2018 Trip #5, Central Colorado

2018 Trip #5

Central Colorado, May 31st, Ash and Myself

Another one day trip.  This time between getting cataract surgery on my eyes.  Left is finished and will get the right in a few days.

We found a few prairie dogs in Central Colorado, not many.  The plague has came through this area in the last few years doing much damage to the population of the prairie dogs.  The ranchers love it, more grass for their cattle.

We was hoping for good weather, didn’t happen again.  When we got to the field around 9:30 the wind wasn’t bad at all (10 mph or so) sunny and bright.  As with many times in the West, that didn’t last long.  At noon the wind was over 20 mph and around 1:30 gusty to over 30 mph.  We stuck it out until 4:00 and gave it up.

2018 Trip #5 I used my 22 KHornet and my Rem 700 223 AI

I was hoping for some pups to be out so I took my 22 KHornet for short range shooting and my Rem 700 223 AI for the long range shots.  The 22 KHornet worked for awhile before the wind got the best of me.  Holding 3 too 4 dots into the wind with my mil-dot scope at 175 yards got to be a chore.  I was shooting 35 gr VMax and Nosler 40 gr Hollow Points with mixed luck.  I did manage to get one triple at about 60 yards; hunting accident.

Using my 223 AI for the longer shots (in this case anything past about 175 yards) became a must.  I was using the 50 gr VMax at around 3,300 fps so I did much better; not as many hunting accidents.  Using the AI I did get a couple more triples and two doubles.  The two triples and one double came off of one hole.  There was 10 pups and a mother on the hole, I got 8 of them, I felt pretty good about that.

With the conduction we had we managed to shoot 203 between the two of us, me 97.  We had to do a lot of driving because the prairie dogs were staying close to their hole not venturing out in the wind.