Trad Gang

Well, I've been wondering if I should get on here telling stories and all, but just decided they could move me or delete me. I just gotta do something!
You see, I came back from Turkey hunting two weeks ago and had two things happen which are notable.
The first thing is that I quit smoking cigarettes after 35 years of addiction.
Now that would have been pretty cool and something to brag about, but it seems I got a nasty spring cold at the same time.
The whole problem is this. I've been off the cigs for two weeks and the whole time my chest has been congested, nose has been all runny, ears are stopped up and I've been coughing my head off.
I'm so damn proud of having quit smoking I could puke, but I'm not getting to realize any of the benefits of having done it yet.
And to get around to the title of this thread, I haven't felt like doing a whole lot during the day, so I haven't been that active.
I get in bed around 10 P.M. and by 1 or 2 A.M. I'm awake. It's gotten to be so bad, that my whole schedule has just about reversed. I'm up all night and sleep all day.

Soooooo... I was thinkin about tellin a long drawn out huntin story, complete with blood and gore, fully drawn longbows and arrows screaming through the air. All true of course!
The way I figure it, it will keep me busy till the cold passes and my schedule gets back to normal and will help keep my mind off the damn cigs in the mean time.

Who knows, maybe I can come up with a photo or two.

Since I'm probably the only one on this side of the planet who's up at this hour, I'll wait a while and get the story rolling. (and see if anyone even cares to hear one  :)  )

Charlie, Congrats on quiting the cigs  :thumbsup:    :thumbsup:  .I would like to hear the story.I always enjoy your them and it will give me something to look forward to when I get back from work.

Love stories Charlie but I feel the smoking story is the big one. I too have been where you are now but after 30 years being smoke free I can tell you it's worth every bit of quitting. Congrats on the quitting..  :thumbsup:    :notworthy:  I respect anyone that does....Mac~

Thanks for the support guys (I knew I'd get it here  :)  )
The quitting is as tough as anything I've done and it's going well so far... and that's a big surprise to me!
The benefits of course are increased lung function, which means better stamina in the woods and mountains, as well as improved blood flow to various body parts... like my brain. Maybe that will help my shooting.

Here's the first installment of the story.
***********************


I guess if we live long enough we end up with some favorite memories. Funny how most of those memories have nothing at all to do with work!

One of my very favorites (I've got a pile of them) took place more years ago than I care to remember now.
I lived in the mountains of western Wyoming then and spent every spare minute I had in pursuit of some critter or the other.
Small game especially grabbed my attention when I lived out there. Heck, I had grown up in a small game hunting family. They had to be if they wanted to hunt at all. When most of my uncles and my Dad were in their formidable years there was very little large game to be hunted in the mid west. There wasn't a lot of large game in my home state when I was growing up either.
Fortunately we had lots of rabbits in those days.

Being from the city also complicated the situation for me when I was young. There were a few situations I could take advantage of. Railroad tracks always had brushy areas I could bust through for cottontails and the local golf course had plenty of bunnies and fox squirrels in the rough areas.... I just had to avoid the greens keeper.

I escaped, whenever I could, into the pages of my favorite books.
Saxton Pope spoke glowingly of small game hunting and mentioned ground squirrels as a favorite.
Howard Hill devoted a couple of chapters of his book "Hunting the Hard Way" to hunting small game with one about ground squirrels in particular.
I just knew that some day I would have to experience ground squirrel hunting.

My first opportunity came when I was nineteen. I'd taken a summer job in Wyoming, working for the U.S. Forest Service.
I built trails in the national forest and ground squirrels were literally everywhere.
I spent many evenings alone, stalking the glades and forest edges for the prolific Franklin's ground squirrel.
It put a hook in me for hunting them that lasts to this very day.

Years later I would move back to the mountains and continue my love affair with hunting ground squirrels.

Though I hunted them almost daily during the season when they were above ground and shot literally thousands of the little varmints, the story I'm about to relate is one of my favorite memories.

