Show Notes
This week on the Missouri Woods & Water podcast we get part of the MWW family together to talk about some prairie dog hunting. Russell and Austin join us and we break down a recent trip Russell got to take to South Dakota to hunt those critters. None of us have ever went prairie dog hunting so it was fun to hear about Russell's experience with it. Russell just breaks down the trip and what it was like out there for him. It was really fun to hear about something that none of us have ever really thought about doing before hearing Russell's experience. Thanks for listening!
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Show Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Missouri Woods and Water Podcast with a full house. Your host, Nate Maga. Andy? Yep. Got Russell. Russell, you were last. This time. Andy. Got Russell here. Got Austin here. Hey guys. Living for people that don't know that, that are buddies and returning guests. Yep. Russell's been on multiple times, Austin, multiple times they're back.
We're gonna talk about two specific topics tonight. We were gonna do this whole big ass show. About, we had so much shit going on. We've had a lot going on. We've had elk hunting stuff going on. We've had bow fishing news going on, coyote [00:01:00] hunting stuff. Coyote hunting stuff. And then the topics tonight were like, gosh, man, that, that'd be like a four hour show.
What if we could have, yeah, do it separately. So today's show Russ went dogging for some prairie dogs South Dakota a couple weeks ago. So we're gonna talk about that. I feel like this could still be a four hour show. Oh it definitely, it could be. I think we can just call this episode dogging. Funny you should say that.
Cause I already thought of the episode title. It's gonna be of course you did Spring Coyotes and Prairie Dogging cuz it has multiple meetings. The double entendre. I like it. Yep. Just sit there and sip on your bush light. I see that you took the The paper was gone when they came down here.
Oh, was it? They're telling hold old that beer is. It's been in my fear for a while. It's months old. Yeah, like several months. Pre-roe. Pre-game. Pre wokeness. Pre that's right. Pre woke. Pre rainbows. Yeah. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. It'll go wherever it goes cuz there's a group of five friends here.
So just be prepared for that. Let's do our sponsors real quick so we can get straight into the show. [00:02:00] Let's start with Weber Outfitters because we have a badass giveaway currently going on with them. If you haven't heard about it, we got the ultimate bow hunting giveaway going on. You can win up.
It's about a $1,200 package. Yep. You get a right-handed or left-handed depending on what you are. Bear Bow, not discriminated. Nope. You get a Target. Six arrows broadheads release. Everything you need, practice tips, arrows practice. You get everything you need to be hunting. If you weren't bow hunting before, besides a deer stand, you're gonna be ready to go hunting.
Yep. So it's a whole big giveaway. You can enter multiple ways. You can get on Webber Outfitters website webber outfitters.com. You can get into the show notes on this show, and there's a link that'll take you straight to it. Or if you want to go to our website and check out the cool stuff there, Missouri Woods and water.com, go to our partners page under Webber Outfitters.
The link is right there and you just fill it out. There's multiple ways you can enter, what's [00:03:00] the word? Multiple times, multiples. Yeah. You, I think you can get up to seven. Seven if you do all the prompts. Seven entries. Yeah. If you do all the prompts, you get seven entries.
And the giveaway is on August 12th. Live at five o'clock at their trying, I'm the most nervous about that part right there. Why? I've never went live on social media in my life. It's easy. It's it's very difficult. No. It's easy. He doesn't, you say its easy two times a week. But I will find a way to fuck it up, I promise you.
But you can't. Oh, you want bet. No. You can mess. I will be in charge, Michael. Take care of it, Michael. Take care of it. But the giveaway's gonna be live August 12th. So you'll have a month after then to get ready to go. So check 'em out. Webber outfitters.com. Mikey, you can do the next one.
Alon optics. Ridiculous. Straight down. Okay. Yeah, we're just, I don't know why you gotta make it confusing. Alon optics. Ridiculously good optics. I believe everybody in here except for one, runs optic or runs. You don't have one yet? Nope. You don't. Have we change that? Maybe you need to try the Kronos first at all of us.
I'll be done with that. See? Yeah. Sharp, tight price. Just right. I'm actually going there next week. [00:04:00] Pick up another one. Where you going with the exact same one as what I put on that six creed? It's Aries. No, it's a hilos I think. Yeah. He went to, you went cuz I had the hilos on my other one. That's right.
And then I swapped it out for the Aries the second, my second Aries Hilos. Oh, I'm gonna screw this up. I know it's a six by 24 by 56. Yeah. Another freaking see nose hairs. Yeah. It's my friend. I've been cheating. I'm still running that. Argos 36, 8 by 36. Eight by 32. We shot Coyote the other day at 35 yards.
I can't talk too much about it cuz we haven't had the show. But Three eyeball we recorded with a guy from his name's Mark and he's from out West. And one of the things he talks about is, glass. Yeah. How important it is. And he's I'm good with a basic two and a half by 15, three by 18.
Yeah. He's there's some buddies of mine that, go up to 15. He's it's like looking at like a pinhole. And he's yeah, you can see a long ways. But he said, I just go the basic route. And it made me happy when [00:05:00] he said that, cuz it made me think of you and you, which everyone's got their own thing.
Yeah. I've always been aim, aim small, Ms. Small. So if I can only see a little bit, I can't miss. And then I think I've got a Midas tack that I'm getting ready to put on. I think that's what I got that I'm putting, gonna put on my Christiansen and I'm gonna keep that gun and run it. But speaking of hon, they're gonna be at the Weber Outfitters, Tribu, I believe?
Yep, they are. Yeah, I think they're gonna have a boost. August 12. Oh. And he's not gonna be listening to this, but shout out to a fella. I probably should have had this ready, but a young man, I met his mom, dad, and him at my daughter's last softball tournament. And he is, he competes in what's called NR, N r l 22.
He's going to Nationals. Nice. And guess who his sponsor is? Alon. Alon Optics. So what's up to Zane Taylor and his parents out in, what would you done if he would've said Leopold? I'm like, what the fuck? Nate urinated you. Yeah. Actually emailed our guys at Alon and told him, Hey, I met this kid.
He's a very respectful young man. I'm [00:06:00] glad he's shooting Athlon. Take care of that boy. Hell yeah. Awesome. Good luck, man. Yeah. Yep. Good luck to him. I think it's coming up soon on x. We've been on it. We were on day. Like I said, we've been on it. No, we were, me and Nathan, we were, he came and picked up some targets today at there, at work and we got on there, started talking about deer hunting, and spent probably 20 minutes on x.
I can't tell you how much, how many times all of us use it. I, me and Austin use every time we go on the way here tonight. Yeah. Me and Pat were sitting down talking about a Colorado trip, about possible camping spots and we've been to the same spot multiple times. So we're sitting here okay, we could go here, but look right here.
That would go right to there. You'd go a little farther, you go, yeah. So we, I mean it's unlimited use I imagine, Russell, I mean y'all, I eat it every day. Yeah. Y'all probably been on that really? You probably used just like Micah does for work. Yeah. Handier and help man. Yeah. And they've got a lot of new features coming out.
Some of them that I don't even know yet, cuz I don't know how to use some of them. I'm very basic right now and I need to get. Educated on some of the new [00:07:00] features. I just talked to our buddy Jared over there at OnX, and he is man, we got so much coming out. They just ended their Father's Day special.
Yeah. Which was 30%. You can still get, what is it, 20% with us, using our code, which is MW 20 or go to our partners tab and stuff like that. But there's a lot of features that are really intricate that are really cool. What are you doing? That's how you do line distance. Are you shitting me? You can touch two fingers to it.
Yeah. I've been going into the toolbar and pulling it up. No, that's cool. Oh, gimme that. Cool. Gimme that. That's cool. I was trying to do that earlier today. Yeah. And I was like, how did I, because I remember doing it 65 yards so you can take, can you fine adjust those pins once they're there. Once they're there.
