kcnboise,
Like you for the whistle pigs I lean to a 22 lr, there just isn't mass on them to waste a centerfire cartridge for shooting them unless they are out of 22 lr range then I will pull the 223 out. I use the Nosler 40 gr ballistic tips and on occassion they will not blow up on a whistle pig, not quite enough resistance I suppose. But for the Columbians I love the 40 gr Nosler out of my 223, it is going a chronographed 3760 and it does a number on them - there are no "walking wounded" when they are hit.
I was down your way about 3 weeks ago and had a great time shooting whistle pigs, they were thick. I needed a varminting fix and got it on that trip, my son, who lives in Boise, and I went out west of Boise and shot until we were tired of shooting. Your gophers are out about a month before ours are, we are just now starting to see a few in the mountains of central Idaho.
Your definition and descriptions of the two species are spot on. We have pockets of both here in central Idaho but our local Beldings are slightly larger than the Boise whistle pigs but not as large as I have seen in other places.
As far as what they are called, I lived in Boise for a couple of years over 40 years ago and at that time everyone called them whistle pigs or picket pins and when I was down there about 3 weeks ago folks were still calling them whistle pigs, it has been quite a while since I have heard anyone refer them to picket pins. Perhaps that is because not many folks know what a picket pin was anyway - it is a stake that you put into the ground to tie your horse to so they don't wander away, and a small standing gopher resembles a picket pin (without the horse tied to it of course - GRIN).
I go down to the Gooding and Twin Falls area to shoot rock chucks and I have never heard anyone down there call rockchucks "whistle pigs" everyone I know from that area calls them "chucks". Now chances are that somewhere around the area someone does call them "whistle pigs" that only means that different folks call them by different names. Not unlike Oregon and California folks calling gophers "diggers", I had never heard that term before I started frequenting the fire and seeing an occassional reference to "diggers" in Varmint Hunter magazine.
As to another posters comment that he questioned Boise people about what they called them and the responses he received were negative, perhaps it is because most of Boise and the surrounding area is populated by non-native folks from the area and there is a good chance that many of the folks he questioned were transplants to Idaho like he is a transplant to Montana although from his post you would think he has lived there forever. As a matter of fact it is difficult to believe that many Boise people would drive all the way to Spokane for a gunshow, that is not an easy to make trip from Boise.
drover