I had been off fishing with my best friend on a lovely spring day in western Wyoming. The fishing had been good and we had a mess of trout in the cooler which would provide a tasty supper that evening.
We were on our way home and had rounded a bend in the road which bordered ranch lands.
Looking out across a meadow there, we were stunned at what we saw. Ground squirrels were literally running everywhere.
Larry was a small game hunting fanatic like myself and had lived in the area even longer than I had and he had never seen anything like it.
The meadow grasses were cropped short by the hordes of gnashing incisors and it seemed like every five or ten feet there stood or ran or peeked out of a hole, a squirrel.
It so happened that Larry knew the rancher who owned the property. We were soon standing in front of him asking permission to go shoot ground squirrels.
Gaining permission wasn't really much of a challenge. Like most other area  ranchers, this one was anxious to be rid of ALL of the little squeakers.  They not only ate a lot of grass, but they dug holes everywhere. Mostly the holes were little escape burrows no bigger than a shot glass in diameter, but each family group had a main burrow entrance that could be the size of a serving platter or larger and deep enough to trip and break the leg of valuable live stock.

We were soon out in the meadow with bows in hand. Larry's favorite was an early Bear compound that pulled 70 pounds and only let off 30 percent.
My bow was at  the other end of the spectrum. It was a Howard Hill Big Five, with bubinga riser and bamboo limbs that took 82 pounds of force to bring to full draw.
That bow was new to me and you might say I was still learning to shoot " longbow style".
We were both shooting cedar arrows with plain steel blunts up front.

Since we'd had a full day of fishing already and our wives would be waiting impatiently for us at home we could only spare an hour or two for the squirrels.
We crossed the fence into the first pasture and stayed close together, trading off shot opportunities as they popped up.
It wasn't like anything either of us had ever experienced before.  There was hardly any stalking involved in our approaches. The squirrels weren't all that wary and in most cases we could walk within twenty yards of a squirrel before it got edgy and dove for cover.
That suited us to a T. We were both tired from a long day and weren't THAT into it.
We found that the first pasture was bounded on one side by a row of willows and marsh land behind that, out buildings and corrals formed the other boundary. The far end had more willows and when we had shot our way to that point we found another pasture beyond. It had as many or more squirrels than the first.

After a couple of hours we headed back to the truck. The shooting had been unbelievable. We had each killed 45-50 squirrels and had shot a couple of doubles to boot.
We discussed the situation and decided we'd come back the next weekend with lots of arrows and the goal of shooting 100 squirrels apiece.

Great story Charlie and great shooting...sounds like a really fun day.  Congrates on being a nonsmoker.  I quite last August after 35 yrs. of 2 packs aday.  I used the patches for 5 wks. (suppose to use for 10 wks.) and have not looked back. I can honestly say I feel better and can actually smell things again...especially smokers...didn't realize I stunk that bad for so many years!  Stay with it and if you start to slip...email me and I'll straighten you out.  Oh, by the way...the down side. Watch your eating and start an exercise program.  I gained 20 lbs. right off and am just now getting some of it off. The up side...better health, more spending money and more game encounters when you don't smell like smoke.  :thumbsup:

Congrats Charlie on quiting!!! Hang in there Buddy!!   :thumbsup:  Love huntin those destructive hole digging dirty rotten @%*%!#XXXX little rascals. Saw a few babies a couple days ago so we're working on another crop out here.

Congrats on quitting, im trying to not go down that road, but somtimes smoke when i feel stressed out. Cool story too!

Will there be movie named after this...  :D

Congrats Charlie. I no what your going thru [ It was chew for me] Your on the downhill run now, still pretty tough for awhile thou. Thanks for the story. Oh by the way I changed to four fletch on acount of your advise. Best thing I've done for my shootin in a long while. Thanks  :thumbsup:

congrats on the no smoking its tuff...once ur body gets through detox...ya gone to feel better..hang in there big guy...marco#78

Charlie,

Congrats on quitting. Towards the end of February I decided to work on quitting and got "the patch". It really took the edge off, and helped with the psychological addiction. After a month and a half of off-the-wagon/on-the-wagon, I woke up April 3rd and decided no more patch and no more smoking.

So far, it's been over 5 weeks. The cravings have all but gone away and I've got a lot more energy than before. Hang in there, because it does get better.

Congrats Bro. If you start having a bad day and are thinking about smoking, think about Brunner. He quit smoking too. I do believe it was more difficult for him though.  :eek:  

Now buddy, if you will answer your telephone, I have a hunting story to tell you. On with the show! CK

Charlie,

Thanks for the story, and congrats on quitting the coffin nails...but, please go see your Doc and make sure that cold doesn't turn into pneumonia or something else.

