Good evening Montanan, MT_Sourdough, dpe, Southpaw, Forster, Atlaw, pab1, newstart2k, Skunk, kitchawan kid, lurker, CJ, Bilmac,thxmrgarand, Syncerus, Mcwoodduck, Brennemanj83, Old Shooter,TY22, Canon6, burntmuch, Grimjim, CJ, Bilmac, rparsons934 wis_sharpshooter, BBF, Blue Duck, billy_56081, hunt-m-up, Gun Runner and Chilachuck.
Another beautiful day in Montana...The goal today was to get the Granddaughter a shot at a Rock chuck.
We went out looking at all my favorite haunts and couldn't find any. One of my favorite places to look is rock piles out in the newly planted wheat fields. Rock chucks will get out there and set up housekeeping right in the middle of the rock chuck salad bowl. I only hunt the rock piles in the planted strips. I leave the rock piles in the stubble and fallow fields alone to allow some escapement and hunting stock next year.
While driving across one of the stubble fields, way out in the middle we spotted this one little gopher mound with these two gophers sitting there. Granddaughter, not one to waste ammo, whacked both with one shot.
We didn't find any rock chucks in this area. We drove to another area a couple of miles away. We got lucky there.
High up on this bluff was a little ledge and there were four rock chucks. I gave her my 700 VLS .223 with Leupold 12x scope to shoot. She was having problems with the gun as it was heavy for her. She still managed to make one chuck into particulates from 132 yards. This caused the others to scatter so we decided to move on see what else we could find.
We couldn't find more rock chucks, but found an alfalfa field loaded with gophers. We set up on them and went to work. The problem was all you could see was the heads. After a few rounds fired their way the gophers started to hunker down. Granddaughter said she was going to shoot those over there as she could see them better. I asked which ones. Those ones she said and fired. Whop down goes a gopher on the other side of the field. She reloads and pops another one. I get out the range finder and lasered the little dead bodies. One was 148 yards the other 150.5 yards.
I ask her how she did that. She said she learned while shooting if the gophers are far away to wait for them to stand up then aim at the head. She was shooting my BSA Martini 1215 in 17 Hornady Mach 2. Before we left the area she shot several more in the same area.
We went back over to the bluff where we saw chuck and set up at 96 yards. This got her closer but would only give her head shots as the chucks peered at us over the rim. I wanted her to take only head shots as I was letting her shoot the 17HM2 at the chucks. We waited a bit and sure enough the chucks poked their heads over the edge. She shot and the chuck pitched over the ledge and fell about 30 feet to slope below. As I am watching the chuck fall, she loads and hunkers down to shoot again. Before I can say don't shoot we've shot enough here, she fires and a second chuck is dead. Oh well.
We only fired about thirty rounds today but it was a great day. This is probably the last hunt with her this year. She is headed home Sunday...darn.
