First Gopher Hunt ... EFF That Was Awesome!

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Spazmo

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Howdy all!

Today I attended my first gopher hunt!!!! It was put on by, no other than, yours truly!

After approximately a year of asking to join in on hunts, and always getting "Oh yeah, sure, I'll contact you next time we go out", to always never hear anything after, being frustrated is definitely an understatement. Finally taking matters into my own hands, I followed the advice on the forum of "drive for a bit, then just start asking farmer's permission". That legwork was done yesterday, and boy am I glad that I did it.

Enter today. Deciding on one of the many fields I now had permission for, I took a friend to help eradicate some of the gopher population. Highlights included:
  • Totally dominating my friend in gopher kills. 13-6 in my favour, despite giving him 2/3 of the opportunities. You had to have physical proof to count a kill. "I must've hit him before he ran down the hole, the crosshair was right on him" didn't cut it.
  • Using all of the firearms I brought to earn my kills: an SR-22, Savage Mk-II, and a Savage 12FV in .223
  • Using my .223 with my reloaded ammo (69gr Sierra HPBT's) to achieve a one shot, one kill on a gopher at 220m with 16 (gusting 19) knot crosswinds. :dancingbanana::sniper::dancingbanana:
  • Reaffirming with my friend that you can, indeed, use only a 'lowly' .22LR and still have a blast! (We pulled the .223 out near the end of the shoot)

This Saturday is my next attempt at this, as I am actually going gopher hunting on 80HA of land with the son of one of the land ownders I asked permission for.

LET THIS BE A LESSON TO THOSE LOOKING TO GO GOPHER HUNTING - If you're looking at doing it, don't wait around for people to do things for you. Be proactive, and you'll be surprised what you can accomplish.
 
spazmo, that's great to see you're getting some action! what kind of response did you get from the farmers when you asked for permission? I so want to go.

I drive a lot in and around calgary for work and always look at the large fields but can't see any gophers. I sometimes see piles of dirt, but no gopher.
 
Congrats. Sounds like you had fun. A 'lowly' .22 in a gopher patch can be just about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on.
 
I used to do a lot of gopher "safaris" up around Gibbons when I lived in St Albert. The farmers were always very receptive. I've even had them offer to buy ammo-and bring out a cold beer in the evening to express their gratitude.:)

The biggest challenges are reading the wind and mirage and keeping your barrel clean and cool-and finding the time to roll your handloads. I used to use a BREN gun tripod to set up on heavy concentrations of them. I built an adapter for it that I could mount my shooting rest on. The .223 is king for this-cheap to reload and easy on barrels. And who says gophers can't fly?:evil:
 
Florin79 - The hunters were extremely receptive ... the first farmer I asked said that they had lots of predators which kept the population down to minimums, but to try asking on the other side of the highway. I figured I was getting the run around, but all of the farmers that I asked on "the other side of the highway" gave me permission, stating that they were more than happy to have me there. HECK, one asked me if I was charging $0.25 per tail! I said no, because making money wasn't the whole point of the outing. In hindsight ...

Cyclone - The SR-22 performed better than I can shoot. There was one particular gopher that I missed on my first shot, but hit it on the move with my second thanks to quick acquisition with an EOtech :p My friend also learned that you need to compensate for the difference between the barrel and sight height at extremely close range. He also learned that just because you have many shots in a semi, doesn't give you the excuse to not make your first one count. Hence the 13-6 tally we kept.

As for pics, I remembered the camera driving halfway to the field from home. I do plan on taking pictures on Saturday, when I go again. I'll post a "Round Two", with pics next time.

We noticed that after waiting about 15-20 minutes, if gophers were hiding, they would come out again. Does anyone know any ways to get them out faster? If you have any tips in general, feel free to post.

For the fields that I have permission, I noticed that you couldn't see the gophers from the road. You had to go about 3-400m to start to them.

How was everyone else's first time gopher hunting?
 
If you purse you lips and inhale sharply you can kinda reproduce their high pitched squeal, i have had wounded ones come back out of the hole to be finished off. I also found that some predator calls like rabbit in distress can work as well.
 
Sounds like you had a fun shoot. The best is yet to come - mid june is the peak time for shooting. The first young gophers of the year are starting to venture out on their own, and the adults are active above ground breeding the second and third batch of babies. You can see 5 times as many gophers in a field as you do now. Late afternoon is the peak time.
 
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They are nasty little buggers and they like their protein. So much so that they will cannibalize the ones you shoot-so there's an idea for baiting.:eek: Once the young pups show up around the hole you can line them up and go for a double or even a triple.:evil:

A sunny day is best. If you see/hear hawks soaring above you they will squeek a warning and go to ground until danger is past. They are sensitive to vibrations from footsteps, so it is best to stay in one spot when shooting. The amount of stand-off you get shooting a .223 is great.:) They are funny little critters and will climb up on a fencepost for a look around.

One time I was shooting a pasture down around Deleau,MB and spotted a humungous gopher on a fencepost. I thought it might well be a world record and took a poke at it and got the post instead. It made the mistake of peeking around the post again and got a 52gr Calhoon right between the lookers.G: It came down the post 873 times quicker than going up-and turned out to be a groundhog.:eek:
 
The vibrations definitely makes sense ... When my buddy and I decided to approach a known gopher area on foot with my SR-22, all of them went to ground. Only after waiting 10 mins in a spot that they would shot their heads.

Strangely enough though, we had GREAT luck driving up in my pickup to the area, as they seemed to scurry about without a care for the truck. My buddy acting as spotter, each time we saw one while in the truck, it would act oblivious if we left the engine running, got out of the vehicle, loaded our firearms, then took the shot vs turning the engine off, getting out, loading, then shooting. By time we performed the latter, the bugger was already down his hole.

I've heard from multiple sources to do similar (keep the engine running) if you spot a grouse. On logging roads, they are so used to the trucks going by, that they don't think twice if the engine is running. It's when the engine stops that they start to become spooked.
 
I remember shooting gohpers, I was in prone and all of a sudden I felt a tug on my leg.

I looked down and there was a bugger crawling up my damn pants leg! I thought to myself `Good lord! They are hutning humans now!!!`

He was quite friendly, so I let him live. :)
 
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