Larry

To all thanks again for the kind words and encouragement. I know it's gonna be great and am committed to quitting.
I was working on weight loss and conditioning before quitting but put aside the pressure of weight loss. I have always trained with weights and done aerobic training as well.
I had lost about 30# and suspect I'll put some of that back with the smoke sessation. I figure to worry about the tough one first, then get back to diet.
I've got a rockchuck hunt in Wyoming planned for June, so that's a short range goal and will be hitting the Colorado elk timber in Sept. with the gang for a midrange goal, and doing all that stuff for years to come as the overall goal.

For those of you who think that first little ditty was the story I was talkin about... you don't know my stories.  :D   That was just me warming up!  :cool:  
The real story is coming soon.

Hey, You're going to Wyoming the same time as me. What a coencidence! What about the August trip to Texas? You think its gonna be a cake walk? Better get in shape mister. Im planning to work you. On with the story. CK

Great job Charlie! I quit just before 911 and my son went in the Marines on 910 so it was tough but I made it and feel soooooo much better after 40 yrs of suckin on them things! You will see soon how your health improves> I gained about 15 -20 lbs. but I could use it.
 Those Grey Diggers are outstanding for keepin you sharp. I started out with a bow on them when I was 12.Got 23 that summer!

Good Shootin!

Charlie, great story so far. I have spent some time with 22 shooting those guys and they are fun.

I quit smoking 4 years now. I have packed on some pounds. Found that taking extra vitamin C the first few weeks helped with the clean out and detoxing. And less coffeee.

Dang Charlie, you're my new HERO!  :D  

Quitting smoking AND shooting them picket pins with a BOW!  

I quit the stickin smokes at 30 and went to MT and started whailing on them pocket gophers but with long range 22's, handguns, everything imaginable BUT bows...

You gotta have some niave ones to get that close... but dang, I'd think they'd duck an arra pretty darn quick!  You're da Man!    :cool:    :p

Yeah guys, they can be a little jumpy. But if ya reach out and touch them at a little distance they aren't near as jumpy.  Heck, a close miss at 30 yards is pretty good shootin in my book. I've taken them a lot further away than that too!

On with the story.

The week went by slowly at work. In the evenings Larry and I were working on our arrow supply for the upcoming weekend.
I was putting together a couple dozen cedars with sage green full length dip and white fletch. Nothing fancy at all, just good shooting ammo.
By the time the weekend rolled around I'd shot a few more squirrels around home to stay loose, but hadn't gotten after them too seriously.  
Saturday at first light found Larry and I parked in the ranch drive getting our gear squared away. Larry had cheated on me. He lowered the poundage on his Bear compound to 60 pounds peak in anticipation of a lot of shooting.
Before the day was half over I'd wish I could have lowered the weight of my bow!

The action was pretty slow at first. That's the way it goes with ground squirrels... at least the way it goes with the variety we were hunting. They are just not early risers, but we were eager to get started.
At first we shot along together, but soon I had shot an arrow that skipped away from the direction of Larry's last shot and we split up.
I eased off around the remains of an old saw mill that had stood on the ranch for ages. It's piles of old lumber and logs made perfect hiding places for the squirrels. I was doing my best not to shoot too many shots before searching for my arrows. If I didn't watch my self I'd forget how many times I shot and leave arrows laying. It was inevitable that I lose a few that way and during the course of the day I'd find arrows laying that had been unaccounted for.
The mill was a gold mine of squirrels and I killed half a dozen around the perimeter of the old building. I wasn't doing the best shooting that I had ever done. That was for sure. My bow was a new one and much heavier than any bow I'd ever owned before.
That coupled with the fact that it was the first longbow that I'd ever owned and I was probably lucky if I was hitting one squirrel out of every five shots.
What the rancher had here was a real problem. An infestation of ground squirrels. They are know to carry all kinds of germs and creepy crawly stuff on them and the higher the population numbers get the more prone they are to disease.
Neither Larry nor myself was that interested in handling the squirrels any more than we had to.
We had both agreed that we would save all the squirrels we shot for a picture or two when we were finished. About the only way we could do that without carrying the little beggars around with us and getting overrun with fleas, was to establish little piles of them. In other words shoot in one area for a while and throw each dead squirrel on a heap in that area before moving to the next area.
Now that would have been a good plan had it not been for the fact that this variety of ground squirrel is cannibalistic. We both found the nasty little devils raiding our stashes and dragging their dead relatives off to their burrows. It's hard telling how many we lost that way or for that matter how many we killed as they raided the piles.

