JDHasty
05-02-2015, 01:27 AM
I have made a couple trips to central WA and the cucks are going pretty strong. My first trip was three weeks ago and there had already been people shooting for three weeks in one area that I have shot off and on for forty years.
That ain't cool. That ain't one bit cool. These knotheads were shooting pregnant and nursing chucks.... which the alfalfa farmers like, but it makes for some lean times to come in the coming season and actually for years to follow. I like to shoot chucks as well as anybody, but these "sooners" are a menace.
They are a menace to themselves more than anybody and until I helped them out this wasn't really a problem because they couldn't hit anything more than 200 yards out. Today they are getting good enough that what they have accomplished is to shoot themselves out of any sport for a few years or more. Sucks to be them, I have other places I shoot but they don't. In five years when the chuck population recovers I will be back and they will probably have sold their kit.
This has happened in this coulee before and I explained sportsmanship and the value of waiting until at least mid to late April AND then only shoot the smaller chucks until late April in order not to do what they have accomplished.
Have some patience and then share the bounty. But... some people's kids! That's the thanks I get for trying to help out newbys. And these "kids" were in their forties. Oh well. I shot that coulee for two days and got a half dozen with the 243 and another three or four with the hornet that weekend. Not bad for a guy who just likes to get out in the field and I had an elderly friend along to do the spotting who is about half blind. It was just good to get out!
Here is a hint for you guys who are new to the sport: I have been actively evaluating who I could trust to go on shoots with me. I have lots of areas to shoot and what you did didn't hurt me one bit. What it did was make it a certainty that you will not be given the opportunity to wipe out another colony.
This last weekend we went east again and tried a couple other coulees (that are much less likely to be found by Johnny come lately shooters) and Saturday it was cold and drizzling a bit.
Saturdays shoot was at a location I had not shot in twenty years, but last August I was out tooling around with my five year-old daughter in my Polaris Ranger and we spotted a guy towing a flatbed loaded with Heston one-ton bales of what looked like damn nice alfalfa. Export grade alfalfa, which sells for $600-$800/ton. It really helps when your cousins are ranchers and you can honestly complement a man on the quality of his alfalfa.
These central Washington farms produce the best alfalfa in the entire world and much of it is pelleted in Ellensburg, loaded on a train and shipped to Japan for Kobe beef production. Steaks sell for north of a buck a pound so if anybody doubts the $600-$800 number on their feed, do the math on that! Did I say central Washington produces the best alfalfa in the world? "Only the best" for market steers that are worth well over five grand each in the Japanese butchers showcases.
But I diverge. I turned around and ran this gent down and he said: funny you should ask.... Long story short, it was August and he said they have gone down for the summer. I said they will be up for a couple weeks again next month, actually they feed at night through the dog days of summer and then are out again for a few weeks in late September - but I have too many other things going on in September to shoot chucks then. Give me your phone number and I will see you in late April.
OK, here is why I haven't shot in that coulee in a couple decades: Mom now owns the ranch I used to shoot on and controls who shoots the hay meadows. The son works a "regular job" Monday through Friday and his kids like to shoot the chucks on that property. Mom likes me and would show me the green flag, but it is not right to shoot chucks that his kids like to shoot. Unless and until the kids are not keeping the population to what HE sees as an acceptable level, I am not going to take candy from babies. I still stop in for visits with mom, but unless the man who is working the ranch says he needs my intervention... I have NO business shooting chucks there. And that has not happened in the last two decades.
Jump ahead to two weeks ago. I called a week ahead and my new contact said: they are out in force and nobody is shooting our hay meadows anymore.
We met again Saturday morning and he told me where to find them and then turned the keys to his Polaris Ranger over to me to use to transport my kit into the hay meadows in. My Polaris was stolen last fall.
We set up two shooting tables about a buck fifty from one end of a three hundred-fifty yard long line of rocks with one table set up so that I could shoot my 243 at the far end of the line of rocks and the other two set up so my buddy could shoot his AR at anything closer than two bucks. This was the same elderly gent and if he was able to land a shot within 18 inches of a chuck it was just luck. He has diabetes and can't see well enough to hit the ground between his feet, but he still likes to get out of the house and make the trip.
OK, OK. Cut to the chase! I turn my emptys up when I have a confirmed kill because those chucks went up to the big hay meadow in the sky and when I opened my Case Guards and counted the ones pointing skyward tonight there were 17 confirmed kills made with the 243. Not bad for three hours shooting before it started to rain and the pivot had moved in front of the most populated section of the rock wall.
However I had a Harris S bipod on my CZ 527 American 22 Hornet and when I did the math tonight I confirmed killed another 20 with my Hornet shooting at close ones (less than two hundred). 37 chucks in three hours is pretty decent chuck shooting, I don't care where you are. Again, I had an eighty-year old diabetic along and we called it a day when it started to drizzle. He was "played out."