Can you move a point? Hold on. Let me just so you mean like this? Yeah, no. Is there any way to, no shit. It just did it. Yeah. So you can take two fingers and space them out. Just pull it on there and touch the two points you went into the distance on. That's a badass. And it tells you what the distance that is.
That is super cool. I was trying to do that earlier, but I forgot how I did it and then I got thinking, I was like, that's, that makes it, if you're on [00:08:00] the fly, you need a quick line distance. That's right. Uhhuh. That makes it instant because line, the line distance tool is cool, right? But you have to click, but you, I thought you had to click and pick the tool and apparently not.
I'm not nearly, I advanced at technologies I should be because some of this stuff that we have at our fingertips is absolutely. Oh, it's amazing. And we'll get into we'll just go ahead and get into it. The real tactic cam, they updated their app. Dude, their, that crap is awesome. I can go in and I just got one camera out now, but each time a different buck shows up.
I can make its own folder right there in the app. It's the coolest thing. Oh, that's awesome. And so I got, I can sort your galleries. I can sort my galleries within seconds. Dang. It's handier in hell. Yeah. And that the other cool thing about reveal cameras and especially with this newest update and there's another one coming by the way, I guess not too far future.
Near future. But, so like Russell doesn't have any reveal cams currently. He's about to get his first one, but he doesn't have any currently. I can share all the cameras that, whether the property we hunt together. See me And you [00:09:00] got one shared. Yeah. But you have a reveal cam. True. He doesn't. So all he has to do is download the app.
And it lets him see all the cams at our hunting property together. Oh wow. That's cool. See, I need to let my, the landowner know, cuz he always likes looking, seeing what's back there too. Yeah. So that's handy. That's good to know. What are you doing? Do you want me to share the ones at your house?
Just waiting. There ain't shit there, but I'll add you. I just need what email are you using? Your normal one? The Gmail? Yeah. Okay. The non-work one. So they can, yeah. Yeah. And see that's the nice thing, like you don't have to, it's just all of a sudden, especially if you already have a account, it just shares 'em with you.
Yeah. And then they're in your shared cameras. Didn't know that. And to me the coolest thing is creating different folders. Cause now as long as I don't have to sort out what's mine and yours. All you gotta do is filter. Filter. You go to different, yeah, you can go to different ones. Like your cameras will always be the first ones that pop up, and then you can go, it goes to cameras and it goes to shared, and then you can pick which one or whatever you wanna look at.
That's pretty handy. So you can click on his, my cameras are shared. Yeah. And he doesn't have any cameras yet. Hot damn. Yeah. That's pretty slick. Yeah, so it's pretty [00:10:00] sweet. And then I lie like the, I said the folders because you guys know how intricate I get with different bucks and writing everything down about 'em.
I don't have to save all the pictures to my phone now. I can just keep 'em in there. And they're. I can go back, can browse them later. That Subzero the third funny, I just named a Buck Si Sied by Subro. He named one today. I just named a buck today. Yeah, he named a, cause he has a bunch of trash and his mom was Deborah.
Deborah the Dough had a bunch of trash all over his bases. So there is a Mortal combat character who had really fucked up teeth and was like all crazy ass Baraka Bar Baraka. Yep. So that's that deer's name. Will you just name one like Hank? I could, I can do that for you Steve. Just one? Yeah, just gimme one dumb name Steve.
So yeah, check him out. Reveal cameras. Yeah. Pretty awesome. Black Ovis just ordered two dozen arrows from him using the custom arrow id builder. Geez, bro. How many arrows you going plan on [00:11:00] losing? I, Hey, hopefully none. The loss of average improve, the more that's in the air, the more you have a chance at.
Yeah, I don't know. But don't you already have a dozen? Yeah, but they're gonna be different. They're different links. Oh, okay. Because mine are tad longer. Are you seeing that, that deer? I'm showing him Baraka. That was today. Good grief. Yeah. He's got a lot of trash around his bases, if you noticed.
Yeah. But anyways, that's at my house. You ain't ever gonna see him? No, it ain't anybody else. But the hell was I just saying black os Oh, custom arrow to id builder. Literally, I've never, it's never been easier to do custom arrows. The hardest part was measuring my damn arrows and making sure I was like exact with my length.
I called two or three of you, but that was the hardest part, is deciding what length to go with and. Boom. Done. You can even do what's it called? Rush delivery. Yeah. You can get two to three day, they will be out of their place in one to two days. I did on their, the standard and it was like, it's still [00:12:00] fast.
It's still fast. I mean you get 'em within a week I think. Damn. I think it's three to five is what they call, but I mean I got 'em super quick. Yeah so excited about that. And then obviously they got all kinds of cool black Ovis gear. Russell and I were looking at some puffy jackets the other day.
Andy, you need to get some stuff done for us. Yeah, I gotta do some stuff. Black Ovis gear and then obviously all kinds of other gear. I mean it's just like a online version of a big box store. Yeah, I mean you can get a lot of stuff there. Mike and I are thinking about saddles this year and they've got all kinds of saddle stuff.
I will have a saddle this year. Definitely. I just can't decide what to do. Yeah, what to go with. Don't know which one, but I'm going, Hey listeners, tell us what to do. What do we go with? Yeah, we go with tethered, we go with latitude. We would like your opinion. What do we go with all these different brands, trophy line.
Who's the best? Yeah. Cause we don't know. Check 'em out. And then Camel Fire, obviously the fast sale that Nate typically gets on doing his morning duties. Didn't do it this morning. Didn't do it. Huh? It didn't poop this morning. That's odd. I was in a hurry. Truck am Tuesday. I'm so glad we [00:13:00] have that info.
Yeah, thanks. It's my morning poop. Andy, did you say it's tro cam Tuesday? It is Wednesday. So it comes out, it'll be Tuesday. Oh, there you go. Oh look. Yeah. But how do you know it's gonna be tro cam Tuesday? It's always truck cam Tuesday. That was proven wrong. One time. One time. You made that up a long time ago.
One time you just felt like it was the truth for whatever reason. Oh, wager Russell, how often do you get on camo fire? Just curious. Not very often anymore. You're pretty well stocked up on everything. I don't have any room for more stuff getting bad. I'm about to start selling stuff just to buy more stuff.
I bet idea. I get it. I get it. Hunt worth gear. I actually have been wearing my hunt worth gear to go do trail cams. Yep. Because my hunt worth gear is treated with permethrin for Kyle hunting. I need to do that, and I just don't want to get ticks all over me. In fact, me and my son went out and hung a couple cameras.
I think he pulled like 30 some ticks off of him. Who, good grief. We got home [00:14:00] and somehow I got one tick on my leg. Wow. That was it. Wow. I had a bunch of ticks on my hands that as we were sitting there, I was picking 'em off, but they hadn't went up the shirt yet because they didn't want to.
So then I was just, grabbing that. But so I've been wearing my howorth gear a lot lately. Actually, dude, they've came out with some cool stuff, the green pants. Like I was super jealous. Andy shows up these green pants. I'm like, where did you get those? So call me green jeans. Yeah. You know what?
I hope they do someday. You know how the solid colored bottoms solid colored tops, dude, that dude dig and stuff. And I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be in the doghouse for a while. Cause I'm gonna spend some, I'm kind like, I'm digging solid colors. They're grown on me. Yeah. I've been running for years.
Few years. Solid's been hunting those. I can't, I'm, you know me, I'm terrible with the names and stuff, but the, they're lightweight pants. The solid color, light, lightweight pants, Durhams. And then they're honestly just their t-shirt, like their logo T-shirt on kind. That's, yeah. I've been wearing same pants.
