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Old 07-28-2009, 03:45 AM
Silverfox Silverfox is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: NW North Dakota
Posts: 1,243
Default 7-22-2009 PD Hunt

Part 5 of 6

I was about ready to get my gear and head up to the little prairie dog suburb just north of this dog town, when I looked to the left of where I had been sitting and noticed a little plant with some extremely tiny white blossoms. I set my camera for macro focus, got down on my belly and elbows and snapped a few pictures of the dainty blossoms that this plant was producing.



I set a .204 Ruger casing loaded with a 39 gr. Sierra bullet alongside the little plant and snapped a couple photos to give you a better perspective of the small size of this plant and its little white blossoms.



I was finishing up taking photos of the little white blossomed plant when an extremely rude prairie dog began barking at me from about 35 yards away. I was already lying on the ground taking photos, so I carefully placed my camera back in its carrying case and moved myself over to my rifle. I got the rifle pointed at the barking prairie dog with my bean bag firmly under the butt of the rifle. I got the crosshairs on the middle of the barking dog’s body and then moved my head away from the scope and squeezed the trigger. I could see the body fly back and left and body parts go flying 15 feet to the right. On close shots like this one, when I can get my rifle dead steady, I like to take my eye off the scope and watch the action with both eyes. Spectacular!!! Here’s the damage done by the 39 gr. Sierra from 35 yards away.



I did get in a few shots up in the little colony north of the main dog town, but not as much action as I got there in June. I had shot all thirty-seven of the 39 grain Sierra loads and headed back to the pickup at 5:50 p.m. I had shot 2 doubles, 31 singles and had 4 missed shots. I had dispatched 35 prairie dogs with those 37 shots. With those 37 shots, I have run 2,604 shots through the factory barrel on my Savage 12VLP and it is still shooting very accurately. Total body count for the day was 88 prairie dogs for 91 shots.

It had been an extremely hot day, but a good one for me. The wind speed never got much above 5 mph and while a little more wind speed would have helped keep me cool, I wasn’t complaining much about the lack of wind. I was able to use up all the ammo I had loaded for the Lilja barreled .17 Remington and I delivered the rifle and new barrel to my gunsmith on Saturday, July 25 to have the new barrel chambered and installed. I got back to the pickup at 6:00 p.m. and stored my gear, got a cold can of Caffeine Free Diet Coke out of my ice box and headed back for town at 6:21 p.m.
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Catch ya L8R--Silverfox

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