So that was Saturday, and I will visit that ranch again in two weeks if Mrs JDHasty drops the green flag. But since Mrs JDHasty is due to deliver another little bambino on the 21st... that is a 50/50 proposition. If I go, I am going alone and that, my friends, is why JDHasty is wrecklessly eyeballing a 527 Varmint in 17 Hornet. I want to be able to see bullet hits and call my own shots. I have had it with trying to locate a reliable shooting partner who pays his fair share of EVERYTHING. The 527 American in 22 Hornet jumps off target unless I turn my 4-20 Super Slam scope down to ~ 12 power before tickling the set trigger on the CZ I cannot see where my bullet hits and confirm my own kills reliably.
OK Sunday. We went to another coulee two hundred miles south. Did I mention I take my chuck hunting seriously? FYI, I don't always shoot in coulees but this weekend I wanted to check out one of my favorite talus slopes to shoot with my Hornet.
Last year this slope was a great big goose egg and when I hiked up to the base of the slope I saw why. Bobcat tracks were everywhere. That cat had moved in and ambushed chucks as they returned home from feeding.
Since I was not able to kill the responsible party during the legal cat season, for various reasons, I turned a bobcat hunting fool I know onto this opportunity. If I did not trust him to consider this as "my hunting spot" and act accordingly in future years that would not have happened. This gent understands "the rules." No poaching my rockchucks and no hunting my predator hunting area unless you get a personal invite from me. And absolutely NO sharing of information regarding the upland hunting, chuck shooting or predator calling to be had on that ranch. Period. End of story.
He stretched the hides of three bobcats and seven dogs he took there this January. AND... well and I pulled up and spotted three chucks in the field of view of my 8X42 binocular Sunday morning. "Game on." So I set up the tables and shot the hornet at ranges of 150 to 265 yards and shot for four hours and bagged two dozen chucks.
Not bad. A shot every ten minutes. This time I had to get home to Tacoma or I could have kept shooting at that rate all day.
This weekend I am busy with my six year-old's garden. Next Saturday a buddy and are going to wake up right next to a marijuana farm (Washington State) that used to be a hay meadow. According to the owner that chucks are eating them out of half of the profit they still make from growing alfalfa. The property is so tightly controlled now that he doesn't trust anybody and when we called a couple days ago to get the low down he was so thrilled we are coming that words cannot describe.
This is a "rimfire" area due to neighbors being so close (stupid wineries owned by doctors, lawyers and indian chiefs from Seattle) and any noise will kick them into action. It has been that way for a long time and we have respected that and shoot an Anshutz 22 mag and a 10/22 on that property. Shots are about a buck to two hundred yards and the chucks den on a ridge across a gully from the fields they feed in. They come out on the ridge and sun themselves before they head across and when we are there very few of them get to enjoy a last meal.
Last year we bagged a hundred in two days and a peacock. From what we are hearing last year was nothing compared to what we will see this year.
That ain't cool. That ain't one bit cool. These knotheads were shooting pregnant and nursing chucks.... which the alfalfa farmers like, but it makes for some lean times to come in the coming season and actually for years to follow. I like to shoot chucks as well as anybody, but these "sooners" are a menace.
They are a menace to themselves more than anybody and until I helped them out this wasn't really a problem because they couldn't hit anything more than 200 yards out. Today they are getting good enough that what they have accomplished is to shoot themselves out of any sport for a few years or more. Sucks to be them, I have other places I shoot but they don't. In five years when the chuck population recovers I will be back and they will probably have sold their kit.
This has happened in this coulee before and I explained sportsmanship and the value of waiting until at least mid to late April AND then only shoot the smaller chucks until late April in order not to do what they have accomplished.
Have some patience and then share the bounty. But... some people's kids! That's the thanks I get for trying to help out newbys. And these "kids" were in their forties. Oh well. I shot that coulee for two days and got a half dozen with the 243 and another three or four with the hornet that weekend. Not bad for a guy who just likes to get out in the field and I had an elderly friend along to do the spotting who is about half blind. It was just good to get out!
Here is a hint for you guys who are new to the sport: I have been actively evaluating who I could trust to go on shoots with me. I have lots of areas to shoot and what you did didn't hurt me one bit. What it did was make it a certainty that you will not be given the opportunity to wipe out another colony.
This last weekend we went east again and tried a couple other coulees (that are much less likely to be found by Johnny come lately shooters) and Saturday it was cold and drizzling a bit.
Saturdays shoot was at a location I had not shot in twenty years, but last August I was out tooling around with my five year-old daughter in my Polaris Ranger and we spotted a guy towing a flatbed loaded with Heston one-ton bales of what looked like damn nice alfalfa. Export grade alfalfa, which sells for $600-$800/ton. It really helps when your cousins are ranchers and you can honestly complement a man on the quality of his alfalfa.
These central Washington farms produce the best alfalfa in the entire world and much of it is pelleted in Ellensburg, loaded on a train and shipped to Japan for Kobe beef production. Steaks sell for north of a buck a pound so if anybody doubts the $600-$800 number on their feed, do the math on that! Did I say central Washington produces the best alfalfa in the world? "Only the best" for market steers that are worth well over five grand each in the Japanese butchers showcases.