And your guys' logo T-shirt. That's damn right. That's cotton though, isn't it? [00:15:00] Respect. Yeah. It's thin. Whatever it is. Good on you. Good on you. We need to get better t-shirts next time. I didn't like those things very much. You need to get some coyote tan that, that'd be cool. But check 'em out. Hunt with gary.com Alps Outdoors.
Russell and I were just talking about single one man tents the other day. And I've got one, I need to get my You don't got, you don't got one snuggle. He doesn't that, that was surprising as shit to me. I got one, the lone Ranger don't have a loan, A single person tent. No kidding. And then he was showing me one that I got one you can use.
I was like, wait a minute. If it's a two man can can I just sleep next to you cuz I'm scared. A little bit of the bears and shit out there. I want my own. You would be. But like I said, I got one. Yeah. I can do your snack size. Yep. Snack size. And the problem is usually with bears. I don't have to be faster than everybody.
I just have to be faster than the slowest person. No, you just need to turn two pistol and everything's fine. I ain't gonna be faster. Shoot the one guy in the knee and then you get out. He's gonna outrun me so I'm in trouble. Yeah. They've got a little bit of everything. As everybody knows they've got an awesome discount code with us.
They're a terrific partner of ours, [00:16:00] a Missouri based company. Make sure you check 'em out cuz they're terrific Zamberlan boots. We talk about them enough man, I'm gonna be using my links out in Wyoming. You guys are gonna be using, I got that links. I don't have the BO system, but I've been wearing those coyote hunting.
Those are super comfortable. Good ankle support. Lightweight. Yeah. Yeah. I got the links BOA and I got the bell to you. One of those. Yeah, like them. Yeah. Yeah. I like them. My links. Literally it took, cuz I remember the first night I wore 'em. We were night hunting. We were thermal hunting and I was like, man, I don't know about this BOA system, blah, blah, blah.
It took about two and a half times hunting and then boom, I felt good. It just that break-in period, I think of what it was. So check 'em out. Zamberlan and usa. And finally, last but not least, habitat works. By the way. Speedy recovered to a buddy Dustin. What happened to him? He tore his Achilles. Oh shit.
That just sounds painful. I don't know if he wants everybody to know that, but. Dustin towards the Achilles, he was getting off of a ladder or something like that. And man, I've, I strained some tendons [00:17:00] recently and I wouldn't wish that type of stuff I, mine was nothing compared to what he did, obviously.
No, that was God. I wouldn't wish that on that was right for him. He hope, I think he's been about four weeks post-op, but hoping not. Cause you gotta have surgery for that, don't you? Yeah. You gotta reattach it. Yeah. Terrible. The guy at work. Terrible. His patellar tendon. I've heard of that tendon in the front of your, like your shin and he was going down steps and fell.
He showed like doctor stop and took a picture on his cell phone in the middle of surgery. It looked like someone took a knife once he opened. He like, cause he like, folded open the skin like a knife right below your kneecap and cut that tendon away. Oh. They took looked like perricone attached the tendon, drilled holes in his kneecap, pulled it up tight and tied it.
If that's how they reattached. This is a story we could have done without. Thank you Annie. It was gross. Sounds gross. It was gross. I would watch that video though. Beyond that I'd be like, that'd bet. Look ass. How long ago did you start that story just now? [00:18:00] 20 seconds. Yeah. Yeah. Seconds. Not very long. I shared this cameras, I just got the shared cameras in that timeframe.
Oh, cool. That's how easy it is to do stuff like that app. Yep. Pretty cool. Not to go back to reveal. All right. Those are the sponsors for the day. Let's get into, took us a little longer just because we're bullshitting. We like to bullshit when we start, about when we start prairie dogging. Let's talk.
Let's start prairie dogging. Cause I got all kinds of questions. Okay. Yeah. So Russell, you went to South Dakota? What was the occasion? I. Like why? Business? Business trip. Business trip. Okay. I like it. Did you guys install a H V A C unit? No, it was legitimate business trip. So it was probably like a dealer or something?
Or something like that, or, yeah, one of our distributors was like, Hey, you wanna go? I'm like, sure. Oh, darn it, okay. All go. Don't go. So this was a couple weeks ago, right? Yeah. It's been like two weeks. So none of us in this room have ever went prairie dog hunting? Nope. Including you, right? Yep. So did you do like a bunch of research up front?
Like before we went? Like [00:19:00] before you went? Or what did you, how did you like prepare for it? Make sure bought ammo. You have something that shoots good. Bought ammo, stocked up? Yeah. Take three different guns. Make sure your ammo for those guns are shooting good. And grab some fun. Were they all hand loads? No.
So they, I bought factory rounds for everything for the 2 23. Six five was hand loads. 3 0 8 was I bought, which we might be getting a little ahead of ourselves, but the 3 0 8, you said that you might have just left it at home now. Yeah. Not a big, it was AR 10. Okay. I don't know. Just really haven't jived with that thing.
So just not shooting Good for you. It doesn't shoot good. It's got, I don't know, recoils not, it's not a good impulse recoil. It's not comfortable to shoot so I don't shoot it that well. Even suppressed it still gives you, I don't shoot it suppressed cuz it was giving me some issues there. Gas and stuff.
Do you consider yourself a bulk guy? I prefer a bolt but I like an AR and stuff. In that [00:20:00] situation you were shooting, pretty rapidly and I didn't know what to expect. Yeah. I wanted a bolt gun for precision. And an A, I just took the AR 10 cuz that's the only thing I had. Bigger caliber.
Caliber was good glass. So two AR platforms and one bolt per form. No two bolts. Which and one ar. So the 2 23 bolt. Three bolt. Oh, okay. You probably didn't know about it, but Russell, I guarantee you that you have a bunch of stuff in your safe that I don't know about. There's a lot of things you have.
I dunno. Yeah. So you ever seen a seven thou, $7,000 sex doll? Whoa. This got weird, but, guys, great show. Talk to you next time. And this one just got un unknown tomorrow. I got it on discount. It was demo. Slightly used. Oh boy. Wipe down with the Clorox pipe. Which one? A rock swipe, which one was shooting the best then?
Before we, my 65 creedmore, it shoots lights out. Is that the one that I've shot before? The bull? The, it's got the night force on it [00:21:00] and Right. Heavy son of a bitch, but I put it in a chassis. Oh, okay. Before we went. So I swapped, changed the chassis on it. The one that was on my 22, 2 50, I put over on it.
Okay. Yeah. I know what one you're talking about. And it, cuz I like that chassis. It shoots good. Fits good. Yeah. Checks all the boxes and it shoots really good. That was, that was a sweet shooting gun cuz I remember when you first built that thing, we had to put rounds down it because you had to build rounds for it.
So we were just tinkering around there in the yard. It's, she half inch groups all day long. Yeah. As long as you don't get hot. But, which just sounds like you had a problem with that. Not that gun. I was pretty cautious of that gun at two. Two, you don't wanna burn your barrel up, at 2 23 I let her eat.
Yeah. What was your 2 23? What is it? It's a Ruger American, is it? Put in a bell and Carlson stock, one of their target stocks. Yeah. Right on. And then running a suppressor on it. Was the six five running suppressed too? Yeah. Okay. Yep. The only one that wasn't suppressed was that Air 10. Air 10.
Yeah. That's loud. [00:22:00] So you went up there and it's, I'm pretty far up there, but you've mentioned before off there and stuff, like I've never been, so you drive out into these fields or, explain. Yeah. What was it, what was the process? You get up in the morning, like you have to hunt 'em early in the day.
