If I stand here long enough, a prairie dog is bound to stick its head up! -Jack
Last night, my buddy Jack and I took a morning trip to Seligman AZ to try prairie dog hunting for the first time.
We drove up Saturday night and stayed at the Canyon Lodge Motel in Seligman. It's an older motel (like most on Route 66) but renovated several years ago. It still has a nostalgic feel to it and some rooms are "themed".
The area worth hunting is on old Route 66, just 17.5 miles north of Seligman, AZ (technically, this area is Williams, AZ but everyone considers it Seligman). You can hunt both sides of Route 66 and it's prime for Prairie Dogs. However, the North side (right side) is on Pica Camp Ranch.
Pica Camp Ranch has an agreement with AZ Game & Fish and the Indian community to use the land for livestock, agriculture and hunting. To hunt here, you have to drive up to the ranch and sign in. A valid hunting license is required to hunt. Note: It's farm land and cattle is all around. Don't shoot the livestock and if you open a gate to cross, remember to CLOSE THE GATE.
Pica Camp Ranch is about 3 miles north on Pica Camp Rd.
The coordinates are +35° 29' 13.70", -113° 5' 2.09"
The south side of Route 66 is county land, so no sign-in is required. To access this area, you need to drive up Route 66 a little further (1/4 mile) and go south on Pica Camp Rd. I suggest going past the railroad tracks and shoot towards the mountians.
A rifle shooting 22LR is plenty firepower for most hunts. Since we entered mid-July, the doggies were already spooked. We knew that our shots will be out past 200 yards. We brought our AR-15s.
My first Prairie Dog hunt we ran into a little unexpected trouble. We were in such a rush to pack, we forgot an important hunting component... the magazines to our AR-15s. :( Since we were late in the season, the doggies were pretty spooked and they ran when they saw us coming.
Solution:
I found a spot that gave us the best advantage. High Ground. We went prone and found an area target area that was fairly flat and had a clearing that reached out to 500 yards.
Since we we had no magazines, ee ended up having to hand feed each round into the chamber. Therefore, we only had a One Shot Opportunity for each doggie. Every shot had to be precise. We ran a ballistics program on Jack's Android phone and ranged the distance with a Leupold laser range finder.
The area we chose had a lot of doggie burms. Most were right around 245 yards. We waited patiently for the first doggie to pop his unsuspecting head up and... the hunt began. For the next 2 hours, we sat there and fired 23 rounds.
Luckily, the rumors were true. Prairie Dogs are stupid. You can shoot at them, miss, and they'll stand around trying to figure out what just happened! More doggies will come over to see what happened. If you shoot one, other will stand around trying to figure out what happened to their friend! LOL. We had some 2nd and 3rd shot opportunities. We were facing 9-15mph winds and it kept changing. We could not adapt quick enough so there were a lot of wasted shots. At the end, we claimed 4 doggie. Post mortem pics left out intentionally.
Source: http://www.have-fun-in-the-southwest.com
Note: Prairie Dogs are known to be vectors (carriers) of the bubonic plague and other serious diseases. They come from infected ticks. Don't handle them. Leave them for the vultures. Vultures have strong stomach acids, which protect them from such things, as well all the other gross stuff in the rotten meat they eat.
As noon approached, the heat started to get to us. Hunger was also telling us to get the heck out. As we went back to my Jeep, we ran into our 2nd unexpected trouble. Flying Ants! They were everywhere! The swarmed the Jeep, swarmed Jack, and they were not all that friendly. They kept landing on us and would NOT get off! Luckily, I had a bottle of bug repellent. I quickly sprayed the both of us and they slowly went away. Note to self: Use the spray BEFORE heading out to hunt.
Not a few minutes after that, our 3rd unexpected trouble found us. Bees. The bug repellent didn't work on them, they swarmed around us, but they didn't attack. We cautiously moved towards the Jeep and carefully made our way in. Two followed us, but we quickly dealt with them... with a smack from my camo hat.
The day ended with a trip back to Seligman, lunch at Roadkill Cafe, and some shutterbug activity.
NOTE: Roadkill Cafe is NOT firearm friendly. Their giant burger is expensive and NOT that tasty. I won't be returning.
