deflave, If I ever get back up there to visit my relatives I'll look you up and thanks for the offer! Back east the X-mas tree farmers used to buy me ammo just to get rid of the groundhogs I just figured the ranchers would fell the same way about the western version of burrowing varmints, I was wrong!
It's not that the ranchers won't give permission. It's just unlikely that hunters are going to volunteer their best spots. You tell one guy. He tells the next guy. That guy tells somebody else. And next thing you know, your spots that were dynamite, are shot to schit. This applies to prairie dogs more than gophers.
Travis