Is it all day long? Is it, so we hired an outfitter, so all the lodging was taken care of, food was taken care of. So we just, we had nothing to worry about really. Just you tell us when it's time to go and we're ready. Show up. He was there at five o'clock every morning. Whether we were up or not ready to go, he was.
Chillings had breakfast ready, whatever you wanted to do. That seems really early to go shoot prairie dogs. From, to get the big males from his lodge. The first town was an hour and the next one was an hour and a half, and then the next one was probably 40. So in town? Yeah. Yeah. You mean prairie dog?
Town? Town, these freaking dog town. Yeah. Yeah. Dog towns. Where is it? Hundreds live. Thousands live, or There's thousands. Thousands of 'em in each town. So the first [00:23:00] town, it was seven miles off the gravel road. We drove back in there to get to the town and that town, but it was seven miles on a gravel, seven miles off gravel.
That's dirt road offroading, dirt roads, seven miles, two track, pretty much. Yep. Yeah, you gotta let down cattle, fences, put 'em back up and you go through. And that town was probably, it was a mile wide by probably three quarters a mile deep. Good. Jesus Christ. Just solid prairie dogs. So holy cow.
Endless opportunities. You could either go sit right in front of them or you could sit way back up on the ridge and pick 'em off if you wanted to. And they just pop up randomly? Pop up randomly. Yep. They like it sunny. They like it. Cloud rolls over, they all go back in the hole. Really? Really? I would've thought, that's why I didn't know if you needed to be early in the morning for cooler weather, if they're more active or how that worked.
Earlier morning was probably better. Was it once it got, I don't know, 11 o'clock it got hot. Yeah. I mean it was probably 85 degrees up there. Yeah. Do they care [00:24:00] that you're there? Not necessarily because so this is weird, but you had just told me about the show. And then my son was watching Earth or whatever, national Geographic show.
Planet. Yeah. Planet. Yeah. And it was about Yellowstone, but I guess the bison like to go eat the grass around prairie dog towns because it's, Rich in nutrients cuz probably all the shit and stuff, I'm assuming. And you see these pictures of these bison and the prairie dogs don't give a shit that a big ass bisons, like right next to it eating.
Are they that way with you? A human or they just Bisons never pulled out nine and busting. Yeah. The grass up there, they eat, destroy the grass. Like the grass is only maybe three quarters to inch tall. They mow it down. That's how it was in this video, but apparently it's just really nutrient dense.
Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I didn't get it. But anyway, so did they give a shit? Like they really don't, how close, what was the furthest you guys were and then what was the closest? [00:25:00] We were pushed out to. You could shoot the 900 on that first one. Jesus easily. How do you even, I think that's one really out there.
So we could squatting scope up looking for 'em or what are you doing? You could see 'em through a scope. They stick out like a sore thumb. The big ones are more like of a whiteish yellow. The smaller ones are more of a brown. Huh. And they pup twice a year. So there's little ones on the ground.
They're everywhere. Yeah. So the ones worse than, the ones we were shooting were probably as big as that pop bottle. Okay. 16 liter. The smallest ones, the small ones, and then the big, there were some about the size two, but those are hard to hit the size of a can. A can. The big ones were pretty good size.
Like a two liter or bigger than they were. Probably that tall. Really? Which is probably, I don't know what that is. 14? Yeah. Yeah. Inches tall. 22.
Wow. You always gotta say it's bigger than the school is. Yeah. But we had 'em as close as those, the other guys we were with, they were [00:26:00] shooting unsuppressed a another AR 10 17 HMR Unsuppressed. And we, they were shooting 'em at like 10 yards. They just pop up randomly and walking around. So they really don't care that you're there.
No, I, they're dumb. I figured you'd shoot three or four times, they'd just all be done. They just wouldn't disappear. I think they'd get used to the noise. Really, once you're shooting and was going on. Got a short memory. Yeah. It's once you start getting close to him shooting at, if you miss, obviously it's probably gonna go away, but the ones that are really far out there, you can shoot at 'em four or five times.
They're just like, what's that? And we went to a place, the second place we went, that place had not been hunted all year. And those dogs, literally there would be four or five up on a hill and it was just like plinking 'em off one at a time. The rest of 'em would just stand there and look at you like, ah, where'd he go?
And then you just, what's Steve doing over there? I was gonna ask you the question. At any point in time after you shot one, did another one start going hell, Helen. Helen. Helen. [00:27:00] That's not Prairie dog, but okay. Yeah, he only got two was, what was it? That was like a groundhog. Oh, it looked like a prairie dog.
Me. He only got two out many. I thought it was Prairie dog safe. Yeah. I didn't get enough time once he dialed in. My first one. The second one I was getting it. How many, you said you doubled up a few times, didn't you? Yeah. That's gotta be fun. Yeah. Explained to double up one shot. It's a double tap to kill.
Yeah. Yeah. It's not pretty good. It's not hard to do in a target rich environment. Huh? And just to clarify, like with people that aren't familiar with Prairie Dogs, they're a nuisance like Russell was saying, they're tearing up the ground, tearing up the grass. Kinda like wild hogs do. Down south Texas and stuff.
Yeah. The, they, the people want these things shot and killed. This is not like a, I don't wanna say a, just a, just for the hell of it type deal. Yes, for Russell, he paid to go do it as a sport, but they're a nuisance animal. They want 'em gone. And a lot of it isn't there. Don't the ranchers hate 'em because a cow can step in the hole and break.
Yeah. Cow horses, they're eating all the grass. Yeah, that too. I didn't think about that. Especially if it's like on their ranch, it, they're just [00:28:00] ruining. Not number one, the grass is there and then they're just tearing the freaking ground up too. Yep. So our outfitter, he paid a trespass fee, basically.
So he pays the landowner so much to go take their per day. Yeah. Wow. Landowner's getting paid and he's getting a prairie dogs taken off of there, which is win-win for them. Yeah. Win-win for sure. Which you were saying like, I don't know if this, I have no idea legalities on this, but.
You were saying, especially like some of these ranchers, if it gets really bad, they'll poison them. Oh yeah. They'll poison them. Yeah. Yeah. Just try to wipe out towns if they can. Yeah. Because what did y'all, what did you say that they carry? That was that one? Bubonic plague. Bubonic plague. It carries some sort of diseases.
It sounds bad. I don't know what that means, but, that was a thing like back in the Dayday, like the one where the guys wearing those masks and shit. No, like back in the, oh god, 16 hundreds. Yeah, something like that. Wiped out half of Europe or some shit. Yeah. You remember the ring around the Rosie Pockets full of poy.
That's about the plague. No shit. Did you finish that? Ashes? Ashes wheel all down. Ashes. You all fall down. That was about the plague. That's That is [00:29:00] correct. Yeah. Because they would burn the bodies that was ashes and ring around. The Rosie was like fire, develop a like a red tank or something. I don't know.
Really Fascinating. It was explained to me in school. I vaguely paid attention. So that one day, that was cool that one day. And it was so much like you. It was so much fun. It sounds like you had fun. Oh yeah. But how many days did you do it? Two. Two days. Two days, okay. It got like to one point that you were shooting so many dogs so quickly that you actually had a problem with one of your guns.
Yeah. Tell us about the issues. So I mostly ran that 2 23. Just cuz it was, it's cheaper to shoot. I got along with it really watch out. Yeah. And we were shooting like I, the one area I had 520 yards dialed in. Pull trigger and it's something's dying. That's awesome. So you just draw a line in that dog town.
Anything in this band, you put it right on it and it's dying because you were using your windage adjustments and [00:30:00] getting it with your windage and then you get your wind down and then you can just walk it out. Yeah. Yeah. Like I say, it's not critical. If you miss on the first one, there's one standing right next to it.