I had moved out from the mill house and was working over a small group of squirrels that were living in a huge pile of logs.
As I'd peak around the end of the pile they'd peak back at me from the other end. If I'd try to move clear of the pile to get an angle for a shot, they'd duck and work their way far under the logs.
I soon came up with an idea.
I'd made up a few arrows with HTM rubber blunts and had them in my quiver. I drew one from the leather bag and placed it on the string. As I rounded the end of the log pile, a small gray head popped up at the far end.
I squatted slightly to reduce the angle between us, aimed the arrow to hit a couple of feet in front of the squirrel and let it slip. Twang, zizzzzzzzzz, twhapp!!!! I busted him right out of there. The arrow had laid down right in the angle of the logs and funneled down to him as pretty as you please.
I worked that angle as long as I could until the squirrels in that area got too spooky and I had to move on.

I had gotten to the point that I handled the dead squirrels pretty roughly. I'd skewer one with a well placed shot, pick up the arrow by the fletching and shake him off ,on or near my latest pile. That would leave me with a rather "gooey" arrow. At first I'd just take it to the nearest sage bush and wipe the shaft down with a hand full of sage leaves. But as the shooting got faster and opportunities were presenting themselves almost faster than I could react I got to the point that I just stuck the arrow shaft between my legs and drew it through the denim material to clean it.
By lunch time I was a smelly mess.
As it turned out, Larry had been doing the same and we smiled sheepishly at each other when we met down by the river to eat our sandwiches.
Comparing notes we found that each of us had killed squirrels that we had even been shooting at. The arrows upon missing the intended target animal would skip off across the hard flat ground and often smack a different one.
On top of that, we had each taken several doubles... two squirrels with one shot, and I had killed a triple. Three little ones had popped up out of a hole to look at me, one behind the other. My rubber blunt scattered them like tiny bowling pins.**

Very cool,Charlie.Have you ever thought about writing a book about your adventures????

I know you're not finished yet....right?

Curt... I've thought about it and each story I write goes into a collection. Maybe one day, but I'll have to be more disciplined as a writer or it would never get done.  :D  

And yes, there is more to the story.  :rolleyes:

Charlie,

That is an amazing story unfolding and delightful.    :D  Carnage and mayhem with a bow!

I'm just jacked I never thought of the possibility of using a bow out in MT... but where we were, all the resident populations would duck into holes the minute we skylined sometimes as much as 200 yards away!  :eek:  

Being they were on public ground, I guess they got whailed on a goodly amount!  Up on the Belknap (?) Reservation north of  Billings, we'd be shooting and then turn our attention to another direction. When we'd turn back, coyotes, badgers and prarie falcons would be devouring them... I never saw them draggin off their own dead... now that is bizarre! Gak!  :(    The Belknap was likely the most vast area of gophers I've ever seen...and if memory serves me, we did lament our lack fo handguns cause we did have some around us close... but alas, it was mostly a flyfishing trip via commercial aircraft so even long guns were a hassle even back in 92'.   :rolleyes:  

What a story... keep em comin Charlie...

BTW, how'd ya explain that streak of gut juice atween yer knees to the wife when ya got home?  :eek:    :D

Ew.
By this time she knows the "Don't ask, don't tell" drill!

     :rolleyes:    

Dave... I'm not sure we're talking about the same critter. Are you sure you're not thinking about prairie dogs. There is a huge difference in their demeanor.
Where I hunted them, the ground squirrels (my notes tell me they are the Richardson's variety) weren't all that skittish.
They were a little spooky first thing in the spring when they first appeared above ground. Windy and cloudy days made 'em goosey too. But later in the summer they they got almost friendly.
The difference between shooting them when they were relaxed or wired was usually 10 to 15 yards when relaxed and 20 yards and up when they were wired.
Prairie dogs on the other hand can be real unsociable. I've seldom been into them when you could get shooting closer than 30 yards. Where they get hammered by riflemen, they are a lot harder to approach.
I'm meeting up with Curtis Kellar and possibly Paul Brunner next month for some rock chuck'n and ground squirrel chasin. It will be a first for Curtis. Wait till I get him up in those Wyoming "hills" with my new nonsmokin old self.

The wife at that time (now the X) was way past asking about silly things like blood and gore covering my pants legs.  :D  

I'll get more story up in a bit.

