Still Killin Rats

I thought it might be the end of the good shooting for this year, but I decided to head out to the ranch for a look. Besides, I knew there would be no crowds since only myself and one other guy are okeyed to shoot rats there. Well, the other guy was there with his old friend, so it was kind of crowded. The three of us had to share 1200 acres of pivots. We are allowed to take only one other shooter with us at a time. I elected, that day ( 5-30 ) to go by myself. Alfalfa was getting a little tall. My attached picture shows the height compared to a Pepsi bottle. The other guys were shooting off their 4 wheelers so I moved off to another pivot ( they got there first and had the pivot, loaded with rats ) to the East. I had my Hitch-Haul plugged into the receiver on the Excursion and had strapped my Ratrouster to it. I backed up to the field ( of course, driving on the Alfalfa now is to damaging ) and had a 180 degree plus field of swing plus some added elevation to see the rats easier. The weather was OK. Temp around 60, very light wind and just a few light sprinkles. One of the attached pictures shows a wind/dust funnel. After all, this is Central Oregon, so weatherwise, anything is possible. I did a little driving around as well on some of the ranch roads and took some shots from the rig when the opportunity presented itself. The pivots streach for some 5 miles and are all linked with maintained roads. I saw quite a few Antelope and even some young ones. By 4 o'clock it looked like the weather might sock in so I called it quits with 84 kills for the day. Now remember. I score kills by the "Ratrouster" method. I know some of you score by the " I musta killed method". In that case, I "musta" killed 350.

I'm sure some of you are trying to figure out where The ranch is and maybe some of you know. One of the requirements of me shooting there, by the ranch manager, is that I have to tell anyone I take out, do not contact the ranch manager and try to get on to shoot. He said the answer will be NO and he doesn't want to be bothered. Message delivered.

In the area you want to shoot, knock on doors and ask. Sometimes it pays off, bigtime. This last week, I talked to shooters from around Xmas Valley and the shooting was still pretty good.

I've been selling my Ratrouster pivoting shooter rests right along and because of the Sh***y weather have been making some more this Spring. Getting in lots of shop time, but no fishing. So I have a fair stock right now. I will keep up on any rat shooting info I come across and what fishing info I can. Check in often and comments are welcome.