It's like you're shooting C target. Just keep popping back up. Yeah. As long as it's sunny, they're out. Huh. Wow. And being suppressed helps quite a bit. I bet. So how many guys were with you? Four shooters. Four shooters? That's a lot of guns going off. Were you the only one suppressed? I bet. Yep. Pissed about that. So you were the only sophisticated one in the bunch, right? Yeah. Little Mr. High Clash over here. In fact, what's funny is Russell, when he would shoot after his shot, his pinky would point up. He reached up to rack the bolt like this. Yeah. Good day, sir. Yeah. So we got off of the question that was asked, what happened with your rifle?
Yeah. So I was trying to shoot 10 rounds, set it to the side and let it cool. And I also had a barrel cooler, so we would throw that in there. But after a while, it's the bolt gun. It's a bolt gun. So after a while explain a barrel [00:31:00] cooler. I've never heard of one of those. So it's a little, how does it work?
It's just a little fan that you open your bolt, stick it in, close your bolt till it stops, and then it's drawn in fresh air and pushing it out the barrel. Okay. It helps quite a bit. So it's cooling from the inside out. Yeah, it's pushing it down like an air conditioner. Any bur suck, you're sucking that fresh air and grabbing outside air and throwing it down the barrel.
It worked right on pretty damn good. Really? It's just obnoxiously loud. It's got like a high pitched wine to it cuz that little motor's spinning ungodly fast in there. So I quit using it, so once we got into some, a lot of dogs just send 10 down and I would switch guns, send 10 down switch guns, and then I would get on that bolt gun, that 2 23 send 10 load a mag up, they're out there again.
Send 10 boom, start shooting. And then. It got to a point where I was missing low. I'm like, what the hell is going on here? Give it another half mil pull sugar, boom, low, another half mil, [00:32:00] boom, low. The barrel was so hot that it was drooping every shot. It was going down. It was physically drooping.
Physically drooping down. Yeah. So you couldn't keep it on target when it cooled, did it come back? Okay. So could you actually see the droop in the barrel? I didn't look that hard, but we're talking minute. Every shot was like six inches at 500, six inches less, I would say. You're talking such a minute.
I was chasing, yeah. Okay. Yeah, at a hundred yards. You're probably talking what? Like not even an inch? It'd be an inch, wouldn't it? Six inch? Yeah. Six. 600. Yeah. Basic math at least. Yeah, roughly. Yeah. Whatever. But yeah. So you were putting some rounds down. She was hot. How many rounds do you think you went through?
Everything. Everything. I think probably close to 500. What was your. Kill. What is it? What was it? Kill count. Kill rate? Yeah, your kill rate. What percentage were you using? I know you killed somewhere around three, right? I killed somewhere around 300 and if you shot 500 rounds, you had a [00:33:00] 60% some percent kill rate hitting a pop.
A pop can at times, pop can at 500 yards. With that six five, I wasn't shooting anything less than 600 and my farthest shot was you picked up that six five and said Where's the farthest one at? Yeah, the farthest shot was anywhere between eight. It was 8 25 and eight 50. Cuz my range finder wasn't picking up the hills.
Oh, that's it had a hard time. That's crazy reflecting that. That's because you don't have an alon range finder. See that? That's what I did there guys. Going wild. That's what's crazy is you remember that Coyo tournament where we tried poking at them coyotes? This last second at, what was it? 900. Oh, that's so far away.
Yeah. 900. That's how far those, and he's shooting Prairie Dog. Prairie Dog is sitting. He's just like Dink. Yeah. Okay. Chris, when you have the setup and it was fun. Fun. I think if we would've had another shot at him, I think we would've got him. So did you It true. Did you shoot, we were close.
Pick up some binoculars and wait for it to hit or no, it gets there pretty quick. I'm teasing, but your flight time's probably like a second, I would say. I don't know what it is, but it's gotta be cool to go pull [00:34:00] the trigger and then just watch it explode. You know it because the six five, what grand bullet were you running through that one?
36. Dear Lord. Which, but it honestly, it was too light. I probably should have been in the one 40 class. I just took it out distance because I could've pushed it out farther than 800 or eight, 900. It was just getting, I think that bullet was destabilizing, not that far. I would just like to see what that bullet did to the tiny ass prairie dog when it.
Impacted. You wanna see what it did to both pieces or what Most generally, you never did find a prairie dog. Were you using like ballistic tips like a Horner Day Vmax style or? No, mine was straight Target bullets for that six five. So full metal jacket type stuff? Yeah, it was a open tip.
Okay. Like a Hot M Hollow point type, but a. Something that would disintegrate a little bit, right? Yeah, cuz really, I mean there's not enough mass there that you want it to frag anyway. No. You're basically just looking for impact. Yeah. Yeah. You don't care what happens to 'em that far. It's like smacking with a baseball that the [00:35:00] fattest one's probably six inches in diameter. So yeah, you're just looking for an impact. You put a hole, it's gonna die, she said. And then the ones that are dead, if they don't, if they're not off the hill, the other ones will drag it in. Or if that one's injured enough, it will actually drag itself back in the hole.
Now if they drag, are they dragging em in the holes because they eat them or they dragging them in the holes? I don't think so. I think it's just to get 'em off the hill. I don't know. They're in the way type. See, that's what's so weird. Predators. Exactly. They. Are aware enough that an injured one needs to come in, or when they get injured, they're aware enough to go in.
But they're too dumb to figure out someone. We're getting shot at maybe leg. It's raining. That thing right there is a problem, but the, I'm pretty sure we had one that was popping up at five 20 and that bastard would go underneath the corner of a pond and come up at 4 75. No way.
The same fucking thing. Yeah. I guarantee you it was, cause we nicknamed me, I think, can't remember what his name was, but yeah, it was the same dog. Like you could shoot him at the back of the [00:36:00] pond. He would go down and five minutes later, boom. There's one in front. Shoot that one. So there's, so he's, we kept under the damn pond.
Yeah. We kept missing it. He was going, I think under the pond or around the pond to come to the other one and check it out. Just back and forth, back. It's like that game back and forth. He'd pop up wherever he felt like. Okay. And he got away from us. Never did catch, lived to fight another day.
But yeah. Shot him with pistols. The farthe, the farthest one I shot was, I think it was 106 with the 22 pistol. Oh, that's doing something right there. Just the red dot on it. Nice. How far above? I shot multiples that. How far above it did you have to aim? I think it was only like six inches. Oh, shit. So basically him.
That's impressive. Pretty cool. Wasn't terribly hard. I feel a lot less Your furthest kill after my plus yards. You just run a really close story. Your closest kill was closest five feet? No. I missed one at probably 10 feet. It was so close, I freaking missed it. The closest one [00:37:00] legitimately was probably 50 yards.
Damn. That's, but we did there is, there's prairie dogs and then there's actually, I can't remember what it was like a ground squirrel. I had a ground squirrel at the end of my muzzle when we were shooting. By fire. You can pull the trigger and that damn thing was right there. I bet his ears were ringing.
Even with the suppressor being that close, that was his problem. He had a concussion. That's why I don't know where I'm at. Wandering around. You're concussed. They're just like curious what you're doing. I don't know. It's hilarious. It's like something them chipmunks up in like Colorado.
They get so curious in They're, yeah, I got chipmunk at my house. That's cool. Yeah. Those things are assholes though. Yeah. You don't see 'em that often around here though. No, I'm talking about, yeah, sorry. Not, yeah, ones in Colorado. Squirrels a freaking scream at you in Colorado too. Yeah, they're dead. Throw acorns at you or pine cones.