Nope, Charlie, ours were the "columbian 13 stripe variety around Helena and there abouts, as I was told. Never checked out their actual linage.  :)  Also called "picket pins" cause they were so small they looked like the pins used to picket a horse on the prarie when there were no trees.

They got shot at lots around me...up the contental divide on Rt. 90 outa Helena toward Missoula by the Microwave towers, and all up along the road from Helena to Great Falls...also down by Boulder MT... they were lousy with them in the small valleys up that way.

They'd sometimes come out in the winter... on top snow if it got a Chinook warm spell.  Then guys would take off work to "paint the snow".    :eek:  

What was out on the Belknap reservation may have been prarie dogs, I can't remember... I'd left MT in 84', I think, and that was an invite to go back in 92' and guide a friend where I used to flyfish guide and we took the rifles along.  He's scoped out the Belknap and they may indeed have been prarie dogs that far East... come to think of it.

It was late summer and the folks I knew told me the picket pins (ground squirrels) had gone underground to weather out the hottest months.

That last trip West was the only time I ever got on Prarie Dogs (at Belknap).  The rest of the time was early spring and early summer for them 3" wide by 7" tall (max) ground squirrels!

When we went back, in 92' we were told the forest service had exterminated all the ground squirrels! I had to go check and not even the mounds were there anymore.  :(

I still find it amazing that you whacked them li'l farts with a bow!!!  Hat's off ta ya, Sire!

Leading Authority! (inside joke). CK

OK, here's a question for the squirrel hunters.  Anyone ever try eating the little diggers?  In the books by S. Pope and H. Hill they spoke of eating them; Hill especially.  It was during WWII and meat and gas rationing were screwed down tight.  He and some buddies used to camp for several days at a time in the southern CA desert and hunt both cotton tailed rabbits and GROUND SQUIRRELS for the meat.  

I've eaten many a gray tree squirrel, grew up hunting them in fact; but I've never had the nerve to try a ground squirrel.  If they are indeed good to eat, there's no need for anyone to go hungry around here!  Renewable resource.

Bob,
I grew up in ground squirrel infested country.We had em in everything and couldnt kill em off fast enough.I never heard of anyone ever eating them.I grew up around a lot of old timers who would eat stuff you wouldn't believe,and they wouldn't eat em.Must be a reason for it.I do know that they can be carriers of Bubonic plaugue,So be carefull in handlin em.Charlie is right about them bein cannabalistic little buggers,most the ones dead on the road,got that way eatin on the previous roadkill.

Like I said, I've never had the nerve to try one.  I've seen them eating each other (and other unmentionables) along the side of the road, and I'm aware that they can carry plague and other diseases.  Apparently Hill and Pope and company weren't so picky!  

I've heard some old timers in Wyoming talk about eating them during the depression years, but never new anyone who had done it recently.
I don't see why they wouldn't be just fine, although a bit small!

There are so many varieties of ground squirrels. I think the ones mentioned by Pope and Hill were much different than the one's I shot in Wyoming. Chet Stevenson wrote of shooting squirrels in Oregon which lived in trees and also seemed to go to ground.
I know the ground squirrels I saw while in the Marine Corps in southern California were a lot bigger than the Wyoming variety and looked a lot like our midwestern fox squirrels.
I've shot thirteen lined ground squirrels in Iowa and northern Missouri which were smaller and warier than the Richardson's of the west.
All I know is that the one's I shot were pestiferous and prolific and I've shot thousands in my life.

Now for the stories conclusion.

We stretched lunch into an hour and even thought about snoozing for a while. The music coming from that little crystal clear stream was about half rock and roll and half lullaby. The spot we'd picked to sit and eat still gave us a clear view of the meadow and the temptation to be up and back at the diggers was just too much. We sat there on the bank
cleaning arrows in the little creek. It didn't take long in the arid air for the feathers to dry so they could be slipped back in our quivers.
Larry was ahead of me by a good dozen squirrels and I knew I was gonna have to hustle to even think about finishing with the hundred we set as our goal.
When a squirrel ran out in the grass not ten yards from us, lunch was over. All of a sudden!
I slid an arrow across the bow as I rose to one knee. The heavy bow came back to anchor with only slight complaint from my now aching shoulders and I let the shot slip when everything was lined up.
The arrow skipped off the squirrels head and left him twitching his last in the grass. I looked at Larry and smiled as if it was all just that easy and the hunt was back on.