But I diverge. I turned around and ran this gent down and he said: funny you should ask.... Long story short, it was August and he said they have gone down for the summer. I said they will be up for a couple weeks again next month, actually they feed at night through the dog days of summer and then are out again for a few weeks in late September - but I have too many other things going on in September to shoot chucks then. Give me your phone number and I will see you in late April.
OK, here is why I haven't shot in that coulee in a couple decades: Mom now owns the ranch I used to shoot on and controls who shoots the hay meadows. The son works a "regular job" Monday through Friday and his kids like to shoot the chucks on that property. Mom likes me and would show me the green flag, but it is not right to shoot chucks that his kids like to shoot. Unless and until the kids are not keeping the population to what HE sees as an acceptable level, I am not going to take candy from babies. I still stop in for visits with mom, but unless the man who is working the ranch says he needs my intervention... I have NO business shooting chucks there. And that has not happened in the last two decades.
Jump ahead to two weeks ago. I called a week ahead and my new contact said: they are out in force and nobody is shooting our hay meadows anymore.
We met again Saturday morning and he told me where to find them and then turned the keys to his Polaris Ranger over to me to use to transport my kit into the hay meadows in. My Polaris was stolen last fall.
We set up two shooting tables about a buck fifty from one end of a three hundred-fifty yard long line of rocks with one table set up so that I could shoot my 243 at the far end of the line of rocks and the other two set up so my buddy could shoot his AR at anything closer than two bucks. This was the same elderly gent and if he was able to land a shot within 18 inches of a chuck it was just luck. He has diabetes and can't see well enough to hit the ground between his feet, but he still likes to get out of the house and make the trip.
OK, OK. Cut to the chase! I turn my emptys up when I have a confirmed kill because those chucks went up to the big hay meadow in the sky and when I opened my Case Guards and counted the ones pointing skyward tonight there were 17 confirmed kills made with the 243. Not bad for three hours shooting before it started to rain and the pivot had moved in front of the most populated section of the rock wall.
However I had a Harris S bipod on my CZ 527 American 22 Hornet and when I did the math tonight I confirmed killed another 20 with my Hornet shooting at close ones (less than two hundred). 37 chucks in three hours is pretty decent chuck shooting, I don't care where you are. Again, I had an eighty-year old diabetic along and we called it a day when it started to drizzle. He was "played out."
So that was Saturday, and I will visit that ranch again in two weeks if Mrs JDHasty drops the green flag. But since Mrs JDHasty is due to deliver another little bambino on the 21st... that is a 50/50 proposition. If I go, I am going alone and that, my friends, is why JDHasty is wrecklessly eyeballing a 527 Varmint in 17 Hornet. I want to be able to see bullet hits and call my own shots. I have had it with trying to locate a reliable shooting partner who pays his fair share of EVERYTHING. The 527 American in 22 Hornet jumps off target unless I turn my 4-20 Super Slam scope down to ~ 12 power before tickling the set trigger on the CZ I cannot see where my bullet hits and confirm my own kills reliably.
OK Sunday. We went to another coulee two hundred miles south. Did I mention I take my chuck hunting seriously? FYI, I don't always shoot in coulees but this weekend I wanted to check out one of my favorite talus slopes to shoot with my Hornet.
Last year this slope was a great big goose egg and when I hiked up to the base of the slope I saw why. Bobcat tracks were everywhere. That cat had moved in and ambushed chucks as they returned home from feeding.
Since I was not able to kill the responsible party during the legal cat season, for various reasons, I turned a bobcat hunting fool I know onto this opportunity. If I did not trust him to consider this as "my hunting spot" and act accordingly in future years that would not have happened. This gent understands "the rules." No poaching my rockchucks and no hunting my predator hunting area unless you get a personal invite from me. And absolutely NO sharing of information regarding the upland hunting, chuck shooting or predator calling to be had on that ranch. Period. End of story.
He stretched the hides of three bobcats and seven dogs he took there this January. AND... well and I pulled up and spotted three chucks in the field of view of my 8X42 binocular Sunday morning. "Game on." So I set up the tables and shot the hornet at ranges of 150 to 265 yards and shot for four hours and bagged two dozen chucks.
Not bad. A shot every ten minutes. This time I had to get home to Tacoma or I could have kept shooting at that rate all day.
This weekend I am busy with my six year-old's garden. Next Saturday a buddy and are going to wake up right next to a marijuana farm (Washington State) that used to be a hay meadow. According to the owner that chucks are eating them out of half of the profit they still make from growing alfalfa. The property is so tightly controlled now that he doesn't trust anybody and when we called a couple days ago to get the low down he was so thrilled we are coming that words cannot describe.
This is a "rimfire" area due to neighbors being so close (stupid wineries owned by doctors, lawyers and indian chiefs from Seattle) and any noise will kick them into action. It has been that way for a long time and we have respected that and shoot an Anshutz 22 mag and a 10/22 on that property. Shots are about a buck to two hundred yards and the chucks den on a ridge across a gully from the fields they feed in. They come out on the ridge and sun themselves before they head across and when we are there very few of them get to enjoy a last meal.
Last year we bagged a hundred in two days and a peacock. From what we are hearing last year was nothing compared to what we will see this year.