What is it? Pine cones? Yeah. I can get slingshot this year. That's a, that's legal. Get you a small games tag. We have one. We have one. Yeah. I would check on the legalities, but I wouldn't be against you doing that, we were talking about this off the [00:38:00] air, cause I've always heard that the rattlesnakes, the prairie Rattlers will den in the prairie dog towns.
You said will they eat the prairie dogs? No. They're not big enough to eat prairie dogs as far as I know. Cause the big, the biggest one I saw when we were in South Dakota, PHE hunting was like three foot long and maybe the size of the golf ball. But they will, they'll winter in those cuz they can get deep enough that they stay warm.
That's probably about right. Curled up. It was probably, I don't know what it was, probably eight inches around when it was balled up the size of a dinner plate. And then the smaller dinner plate. Now go back and forth with those to line 'em up. Are you sure which dinner plate was which there? Oh boy.
Yeah. Yeah, there was, we seen one rattlesnake Really? Which kind of freaked me out because we. One place we were all in rocks. Like it was just like a rocks perfect spot for him to be. Yeah. So you're walking around and trying to like, not lay on a freaking rattlesnake, but we seen one.
Were you guys going prone then? Is that how you guys were doing? I shot prone a lot. Did you? Some guys shot off of table, went off of a [00:39:00] tripod. Really? But off, off of a bipod I was money, so Yeah. Yeah. Anything 300 was pretty freaking sweet. Yeah. Like just as fast as you wanna pull triggers. Yeah. You got something.
No problem. Sounds like a lot of fun. I just, I still throw in by the whole rat rattlesnake thing. Like I was wanting to go until I heard that and not out. Yeah. So they go into these they cities, they will burrow in, like they, where they won't burrow. It makes you wonder do they, the prairie dogs and them just chill together?
Yeah, they do. They don't, they just don't care. Don't bite 'em. No. They don't mess with each other. That's so weird. Yeah. That this is what the pheasant hunting guide was telling us. Telling when we were there years ago. We have no idea how true is. Yeah. I don't, the only, I'm basing that off of what he thought.
I think that prairie dog would've to be a baby for something to eat it. As far as Rattlesnake goes. Yeah. Cause I don't think anything can get in the den of a, I don't think if Fox is small enough to get into a hole. Cause hell, the holes are like that big rattle. Oh, like a softball size, I would think.
Yeah. Maybe a little bit bigger. I don't know if, I don't know if a prairie dog is [00:40:00] a carnivore. I know. I think they're more of a herbivore. Yeah. Yeah. I dunno, beats me, I don't know. I'm, I'll be honest with you folks, we might do a thousand shows on this podcast and this will probably be the only time we talk about prairie dogs.
We don't know shit about shit. We don't know anything about prairie dogs. Russell probably knows the most out of us and that's probably not a whole lot more, a whole lot other than I've shot some of the dudes and they were cool. Killed 300 of them, helped out some ranchers and it didn't literally, it did not put a dent.
That's what's crazy. Did not put a dent on. That's awesome. How many do you think as a group you guys killed? Probably 700 and didn't even put a dent. How many shooters? Four. And Russell accounted for almost half. Yeah, I got into a spot where it was You get a little Western, did it? It was money. Yeah, because you were saying you went to like, how many different towns?
Like four. Three or four. Three. Three different towns. And so how far away from you from the next shooter? I, as far as you wanted to be? I was spotting for him, [00:41:00] the buddy. I went with Uhhuh and then he was spotting for me, so we were. Three feet from each other, just take turns. The other guys were like on the opposite side of a pickup, shooting their loud ass guns.
But God, they're so rude. Peasants. I know peasants. How dare you shoot a rifle around me, unsuppressed, you really gonna shoot that thing? They were like if they were shooting at a prairie dog, it was 10 rounds, they weren't gonna let it go. Full sand. Yeah, they were hammered down. They weren't as good as a shot as you.
No. Cause we were shooting and you like, okay you're, two tenths high or whatever. You need to adjust your wind, two tenths or whatever. Them guys would just mow down Kentucky wind. Just shoot the shit laughed. You're laughed. That guy said, I ain't shot this ar 10 in 10 years. I go, what? And he goes, yeah, watch this.
And he goes out to stretches it out to 800. Is did he hit? He killed one at Yeah, 800. [00:42:00] Really? He took him 50 shots but he got one's one expensive prairie dog. That's me right there. That's what's crazy. The trip. Think about the ammo that you shot. That's probably the most expensive part of your damn trip.
Yeah, it is. Even though some of 'em were hand loads, but you still had to pay for that. Oh really? Hand loads are just as expensive by the time you figure it all out. And your time. And your time. Yeah. Yeah. Russell's gotten pretty damn good at it. But still takes time to do all that. Yeah. Time is what Is your time worth.
Yeah. If it's worth anything, it is not worth your time. That's why I buy factory loads. Yeah. Factory load buying dollar to dollar and a half is, it hurts, but. I didn't have that much time into it yeah. Yeah. That's badass. So all these towns were pretty good size. And they were miles apart from each other?
Oh yeah. That one was an hour and the next one was an hour and a half. So half hour in between those two. The biggest town was probably the one on the rancher with [00:43:00] all the rocks. That town was probably two miles wide by a mile deep. Good lord. So you could literally just, it's like far as you, could, you drive me through a city just sit there all day. Holy hell. And there's crazy there's somewhere you like, I can't shoot in this, 200 acre section cuz there's a house back there. Yeah. That's another question I had. So with all your group there, did you guys all have your, like your own zones?
No it's free for all. Okay. Just don't shoot in this general direction because there's a house over the hill or I gotcha. Or cuz we pushed cows, that guy. Our outfitter was well enough with the owner where he could push his cows. He pushed his cows up and over the ridge, so it wasn't an issue.
Gotcha. That's good. Or then it really would get expensive. Shoot, that black one just bought a beef. Yeah. Yeah. Shoot that big black one. That sounded like a cow. That guy could hit that one. I bet. So would you go back? Oh yeah, [00:44:00] we were planning on going back. Are you like every year type of deal? As long as it allows.
That's cool. What would you do different if you were going back different? I already know one thing. Do the 3 0 8 at home. 3 0 8 staying at home. I know two things. 22, 2 50 is going. No. Cause I would burn a barrel out. Yeah. Honestly, it's about barrels. It's about barrels. I wanna run a heavier barrel.
Yeah. Yeah. They can. They can take more heat from my understanding. Take more heat, more accurate. I don't know that it was more accurate. Really. They can just take more heat. Yeah. Now granted it would take longer to cool down but it also take longer to get hot too, sir. Yeah, I would shoot a different caliber.
What would you shoot? What would you take next time? I would have a 22 Acli. 2223. Oh, Calder just went, huh? Calder's ears just started. Fluttering act hurt. Actually improved. It's just a tiny bit more than just a 2 23 room. Just a little bit more speed out of it. So you would take one of those?
You would you go back with a 2 23 with a hair view barrel? [00:45:00] Yeah, I wouldn't hesitate on a 2 23 at all. Anywhere from zero to 500 and you could probably push five 50 pretty easy. How was the wind? So of a morning, it was fairly calm. Like you could shoot if you wanted to shoot long range, do it first thing in the morning is what we did.
And then once it started probably about 10 o'clock, that wind was probably 15 to 20. And then around noon to three, it was probably around 25. Oh, so it's getting, it's getting it pretty consistent though. Yeah. There's not a tree for, yeah. There wasn't a tree. I don't know how long. How hard was it to find your windage?
Not that hard. As long as your scope had measurements in it. You're good to go. Just pull the trigger. Anything about that you can spot your shots pretty easy out there. Really. And then you're the guy with me, he was spotted you like, oh, you need to move. Yeah. Three whatever over.
