Then it was off to the prairie dog town on another of the ranches that Vic manages. We started out on a smooth farm to market highway, then onto a smooth dirt road, then onto what Texas calls a county road (dirt and not so smooth), and then onto one lane dirt roads and then onto ranch roads and two-tracks that passed through a number of barbed wire gap gates.
We passed a large dog town, but kept going to a ranch that was about equidistant (15 miles)from Colorado and Oklahoma! This is really High-Lonesome country; we had passed only 4 dwellings during the 40 mile drive from Clayton.
We stopped at the edge of what must be one of the largest dog towns anywhere and Vic told us there were no houses or stock within rifle range, so we could work the town in any direction. The dogs had not been hunted in over a year, so they were big and unafraid; a dog shooters heaven! By now, it was 11:00 AM, so Vic and Preston left to go check cows and mend fence while we shot. We were to meet them back a few miles at three PM to move to another dog town for another hour before driving back to ranch HQ. We put out a chair and shooting rests on the car hood and commenced to blast away.
Shown are Jeff and Jim picking their shots, some of which were as close as 50 yards and none over 200. Jim shoots a Ruger #1 in .220 Swift with a 4 - 20 power target scope; a very accurate lever gun! Jeff is a bolt action man with a .22-250 M700 and a 6mm Remington custom that he made himself - very long range varmint and antelope rifle.
Here is picture of my "old ugly" Savage turkey gun with .22 hornet over 12 ga that I used. It is leaning on one of the many cholla that dotted the prairie.Note the lever and exposed hammer, so is it a kind of lever gun?
My first dog was shot from the hood rest and was my most spectacular. Jeff used his new Nikon rangefinder to tell me it was 168 yards away and the striking bullet made a satisfying "whump" sound and sent the dog into a two loop cartwheel; love those Hornady VMAX loads at 3100 fps - a hot Hornet, indeed!
crs with a small dog used for a photo op. I shot it from a sitting position, at 50 yards, not from a rest. Nice trick in the ever present breezes.
After a while, we began to see critters staying cool in the shade of the cholla; first a scaled quail, then a cotton tail rabbit, then a jack rabbit. There may have been many others, but you had to look closely to pick them out. This spotting work and the shooting really sharpens the hunting skills needed in this terrain.
After four hours of this hard work we met up with Vic and shot another hour. Watching Vic shoot dogs with his Ruger .223 was a treat; he stays in practice and rarely misses. Even Preston was whacking them. Then it was time to hit the road again. It took an hour to cover another 40 miles of different dirt roads to get back to HQ, but it was not a waste because of the small herds of mule deer and one nice buck we saw. That night, after drinks, we had crs-made antelope chili as an appetizer and some more grilled steaks. A great end to a short but eventful hunt.
