I like to go on 2-3 prairie dog hunts annually in the OK panhandle. A few weeks ago I went on the first hunt of the year. A group of young men in their late 20’s have gone with me on a number of hunts. I affectionately refer to them as the “Young Guns.” On this hunt. This year a fourth “Young Gun” came on the hunt, his first.

Travel to OK went well. I left in the afternoon after having a tooth pulled that morning. Once the sedation wore off, I loaded the truck, hit the road and drove to OK where I stayed the night. I went a day ahead of the "Young Guns" and scouted the dog towns. The “Young Guns” like to stop at gun stores and pawn shops as they drive through OK so they arrived to late to shoot. I took my usual prairie dog handguns and suppressors: 17 Remington Fireball Mini-Howa, 20 VarTarg Mini-Howa, 223 Rem Ackley Improved Rem XP-100 and Nosler Custom Handgun in 22 Nosler. The guys brought a wide selection of rifles in 204 Ruger, 222 Remington, 223 Remington, 22-250, 220 Swift, 22 Creedmore and 243 Winchester.

The scouting day well although I did’t really set up for an actual shoot at any of the towns. Winds were pretty calm and ranges fairly close so I was able to kill about 34 pd’s. The other guys arrived after dark.

We all hunted all day Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Thursday: The wind was very strong, gusting >40 mph. Winds like that not only blow the bullets around, but also makes your gun bounce around. In addition, dogs don’t seem to move as much in strong winds. I was disappointed one of my newer towns didn’t seem to have many dogs so we moved to some of the older towns. The day was sunny and hot at 100 degrees. I shot a little over 100 rounds and made a fair number of shots. The 223 AI accounted for nearly half the shots.

Friday: A beautiful, but hot (104 deg) day, with winds gusting infrequently to only 20 mph. Before hunting, I stopped by the feed store to visit and buy some snacks. The feed store has been the source of most of the pastures I hunt. I had one of my busiest days ever, shooting over 200 rounds. The The 17 RFB and 223 AI took nearly 2/3 the shots. A thunderstorm came in late so we left the pasture a little early. We saw smoke from a number of range fires near the end of the hunt. On the way home we drove by a grass fire. Once we got to town, I saw more traffic on Main Street than I’d ever seen as everyone was driving to put out the fires. The next morning we saw a Deputy Sheriff at breakfast at the convenience store and he said there had been 30 range fires that day..

Saturday: The last day of the hunt is always bittersweet. The winds picked back up, gusting to 30 mph. I again shot a little over 100 rounds. Our usual towns had been shot kinda hard by then so dogs were hard to find. That afternoon I got permission to hunt for the first time a pasture I’d been watching for a few years. We capped off the end of the day with a really good hunt at the new town. The prairie dogs are a nuisance to the landowners so they are usually happy to grant permission. The problem is being able to talk to them. No one has a land line phone anymore. The cell phone numbers listed on the ‘net are never correct. If you happen to find a good number, they don’t answer the unknown caller. Voice mail is usually full or not set up, and if you can leave a message, they rarely respond. Texting is usually fruitless.

The trip home went well. I left for home after the hunt with plans to get a hotel room around Oklahoma City. Before finding a room, I stopped at a number of hotels, only to discover all were sold out. At the last stop I discovered it was the weekend for graduation at the University of Oklahoma.

I was generally pleased with my equipment. In 3.5 days I took about #405 shots. The 17 RFB was confined to calm weather since it’s light bullets don’t do well in the wind. The 20 VarTarg was the only one to disappoint me. After removing a stuck case, I couldn’t make a shot, even what should been easy ones. I hope to figure out this weekend what happened. I shot the 223 AI (50 gr bullets) and 22 Nosler (55 gr bullets ) when the wind kicked up. On Friday, the wind was calm enough for the 15X binoculars. At one point, I found when the scope was set at 15X and held into the wind, bracketing the pd with the horizontal ballistic hashes, I was able to make a number of hits. I planned on modifications on my Bog Deathgrip tripod, but the parts didn’t arrive in time.

I'm hoping to make pd hunts in June and September.

They “Young Guns” shooting