You could probably take your cross hairs over to your impact point. Pretty easy. Because it's You hit and it's dust. Yeah. Oh yeah. I didn't think about [00:46:00] that. Cause around here you don't get that usually. Yeah. You might see a clump of mud. Yeah. Yeah. You dirt and you got a puff of dust.
Okay. So it's cool. It's pretty easy to adjust for your wind and get that dialed in and then stay on that. And is that how you did everything? Did you dial for adjustment on everything? Instead of holding? You could hold. Yeah. If you was set in a range, let's say like 500 yard range, shoot it to feet for the closer ones, shoot it to head for the farther ones.
Yeah. Anything other than that, then I would dial up. Yeah. Yeah. So would you take three guns again? Honestly, I was happy with two. So you'd take a 22 ley and a 2 23 maybe next time? Yeah. Probably six five cre more too. So just to push three guns. The limits. Yeah. Yeah. Just to send hate a little bit further down range, buddy.
Justin, he was shooting 3 0 8, so was he. And he had been up there. Two hours away. The weekend before shooting a, an actual class. So he shot a class up there. Two weeks before that. So he was pretty dialed on. Nice. All right. We know what Russell's taking just [00:47:00] hypothetically 300 oneg 2, 2, 2 calibers.
What are you taking me? Yeah. I probably take the 2 23. Most likely that Christensen bolt. I don't know. Yeah, that'd be perfect. That'd be perfect. One for that. We're talking about one we already own or just any gun we want. I'm going. Okay. What I own. Just because what I own. And then what else do I own?
Go with what you own. I think my six arc would do good out there. It'd do perfect. Six ark, Yeah. For it. Realistic distances. Yeah, sure. You could shoot a six arks as far as you want to. They're shooting it at a thousand yards. So I'll try, I guess I would try that one. The only thing you gotta keep, I'd like to try the track 300 windbags to see what it would do.
You just gotta keep track of your dope. Yeah. The one thing we failed on was think gonna lose my dope. Yeah. Taking a an actual like notebook and writing it down. Yeah. Because then I would forget, oh shit. It was, 5 25 or something. Yeah. I should have wrote it down so I didn't have to guess every time.
Yeah, because you would waste ammo cuz you're like, oh shit, I can't remember what. And the six Ark ammo is expensive. Yeah.[00:48:00] That's for sure. So taking the dope sheet, right? Yeah. Because the dope we had here was not the same up there we were. Makes sense. It was off. Cause the elevation would it be both like up and, or would it be winded and elevation or would it just be one?
It was mostly elevation. Really. What, trying to think, what elevation were you at up there? Do you know? Oh shit. Probably around that 6,000 feet mark. I would you think? No, it was like 2000. Not a whole lot higher than here. He's gonna pull, know what our elevation is here. Aren't we like a thousand feet, 900 feet, somewhere in there?
Sure. Super high. Super high. I don't know if I dropped a pin. I did. I would use my 2 23. Okay. I'd probably take my Grindle six five Grindle just because. And probably six five CRE more. There you go. Probably what I would do. You only got two didn. You hear the question then probably the 2 23 and the CRE more.
What would you do?[00:49:00]
And based off what Russell said, I mean I have, I wanna say definitely my 2 23. So I like that left-handed one I've been done with it. And then probably that SEKO 2 43. I would say that would do pretty good. I would like to, two six mill would do really good out there. Yeah, I don't know. It's not pulling up.
I'd like to have a a 2 43. I just, cuz the versatility, I think you could take it out there pretty easily and yeah. If you were gonna build a gun, probably six Creed. I was gonna ask you if you, what you thought is six? No, he's given Austin's answers already. Austin just got, I'd take my six creed just because it's like an extension of my body at this point, but gosh, it's specifically designed shower for your one oh eights or Yeah, whatever bullet weight is up there for your six mil.
Not that the 2 43 can't do it, but it's Right. Twist rate and everything's, yeah. It's designed for that. Made for, yeah, because really if you're, until you get into 15, 20 mile an hour, you don't really have much wind adjustment until at least I've noticed at home shooting. But, Yeah, [00:50:00] when it starts really blowing, then you gotta start holding for wind.
And that's why I said that 2 43 and that six cret are pretty hand in hand out to 500. But after that 500, that's when the six creed will start excelling. Yeah. And the nice thing about out there, it seems like when you have your prevailing wind, it is what the wind is. Like here at home a lot we swirl, yeah. Especially like when we're coyo hunting, you're just kinda all over the place, sometimes out there. Out there the only thing to manipulate the wind is the ground, right? There's no trees. No trees or fence rows or any of that stuff. It's just great big Brolin hills. So how long do you be consistent wind? How long would y'all be out there in a day? We probably got to our hunt spots. It was probably, I don't know, seven 30 maybe or eight depending on what time we got up. But and then we would hunt till probably two, three. And then go back and bullshit and just hang out at the lodge.
Went to the gun stores up there and checked everything out. Yeah. Yep. Where'd you, where would you take a shit in the morning? There's nowhere, there's no tree to go stand behind, [00:51:00] there's nothing. I'm just curious. You're gonna be squatting in stop squat in the middle. Find you a dog hole filler up bit on the ass by a snake.
That's great. That sounds like a fun time, man. Yeah it's interesting. The only thing I wouldn't take is probably something that's meant for super long range. Like even shooting a six five and 3 0 8, you can up there, there's not a lot going on, but you can hear that bullet zing, even 20 twos.
Oh, you'll hear a damn bullet zing for a freaking mile. It's, yeah. Then you have to worry about where's it gonna end up after it ricochets off that rock and stuff like that. So the smaller caliber calibers shine pretty well in that aspect. It's not safer. Yeah. As long as they're shooting like Avar bullet where they blow up and you're not Yeah.
Sending it three miles to the neighbor. Yeah. You're not sending a full metal jacket or a pointed soft point or something like that. No. No, I wouldn't, I'd pick something that pretty well blows up on impact or falls [00:52:00] apart. I never thought we'd be talking about prairie dog hunting as long as we have. It seems very interesting.
It seems a really good way to hone your shooting skills too, right? Like we always talk about shooting for coyotes and think about how small of a target a coyote is. And cut that in what eighths? Yeah. How much smaller it, a prairie jo might be the size of a coyote chest, like the front of their chest.
And that's their entire body. I'm guessing though, at least with that, like you hit anything, it's probably gonna kill it for the most part. Or do you still I pretty much have to hit chest or head for them to, no, I mean you can hit body. I mean you hit body. No flapping air three feet. Why did you take videos?
Some of this instant gratification on your targets? There is no time for videos like shooting milk jugs. Was there any running shots? No, they were walking shots. They would literally they're not just all like up in the air on their hills, right? Like some of 'em would literally out just walking around eating grass.
They're like, you guys are. Dipshits [00:53:00] and that's mostly where I would get doubles at, was in the grass cuz they would be walking around and then they would cross and then wait for it and then pull trigger. Most hills you can't get that because they're all they're lined up in a perfect road looking at you.
So you can't really get doubles off the hills. It's tweed. It's almost like you need to have one guy sit that way. So they all line up and then the other guy flanks 'em. That would be pretty cool. That'd be sweet. Domino's. Yeah. That's not, it's just like a, it's different type of hunting than any of us have really ever done because you're, that's why I think it'd be fun.
It's just different. Yeah. You're doing it straight for, control and that, I guess that's, you call it vomit control. And in my mind it's not really hunting. Hunting. I felt like I was eradicating. Yeah. But at the end of the day you're like, god damn it, I haven't killed it. Any of 'em.
Cuz there's. Still, there's more popping up. Everything I did was for nothing. Yeah. Where's the napalm? They gotta keep hammering 'em just constantly. And you said they produce twice a year. Shit. I wonder how many do they call 'em pups? I'm [00:54:00] assuming they called it when they ped.