Truth be known, I was more than a little sore after our brief rest and I didn't hit another shot for at least the next six attempts.
Each shot was becoming more of an effort to reach full draw and stretch back into the shot.
A hot spot had developed on the palm of my left hand just down from the web. The rough leather of the grip was wearing a blister there and it was beginning to hurt..
The bowstring, which couldn't have been over a couple of weeks old, was showing signs of extreme wear just below the center serving.
The arrows that hung over my shoulder at my right ear were for the most part not near as neat and pretty as they should be for being so new. By now they all showed matted, stained fletch from the carnage. Whether they had been involved in any killing or not, enough gore had been transferred from one to another that I couldn't find an arrow that didn't give me a whiff of squirrel as the fletch came back under my nose at full draw. It was starting to get to me.
By mid afternoon Larry and I got the feeling that we were approaching our goal. We gathered up squirrels from the different piles and brought them to a more central location, getting an accurate count as we went.
As close as we could figure, we were about even and still a little shy of the goal number.
The hot spot on my palm a few hours before had long ago turned into a dime sized blister then broke and rubbed more till a bloodstained spot showed on the bow's grip. (and still does to this day) The string had given up two strands to the chafing of my armguard and I'd cut them free with my pocket knife.
My pants reeked and my quiver reeked, my fingers were sore and altogether this had turned into some kind of obscene chore. Driven by something that I no longer understood, if in fact I ever really had. But I was intent on finishing this thing, whatever it was and I would stay until I did.
I remember it taking a lot longer than it should have to kill that last half dozen squirrels. A few times I let the string slip away before I was really ready because of the painful blister or because I was just tired or because the smell on the fletching now was making me want to hurl.
My shots went high and left and right. Seldom missing low, which might have skipped and given me a hit. No the last ones weren't coming easy at all.
Finally, when I was sure I'd done it, when I just knew I had killed one hundred of the little diggers I went ahead and shot two more.

We got our final tally for the day. Larry had taken 120 with his compound and I had 102 with my longbow. Pictures were taken for the record and because we took pictures of everything in those days and we policed up the pile of little bodies.
We deposited them off in the brush away from the pastures that held stock and away from the road. It was obvious that they wouldn't last long. The coyotes and skunks and buzzards would feast on them for a day or two and in the end no record of our deed would exist, except the pictures and the memories.

It took a while to shoot up all of the arrows that survived that days shooting. My jeans washed up ok and the blister on my palm eventually healed, but I didn't shoot another ground squirrel that summer and never again would I encounter them in the numbers that we had found on that ranch.
It was obvious that we had put a dent in the rodent population there and we had free run on that ranch from that day on.
I think about that day a lot. Think about my youth and how my perspective on hunting has changed. I think about the friend who went on to become a Baptist missionary far up the Amazon River and I smile because it's all good.

You DO have a way with the penned word, Charlie!

Thanks for the ride-along!   :D

Well, I found the pictures from that day and when my scanner gets back on line I'll put them up... for what it's worth.

Now, thats what Im talking about! When you have blisters from shooting at so much game you know you've done sumtin! Great story buddy, even though I've heard it told first hand before. CK

Wow!

My hand hurts! I smell gutshots! What a feeling you must get when you see that bloodstained grip peeking from the bowrack.

It's a collective memory now, thanks for sharing!

Killdeer

Charlie ,got smart this time  :D   waited for page 3 made for an easy read and no wait   :D  .
congrats on the quitting . did that 15 years ago next month smoked over a pack a day for 21 years  . watched my Dad die from lung cancer on day and my brother said we had to quit as he didn't want to do this again i got off them but he hasn't   :(  .
one tip i didn't pay attention to my weight , busy all the time went form 265# to 367# been a lot over 300# ever since . can't seem to loose it and sure makes life a lot harder .so keep up the hunting the activity will help a lot .
more stories please  now that i have forund the secret   :D  ----- herb

Great story Charlie!! For those thinking about traveling out "West" be sure and take your bows cause I gotta tell ya that Charlie didn't even put a dent in the populations out here. We've killed a few thousand here, (mostly by far with 22's) and it's hard to even tell. Great fun and practice with the bow. They use any means available to try and control em so most any rancher with a problem will let you hunt the little rascals.

Thanks for the story Charlie. Don't start smoking but go ahead and quit again so we get another story.  :)

a friend of mine joined some group called National Varmit Hunters Assn. (or some similar moniker) and they had a very nice magazine.  

