It's that time of year again: Destroy all gophers!

Late season outing.

Just got back from a late season outing. Its not prime for gopher shooting (like May or June) but was when I could get away. Have never been to the SW corner of Sask so was glad for the opportunity to see the country.
Loaded up the truck with camping gear; beans and jerky and lots of water; spare gas can; shooting bench and rests, etc.
For guns it was a shorty 10/22 (NEA 9" barrel in a cobbled together MP5 lookalike chassis) with a Bushnell Strikefire for close up, and a 17 HMR for the longer shots. The HMR is a Marlin 917VS with a Boyd stock, Rifle Basix trigger and a Falcon Menace 4.5-18x optics.

With the most common shot being in the 75 yard range I ended up using the HRM primarily but did get to tag some at closer range with the 10/22.

My first location was on a ranch just south of the Great Sand Hills, the rancher told me that they had most of their gophers under control but I found an area near a corral that had gotten missed this spring and got perhaps 30 gophers during the mid day. (Several years ago, shortly after he purchased the land, they had a gopher problem. Said it was not uncommon to shoot a brick, 500 rounds, in an hour and not cover more than 10 acres. Sadly I missed that season but have enjoyed such a productive shoot a couple of times in my life.)

Just a little to the left.......


The next day I moved to an area just north of the Cypress Hills park, very close to the AB border. The day was hot, 36'C, and I didn't arrive until about noon so things were slow until about 4:30 when the critters came out for their evening feeding. From then until I quit (to make camp and eat at about 7:30 PM) it was reasonably steady shooting. Shoot 20-50 rounds then move 150 yards, then repeat every half hour or so. My total that day would have been in the 150-175 range I am guessing.



I camped right were I had left of shooting but by morning a very strong wind came up and the little fellas are no fonder of the wind than I am but I still was able to get another 30-50 before leaving at about noon. Back to the original spot I set up my "office" and got another 6-8 when the wind dropped to a dead calm from time to time. Got my best shot of the trip, 176 meters (GPS on phone) during a dead calm period before a rain storm came in.

At the "office", hard at work.

It wasn't the perfect outing but got some sun and some shooting, and helped out some ranchers at the same time.
 
Man that looks like fun. Always wanted to do the gopher shoot, but never have (east coaster til last spring). Hope to find some friendly land owners in the not to distant future, but from what I can tell, there are very few up central Alberta way, everything seems to be south Alberta or Saskatchewan this year.
 
This is my friend/former co-worker Deb. She had only shot a gun a couple times before in her back yard with her sons and only at targets, never at wildlife according to her. She expressed interest in joining along for gophers one day to check it out. So I asked her if she wanted to go on Sunday and she was pretty stoked about the whole idea. After a few lessons in safety and proper handling along with a rundown on how the 10/22 works and using a scope she started to cut loose on the pesky little critters.

This was her first kill, one shot, one kill.....30 yards give or take 5 yards. As you can see she was not squeemish, didn't bother her to pick it up blown open or not. Must be from having been a PEI lobster fisherman's wife at one time and working the boats/traps.;)



This was her 9th of the day with only her 10 th shot!! Never once rested the rifle, all shots were offhand. This one had his head poking out of the hole for a look. Was 50 yards. One shot, one kill again!! Right through the neck. She even took one as it crouched low on all 4's at 75 yards with a single offhand shot. That was the shot of the day!! I told her dial the bdc reticle to the 75 mark and turn the scope to 7X. A second or so later a shot rings out and sir gopher is doing the twirly tail they are famous for when expiring. Was pretty cool to see a newbie take to it so well and like it so much. She texted me today to ask when my next days off were so we could go again.....:rockOn:

 
Nice day for gophers, not too hot. Bagged 72 between two pastures. Gophers are going into hibernation mode, smacked one with a mouthful of bedding material, turns out he didn't need it after all. Still lovin' the Win 555 bulk.

 
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