Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints (PICS) Just back...Prairie Dog Hunting with Jim River Guide Service

Well, it has been an exciting week hunting with Willie Dvorak (Guide for Jim River Guide Service - http://www.jimriverguideservice.com/ ) based out of Ft. Pierre, SD. We stayed in the Fort Pierre Motel:



We had no idea that the whole town was getting ready for flooding as the Corp. of Engineers were fixing to release more water down the Missouri River. Matter of fact, we saw the same sandbagging occurring in towns in SD, Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois...Here is just one example of what was transpiring this week in preparation of the flooding:



We started out Monday morning (5/30). It had been raining all night and into the morning and I was a little concerned as I thought we were going to be washed out. Willie took us to a ranch outside of Ft. Pierre, SD where the rain had moved out and was clearing. We ended up shooting from the rancher's driveway due to slick fields. Here's some pics of us setting up and the field we are shooting over.





This being my first prairie dog hunt, I had no idea what to expect in terms of distance or expectations of shooting in the wind. The afternoon of the first day, it had dried up and we were able to get in the field for a different dog town on the same ranch....Here we are setting up for some longer shots from a hilltop:



Tuesday (5/31) threw us a curve ball. Winds were 28-33 mph and we were really having to turn the turrets on the scope to stay on target. I'm not used to shooting in this kind of wind so it took some getting used to....We were all shooting .223. On this day, we shot from 9AM to 6PM and were pretty much done. Here's a pic of the field we shot over this day:



Wednesday (6/1), our last day shooting with Willie, we were shooting with another group that had come in for their first day of shooting. Willie put 9 of us in a crescent shape shooting over a large dog town. The other party has brought their own trailer full of gear, benches, etc. whereas we had used the gear (benches and shooting bags) provided by Willie. Winds on this day had calmed down but the dogs were moving way on out away from us. By the end of the day, most shots were 450 yards and beyond. Here is where we shot on the last day:

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/hunt127588/South%20Dakota%202011/SouthDakota2011070.jpg[/img]

Here was the longest shot taken in our party which was a dog taken at 686 yards with a .223:

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/hunt127588/South%20Dakota%202011/SouthDakota2011082.jpg[/img]

All in all, it was a great trip and I already want to go back. In three days, I shot right at 1,000 rounds as did the other members in the group....A lot of this was attributed to using AR-15s and hit ratios being somewhere in the 5% range. I thought that there would be a lot of 100-400 yard shooting but the dogs didn't come up for much of that. Willie was a pleasure to work with and made sure that it was our hunt that ran smoothly.

On the way home, we stopped in at Sierra Bullets in Sedalia, MO for a plant tour and to purchase some blemished bullets from the store there. They greeted us and Rich Macholz gave us a tour of their facility. What a nice way to end a perfect trip seeing how Sierra bullets were made. After seeing that, I think it solidified the fact that we will do this trip again in the future.

Sounds like a blast! I'd love to do it one day.

Great story with beautiful pictures. Looks like a lot of fun. Don't have any of that around here in NH. Just a few wood chucks is all.

Ken

Thanks for sharing! Sounds like a great trip. Wish pd's were on the docket for us this year...

What kind of loads do you use for your P dog rifles?
whelennut

I was using a 55gr VMAX with 25 gr Benchmark and CCI 400s. It seemed to work fine and had plenty of splat effect. Friends were using Fiocchi 40 gr VMAX factory load and 52 gr AMAX with 24.8 gr Benchmark.

Thanks for posting your story and pics. Something I have wanted to do for a long time. Maybe...........

Thanks! That is the same load I am going to use this season.
Glad you had fun.
whelennut

I was in this same boat for a long time....Things wouldn't line up b/t work, family, money, etc. I finally had the stars align and it all worked out better than I had anticipated. Now that I have done it once and know the routine, it will be easier to do again. The drive across the states was great. We just don't know how well have it in the U.S. until you get out and experience other areas.