Hello all!
I may have the opportunity to travel west this summer. If so, I would like to designate a couple of days to shoot Prairie Dogs. I have shot them several years ago with a guide in the Murdo, South Dakota area, and before that in the Badlands unguided. I think I am correct shooting is no longer allowed in the Badlands. I'll be travelling if the trip comes together in South Dakota, Wyoming, and maybe Montana. Are there places you would recommend? Guided or not? I don't really want to spend a mint but do want some good quality shooting and I know it doesn't come cheap. Please let me hear your suggestions.
Thanks, and take care,
Rick

Asking the same questions here.

Call ahead to feed stores, co-ops etc. ask them if they know any ranchers who have dogs that they’ll let you shoot. Shootin pdogs used to be easy. Not the case anymore. Takes a lot of lookin around, phone call and nocking on doors now. And luck!

The good news is that rarely have I asked and not received permission. They look at me like I’m crazy for driving 20 hours to shoot rodents. It’s amazing how good a judge of people they out there😂

Prepare yourself...a lot if not most PD shooting nowadays is pay to play.

I was expecting to pay, not a fortune of course, but to pay. I'll probably be able to designate a couple of days to shoot and I think that wouldn't be enough time to find them.
Thanks for the info,
Rick

Lots of free places have been gobbled up by corporate ranches. I shot some ranches in this area for over 30 years. The owners even offered to let me charge a case of .22's I usually used centerfires, but it was a great jesture. All that changed about the turn of the century. Those are now corporate ranches $300/day.. Like the buffalo, it is gone.

Unless you have access to private property in p/dog locations w/o any fees

Remember.........p/dogs like irrigated property

With that means a $250K irrigation pivot system (per field)

Land owners are reluctant to let Joe Blow come in and start shooting

Livestock is another issue

Being the UPS guy for 27 yrs helps though.........

I looked last year and the going rate was $600/day. I was hard pressed to find cheaper.

I had an ag guy in the northwest tell me a few years ago, as he was giving me a list of names &phone numbers, "never pay to shoot PD's. Poison is expensive and time consuming".

Our motto is be polite, leave no trace ie; trash or brass, leave the gates as you find them and don't wander around the property without asking if that is OK. If it has rained in the last 24, walk in with Tri-pods. If you shoot a fence wire, fix it. Eleventh trip is coming up.

Go to the oklahoma panhandle. They'd prolly pay you to kill them out there. Alot of the ranchers lay down poison on huge tracts then break it out for farm ground with pivots. Those dog towns are snake pits too.
Also tons of dogs in SE Colorado and Western Kansas.

Along with that....

Don't shoot these guys....

So damm cute......they take their share of p/dogs

This one almost crawled up my pant leg........

I'm thinking of heading out west this spring to see if I can find some pd shooting. Going with no high expectations, but going to explore some places I know have prairie dog populations; just hoping the ranchers are willing to let me shoot. From '02 to '08 I had two ranches that welcomed me to shoot pds instead of them having to poison. In 08 the plague hit and there wasn't one dog where there had been hundreds before. Both ranches have changed owners and last time I drove by, in '12 or'13, pastures had been torn up and wheat had been drilled in what used to be prairie dog towns. I know there are still a lot of prairie dogs in Wyoming and Montana, it just is going to take a bit more time and effort to find the right places to shoot.

i plan on going Prairie dog hunting out west again ,i have a new toy to shoot Hornet 17 . i am all lined up free land and i don`t need a license either , bar has cold beer and great steaks too.

17 Hornet is awesome on PD's. If you are rolling your own you can shoot it cheaper than an HMR and the view is more scenic

Total agreement on the 17 Hornet. Cheaper than 17 HMR and MUCH cheaper than the 17 WSM.

Made me search 17 cal bullets at Larry's

Only 17 I've ever used & still have is the 'M2' rimfire

Bought the Eley ammo in the hayday of pricing

Inside of 100 yds the M2 really smacks 'em

17 Hornet sounds interesting

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1010922351?pid=160595

That would suck!!!


Shot one at 500 yards the other day, with the 308w, with my SWAT buddy watching through the spotter. The dog didn't want to come too far out of his hole, so I shot. I saw the dog flopping around after the shot, but couldn't quite make it out through the NF. Buddy said, "you shot his damn head off". I said, I didn't know if I hit him, but I saw him flopping around.


Right now, with it snowing off and on, our opportunities are very few and far between. Good luck to the OP. Hopefully he finds a great place to shoot..