He shard them for a spell some time back and in there, mid 90's, they were saying that ranchers were seeing a gold mine in them pesky varmits and were "leasing day shooting rights" to groups to come whail on em with long range weapons of the super accuracy ilk!  There were actually guys who "outfitted" for varmit hunts. Guys would take several rifles and rotate them when the barrels got too hot!  :scared:  Now that is committment!

Is that still prevelant or did that pass like a fad?  Again, memory may have been for "dog towns" instead of the li'l ground squirrel colonies, but I didn't think so... yet, after 50..memory and all that... but I forget exactly what the malise was?    :bigsmyl:

Doc... I've seen some TV coverage of prairie dog shooting get togethers. Kinda flyin in the face of animal rights groups with it.

I finally got the computer glitches fixed and thought I'd put up a couple of pictures to go with the story.

Like I said, the squirrels I was shooting were of the Richardson's ground squirrel variety. This is what they look like. For scale you'll have to imagine that they are only about 2 inches wide and about 6 inches tall.
 (http://img46.photobucket.com/albums/v142/ctl6804/Standing_ground_squirrel.jpg)

Here's the one of Larry and I after the days shooting.
We decided that there was too much gooey stuff to handle and we only put up a hundred of the squirrels to represent the hunt.

 (http://http://img46.photobucket.com/albums/v142/ctl6804/A_hundred_squirrels.jpg)

Now to see if it worked.

(http://img46.photobucket.com/albums/v142/ctl6804/A_hundred_squirrels.jpg)

Ok, got it done... with minimal headache!!  :D

Charlie ,even with a hundred almost not enough for a "mess"!!! large guys would go hungry   :D  2"X6" would shoot a lot before i connected   ;)  --- herb

Not only that Herb, but I think a guy would learn a lot about himself skinnin enough for dinner!  :D

Looks like protein table fair to me , a little tony's seasoning ...alittle Louisiana Hot sauce ..cookin in smothred brown gravy cook down onion and green onion, garlic, cerely , bell pepper(  just a little )...add chicken stock cook down ...served with little french bread ..I bet it would be good...in my Dutch Oven seved over rice...   :bigsmyl:

Here's a pic of one of the little varmits like we've got up here in MT and Buster.     (http://img27.photobucket.com/albums/v82/gotahunt/100_0524.jpg)

great story charlie. congrats on the smoking.  its been about  7 weeks for me. keep it up.

Steve... thanks! You're doin pretty good too.  :thumbsup:  

Nice picture Doug. Did you snap that where ya shot him. I like to pick them off of rocks like that!! Kinda keeps a guys shootin honest! (talk about a cure for target panic  :D  )

He was actually just in front of the boulders although I have shattered my share of arrows. This West Boulder Valley got it's name honestly.  :D

it just hit me about the same size as out pine squirrels about 1 1/2" wide by 5 inches long ,not a bit of wonder you all are good shots . i shoot arrows almost that wide --- herb-- tried red sq. ome time , ever chew a big rubber band and tasted about as good

Herb...close in size to a red squirrel, maybe a little smaller, but not much.
I've killed a ton of those little reds also, but have a hard time with our fox squirrels which are much bigger. Figure that one out if you can.

There's no doubt in my mind that I was a better big game shot when I lived out west and shot ground squirrels all summer long.   :)

Quite a story Charlie. Thanks.     :thumbsup:

Ya know what Don? The dumb part of smokin isn't smokin at all... it's ever startin in the first place!! I wish someone would have slapped me the day I lit up the first one.  :smileystooges:
I'm still smoke free and love those butterflied venison steaks too. Only now I like them twice as much and twice as often!!   :D   Gonna have to kill more stuff just to satisfy my non smoking appetite. Hmmmm. That may not be so bad!

Ok what is this montreal seasoning that yall keep mentioning?

Now I am in Montreal and I never heard of it. I did not know we had our seasoning.

Ragi

Hey Ragi, good to see ya here.

Charlie, thanks for the story, got me all set and ready for the day.  

B (ragi, Oregonarcher to you LOL)

A side note... the story related was done with my old huntin bud Larry Hulquist. He took off to be a missionary in Peru years ago.

We were reunited after 25 years in Colorado this past September and we had a great time reliving old times.

I like to have a little back up on this story because of the numbers. Larry said I was conservative in my estimates by about 10 squirrels each.

It was sure a day that will live in our hearts and minds forever.