2017 Trip #3, Nevada “RAT SHOOT”

2017 Trip #3

“RAT SHOOT” May 1 – May 4 Tom Fisher, brother Jim, their friend Dave, and Myself

Back form Battle Mountain, NV late Friday night from a 3 1/2 day “Rat Shoot”.  We did good except for the long drive from Denver, 14 hours.  We stopped on the way at The Great Salt Lake rest area (one of them).  A vast lake of salt water that around 118,000 tons of salt is removed yearly.

We had a hard time the first day getting going because I’ve never been on the ranch.  Another friend from AZ, Joe Bishop and his son, showed up for a visit and gave us a lay-out of the places to shoot. That worked well and we got going for a few hours before it got dark.

We all shot 22 LR and 17 HMR rifles for the complete trip.  Shooting from benches and the trucks we were kept busy with the vast amount of ground squirrels on the alfalfa and hay fields.  We shot on (7) 600 + acre fields driving around the outside edge.  We shot into the field from the 20  too 30 yard berm before the desert.

One ground squirrel eats around 50 lbs of alfalfa in it’s life time.  We saved the rancher somewhere around 270, 000 lbs of alfalfa and hay.  

We didn’t make a real dent in the numbers of ground squirrels.  They go into hibernation soon after the first cutting around the first of July.  The alfalfa and hay was a little tall.  We could see the squirrels when they stood up.  

They only stay still a few seconds.  You pull the trigger and all you hit sometime is AIR.  A full grown ground squirrel is only about 6 – 8 inches tall, a small target.

We shot 5,470 for all of us, me 2,340