. We would lay them down on the shooting bench and it would melt the naugahide covering the bench. We shot for eight hours each day, non-stop, except to get into the pickup several times per hour to reload our mags and recover from the icy wind. Having forty 25-shot mags between us, it took way too much time to reload them, but kept us shooting long enough for our trigger fingers to get numb. The biggest issue came when we reluctantly headed back to the motel for the night. Trying to get out of the field, we were plowing dead rats with our front bumper, until we reached the gravel road. Had to back up a few times, and get our speed up, in order to overcome the slimy blood under our tires. Only after we put on our eight-track Willy Nelson "On the Road Again" tape did we get back onto the highway. Then, of course, it was Arlo Guthrey's "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road." (Stinking' to High Heavens.) Returning to the motel, we maid avail of their fre ice, icing down our trigger fingers for the next day. We'll be back next year. Flashpan turned us on to Nikki's (guide) phone number. He invited us to PM him for the njmber, as I understand that promoting any specific guide service is frowned upon on this blog. If you're looking for a good time, you can PM me for a contact number. Now, you KNOW that I didn't mean it THAT way!
Mr Ted
Sorry I was guiding other clients while you were here and did not get a chance to visit during your shoot...but most glad you had a fun day and worked your ammo pile down a bit. April has been tough weatherwise but the rat shooting has been very good. We had 6 guides/day out for the last week. Catch a sunny day and you will smile for days. Thanks for coming out! Cheers...Flashpan
 
We're not going to be able to get out until the end of June due to Granddaughter's school, but I already started packing lol.

IMG_20220429_122635422~2.jpg
 
4Star Thanks for your story. We need to hear about the bad with the good. We had the opposite sequence from yours. We started in Christmas Valley for about 3 years. After planning and plotting for months prior to each rat hunt (we didn't use a guide) we spent a week each year knocking on doors, hunting Dinsdale Farms, and shooting fields that produced nearly NOTHING. Then we found out that all the farmers in CV poison their fields. End of story! Burns is 7 1/2 hours EACH WAY. Not good, but we decided to try. The first handful of years, we encountered all the things that sage rats don't come out of the ground for - cold, wind, rain, snow, hail. Each year, we came home disappointed. Mainly because we made the mistake of watching all of those computer videos of tremendous hunts. That doesn't always happen, especially since most fields seem to be poisoned now. Anyway we paid our dues, and feel like we deserve to have a good hunt. One thing that we found is that some alfalfa producers find a need to be organic farmers. That means NO poison. And that means that they need to rely on you and me to control the sage rats. And Nikki worked for years to develop a relationship with organic growers. Still, she cannot control the weather. You could imagine having 100 rat shooters flying in on a jet to hunt, only to be cancelled by 4 days of SNOW. I couldn't run a business with that happening to me. She's a trooper! Just gotta keep on trying, 4Star. Good luck to ya!
 
Flashpan - We were really pleased when Nikki told us that she was putting us in a field that you had hunted and enjoyed. I told her that I REALLY wanted to shoot your SECRET field. She just laughed. She didn't realize that I was serious. Ha! We paid for a 4 day hunt, but the weather forecast was for snow and rain from 7AM to 2PM. So we opted to drive home in the snow and rain. But EACH of the 3 days of shooting was more enjoyable than the entirety of ALL of the days of prior years. Just like any other type of hunting, you better just enjoy being in the outdoors, take the weather as it comes, and not count your kills. And have a recording of "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road."
 
As I write this, I have to acknowledge that I am grateful that this is a first world problem and there are many people out there both nearby and very far away who are dealing with much more tragic and significantly life altering circumstances. My heart goes out to you and my thoughts and prayers are with you all the way.
For those of you who are here to find out about rat shooting in Central Oregon in Spring 2022, here is some news: I had a trip scheduled for 4/28 since last year with 4 shooters scheduled. In the week prior to the shoot, two of our shooters bailed and since there was no deposit held my cousin and I are on the hook for four shooters. We've been with this outfitter for years and don't want to "burn that bridge" so we had to "pay the freight" for four shooters and honor our commitment. Had it been a good day, the "freight" would have been much easier to bear.
I've been watching the weather closely since our 4/14 trip was snowed out. 10 days out I notice that the forecast is calling for full cloud cover, but 58 degrees. That is tolerable for shooting rats in Spring. As we get closer, the forecast turns to rain, starting at 40% and everyday creeping up as the temperature forecast goes down. By the night before the forecast is showing 40 to 80% chance of rain with temps in the mid 40's from 0800 to 1500. That sucks for doing anything outdoors, I don't care who you are. And the 28th is the only day of crappy weather in the 10 day forecast. Just my f$%king luck. I convinced myself that it never rains for a whole day in the high desert and I've shot rats on rainy days before and it was plenty of fun in the breaks between the squalls. We were committed and there was no turning back...
We took off from Bend at 0530 on the 28th and headed out on the 2.5 hour drive. Around Brothers things started getting sketchy. We drove through 90 miles of rain and snow and arrived in Crane in a steady rain at 0800. Drove a few miles south east to the ranch we would be servicing and got set up in the rain. We waited for a break to get up on the platform and get started. The first round lasted about 15 minutes. Over the next 7 hours we got maybe an hour of shooting between rain, snow, sleet, and wind. I used to say that the worst day I ever had shooting rats was great but I can't say that anymore. It was miserable. I went thru about 200 rounds, had some great shots and some really pathetic misses, but anytime I would get on a roll here would come the wet sh!t again and it was put everything away and hunker down in the truck to wait for another break. As luck would have it, the sun broke through at about 1530 and things got fun again for a while. But alas, too soon it came time to pack up. I've had many great days of shooting rats but this was not one of them. I know it is an outlier and I'm over it. There will be more sunny days with rats so plentiful that the ground seems to be in motion. Hopefully I get to enjoy a few more before Valhalla. All of you who have unlimited free places to shoot rats and/or ranchers that give you ammo and let you run free, KMA!
Sorry to hear of your misfortune on your safe rat hunt. I was tempted to join you but was very apprehensive about the potential for bad weather on your original April 14 date. Considering it would have been an 8 hour drive with $4.50 per gallon gas plus motel plus meals and guide fee, it was too risky for me. I am holding out hope that north central Montana might be productive in early June. Weather has been unseasonably cold and wet in eastern Washington this spring, and while the moisture is welcome (and desperately needed), it doesn't make for optimal gopher shooting. (Montana's preferred term for sage rats). I will still happily make the 10+ hour drive either way since I love seeing the old family farm and Montana friends. The gophers, prairie dogs, skunks and badgers are a bonus. And, no thanks on the kma invitation. 😆
 
I'm in Christmas Valley right now and not finding much for sage rats or jack rabbits. Plus there's constant 20+ mph winds and heavy rain showers coming over periodically. But still having a good time with my boys. Going to the Cowboy Dinner Tree for dinner tonight so that will make everything good again.
 

Upcoming Events

Tillamook Gun & Knife Show
Tillamook, OR
"The Original" Kalispell Gun Show
Kalispell, MT
Kids Firearm Safety 2 Class
Springfield, OR
Teen Rifle 1 Class
Springfield, OR

New Resource Reviews

New Classified Ads

Back Top