Refuse to pay to kill prairie dogs. It has become another cash crop to eradicate rancher/farmers vermin. MTG

I generally stand in the sidelines and listen to your $hit. That is not a prairie dog. That’s a gopher, ground squirrel, example of your bull $hit.



😘

BSA1917 I encourage you to look closely at my facial hair and you can see the juices of your mother.

I'll stay out of your fight region6 , but you know after watching the pd's spread the bubonic plaque thru the Thunder Basin grasslands in wyo to the Buffalo Gap grasslands here in SD handling them is not to bright. On thru BG grasslands across private into Ft Pierre grasslands and north thru the reservations. Even some in the Grand River grasslands up by Lemmon SD. I am sure it made it to ND too. All I need from them is to watch them launch or flop if they make back to their hole so much the better. Shrapnel gets off handling dead dogs too so your not the only one. Set a good example not an uninformed one. Pictures of handling dead dogs that could be carriers is not smart..mb

Good post. Those that touch those dirty bastids, have some major problems..

You are a stupid fu ck for picking up that flea bag. Damn you ran when god said brains, because you though he said rains.. It's good to stay on the sidelines, unless you want to learn a little something about shooting. If not. STFU..

Tikka Nut: Those long tailed Weasels (that you pictured/posted) are legal to Hunt/shoot where I woods loaf!
Are you confusing that Long Tailed Weasel with the Black Footed Ferrets which are federally protected everywhere?
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I have shot PD's for years and years in MT and have had quite a few extended trips to WY, CO and UT and I cannot ever remember shooting a PD in an irrigated field. I have shot a lot of ground squirrels in irrigated fields but even they seem to concentrate more around the edges of them rather than in the field itself.
Curious - it makes me wonder if PD's liking irrigated fields is just a regional thing?

drover

In my past 25+ yrs of dog shooting......

Irrigated fields & edges of these fields are magnets to them

Even while the pivots or wheel lines are running water

Just last year...dogs directly under the running wheel line...taking a bath...

Soggy dead dogs right now

Wheel lines are on 12 or 24 hr sets...run mine on 24 hr sets

Meaning they are rolled ahead approx 100' every 24 hrs..ground gets a good soaking

Pivot systems...when they run/roll/move...they're on timers...Can't barely see the wheels rolling

Once the field is watered over...they're shut down till next time

Not sure of your knowledge of these systems....

Pic......20 Duece (20-222) cleaning house with the 40 V Max

I'm guessing that you've never drank milk that was a day past expiration?
Next you'll be telling us that a guy should never touch a mangy coyote, well... because of the mange....yikes.....

That is definitely a ground squirrel not a PD. The general area of PD habitat is west of the Mississippi, east of the Rocky mountains and south of Canada, although there are a few scattered colonies in extreme southern Canada.

Factoid - per the USFW there are 15 species of ground squirrels in the northwest (ID, OR, WA, MT, CA) and 4 species of marmmot and rock chucks, but no PD's.

drover

We have pivot systems here so I am familiar with them. I lived in MT for 25 years and I had never seen PD's and pivots in the same field in any of the places that I have hunted, but I have seen ground squirrels in them.

Actually pivots brought a great resurgence to the local ground squirrel population, prior to pivots most of the places here were ditch irrigated and the ground squirrel population was very low, once the pivots were installed the population boomed. I suppose mostly because of them not being flooded out by the ditch irrigation. Also because we are like your area and are very dry and the squirrels depend on their moisture from what is on the plants.

Interesting to say the least.

drover

Either way

You're not very smart.....

Do not pass this stupid move to your offspring

picking up these flea bag/plague infested critters is a dumm fppuuggkin move

People die every year from this same dumm azz move

wake up

^^^^^^^^^

CORRECT

p/dogs..........gophers.......what the hell ever

Leave 'em lay where the V Max left 'em

Avg of 7 cases a year for the last decade..



Scary stuff boys

Almost as scary as covid...

Hell, sitting on your shooting bench in or around a field covered in pdogs is probably just as likely to get plague. What makes ya think those fleas are only ON the pdogs.

The most he has to worry about is paper cuts and sticking a staple through his hand.

TR could be, but hey you play with the carcasses all you want..mb

gawdamn...... I'm fugging rolling here.....

Ruger 77/17 M2 got its first 6 p/dogs for the summer this week

Diggin SOB's

Yes the plague has been very hard on the ‘dogs. Over populated on ground that the forest circus banned shooting on sure didn’t help.