Okay. They p twice a year. So I wonder how many they produce, like each time I know if they're like coyotes, if there's enough resources that have bigger litters or how does it work based on what the hills were? I would say three to four. Really? Huh. Unless there's multiple families in the hill, I don't know.
But in a hill you're talking about a mound of dirt. Where the hole is. You're not talking about a hill, right? No. Just a mound. Yeah. Do they make for life. I doubt it. I was curious. I bet not. I bet they're Russell around. I bet I be. They. A lot of sister wive going on. They popped their head in a lot of holes.
Nice. Done way. Might've been the best entendre I've ever heard on this show, but no, that's pretty cool. And like you said, it's just, it's not really hunting. I guess what, when we consider the way we hunt, even like when we're ki hunting, right? Obviously deer, elk hunting. I would consider it to like night hunting for me.
Like when I'm hunting my own properties I'm there to do a job, right? Versus going to somebody else's. It's, you're [00:55:00] there for time having fun. But even like night hunting, like when we thermal hunting coyotes, you have to strategically plan how you go in, how you're standing because they're still like an adversary to you.
They're gonna avoid you. Like they are trying not to die. They're trying to figure out what's going on where it seems like a prairie dog. Just that dumb shit just stands there until you kill it. You can literally drive your truck in the middle of the field and. Shoot wherever you want to.
Then they'll pop up. That's why I almost, like you were saying, it almost doesn't feel like hunting. It's just more like eradicating because target practice. Yeah. It's just kinda like target practice, but necessary. And I'm sure there's a lot of people that do it. And then obviously if farmers really start having problems then they take other actions.
But Yeah. Cuz I don't, you get, not many farmers would want a truck full of dudes running up there and just pounding, throwing, bullet, pounding the piss out of their land with bullets. That's why some of those don't get hunted very much, I would assume. I would.
And they're off the beaten path. You're not driving where we went. Just to show up. They're off the beaten path. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty cool. So that's where an outfitter pays, [00:56:00] right? Because you're probably your public land. Prairie dogs that you could hunt are hunted every day.
And that's like the, when we went up and went pheasant hunting, I brought a rifle to go and we didn't even see any it was just a waste of time. We just were having fun. We were target shooting stuff like that. And I asked him, he goes, oh, these get hunted all the time. He goes, they, the minute they hear one round, they're done.
But it wasn't anything to the scale of what you're talking about. It was like 150 yards by 200 yards. So giant cities. It was huge. And you had to be 250, 300 yards away to even start because they saw a truck. They were done. So there is such thing as a pressured prairie dog.
Didn't Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. Just not where we were. Just not where we were. They get educated. But apparently it takes a lot, takes a generations, I'm sure he's a, the guide, I'm sure he's probably acquired quite a few places, so where he can just bounce bounce. Yeah. That's, yeah.
And that God's primary. Business is pheasant hunters. Really? So he doesn't advertise as [00:57:00] prairie dog hunters. He just has prairie dog access. Gotcha. He's pheasant hunting probably runs into all these stuff that's, yeah. He just being there his whole life, he knows everybody. Yeah. And up there, your neighbors.
It's not like your why don't we have prairie dogs here? I don't know, but I hope we don't. No agree. Sounds like they're pretty destructive. We'd get rid of them. I don't think, you know what I mean, tolerate 'em. We have, wonder if it's, cuz like the amount of tillage and stuff we have maybe, but it up there, anything that's tilled, no.
Prairie dogs. That's what I was thinking. So maybe cause even some of the fields we were hunting, those prairie dogs would go out into the tilled ground to eat beans that were up. But as far as tilled, no. And that one farmer, he actually took a plow and plowed the living shit outta the ground.
No prairie dogs there. I think just to keep them from, don't think from runs Roach, that deep. Probably, I don't know how deep they are. I wouldn't go sticking my hand down in one one of them. Snakes will get you. Yeah. Speaking of dogs, see that transition I made? We're gonna get into Austin.
Shit, but we [00:58:00] talked about prairie dogs for a talk about prairie dogs. So we're gonna, we're gonna actually stop here and then we will carry on with Austin on the next show. If not, I'm sure it'll be about a two hour podcast we can film on right for you people. We're recording right after, but we're gonna do Austin's summer dog stuff on a different show so that we can really get two of these Yeah.
Qualities instead of trying to rush through one of them. Cause if you've ever talked with Austin, he's a fucking talker. I can talk forever about race cars and coyotes. That's the most hillbilly thing I've ever heard. What else? Going fast and left. We went fast and we went left and we shot dogs.
We pulled that trigger combined. We went who? Dog ran Anyway. Bam. Bang. Anything else, Russ? Not unless you guys got questions. Sounds like it's fun as time. It's fun. Everybody should go do it. Outfitters can be pretty pricey. Yeah. That was one thing. Do you feel comfortable saying like how much that outfitter costs?
He charged us [00:59:00] 400, which is about for two days? Or was it 400 a day? It's 400 a day. 400. So basically everything is included. So was that one person or was that one person? So 400 each person. So it would be 800 for each person for that weekend. Okay. But there's people out in Candace that are 800 a day.
Really? If you're just doing it one day, that's not bad. It's quite a bit of money though. If you're, it seems to me like question you're gonna spend 800 bucks tip 'em and stuff. I always heard not tip people. I know when we went to South Dakota Pheasant Hunting, we tipped our guide when we're done.
Yeah. I always feel weird you just charged me $400 a day, I gotta give you another update. I don't know how that works. Let me put that in perspective. The business that he operates in, the business that he sends up there is probably close to a hundred grand. Jesus, Chris. He's gotta pay, he's gotta pay his trespassing fees and all that stuff too.
I get it. Plus his time. He's just sitting there. Yeah. That makes sense. So by the time you figure fuel in to get up there and back and all that, and you're probably looking at 12, 1400 bucks. Yeah. 1500 tops. That's not,[01:00:00] for sounds like you had blast a weekend deal and to have that much fun.
That's not terrible. Yeah. Yeah. I'd try anything once, you know what I'm saying? Uhhuh. I bet you would. But yeah, that sounds like a fun time. Hell yeah. It's a blast. It's cool. Cool. Congratulations on the first and probably only Prairie Dog Show. Tell we all go as a group and then my boat.
Hey guys. Buying a Prairie Dog boat. Prairie Dog Truck. Got thermals for Prairie Dogs. Okay. Can you do 'em at night? I don't, I doubt it. Maybe they do, or I don't know. That would be fun night. But that would be cool. You could. I wouldn't think if they come out in the sunlight and not under a cloud, I bet they're not out dark.
So what I did know from going up there pheasant hunting, is they said when it starts getting dark, it's over. Makes sense. Maybe they're just done when it gets dark. Yeah, that's probably true. Cuz they don't like being out in dark, I'm guessing. Yeah. But doesn't that sound like us? That was, we try something, we're like, let's do it.
Don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Don't know how to do it a little bit. Go bow fish a few times. Let's buy a boat. Some lights. Honestly, we bought a boat. We bought lights. [01:01:00] Oh, I haven't bought the lights yet. I haven't wrote the check. Get on it. Check rider. I don't know how much to write it for.
I told you how much. No. And then you're like, you said something like a couple hundred for the bow. You gotta tell me exactly. I already know. Okay. It's only a payment. Yeah. All right. So listen's. This one, one. I need to order my bow. You can afford anything for 30 days. Damn. Until the invoice comes.
Yeah. All right. Let's get off here. Congratulations, Russell, on being the best prairie dog owner out of all of us. So's it's done a great achievement. All right we'll talk to you later, man. Alrightyy Austin. See you. See ya.
