Ok, and now to catch you up on Day 2, which was Friday.
Wind and weather entered the equation today, as they often do out west. We had a beautiful morning with a steady 10 MPH wind.
We were shooting a dog town that runs in a horseshoe shape down one side of a long finger-like ridge, around the end, and then back up the other side.
The town had obviously been shot before, but again our mobile approach was working well. We would shoot until no dogs were up within 400 yards, then move so the average shot was more like 300, then work the dogs until they were all down, and then repeat the process.
I can really see how the advent of these shooting benches has made guys less mobile and therefore the dogs have become used to being “safe” outside of a certain range. It changes everything when you can get up and move inside of that range rather than blazing at them at ever-increasing distances.
It was challenging enough in a steady 10 mph wind. By late morning, we were using .22-250s exclusively as we bucked the wind.
As an interesting aside, the guide had warned us to keep our eyes down when walking in this area as there were rattlesnakes. He wasn’t kidding. We had just set up the tripod and I looked beside us and there coiled up in the shade of a milk weed plant was a 3 footer! Yikes. He was quickly dispatched with a .223 round, but a good reminder that the guide wasn’t joking. I have now seen a rattle snake on every trip I’ve been on for the past 3 years and every one has been at close range.
Unfortunately, at lunch the black clouds appeared on the horizon. By 1:30, it was evident we were going to get wet it was going to be sooner rather than later.
We had just pulled up stakes and started back toward the ridge, over which was parked the truck, and over the top comes the guide with the truck. He had seen the lightening and thought it best to come get us least we were foolish enough to keep shooting until the storm was on top of us.
We drove out to the main road, not wishing to wait and watch the two-track road turn to gumbo. And within a few minutes it was obvious it was game over for the day. The rain POUNDED down. Then it blew. Then it rained harder. And so forth.
Not only was there no chance of shooting more that day, but the next day was obviously in jeopardy as well. The forecast was for a cold front to come through with low clouds and highs in the upper 40s.
And that’s exactly what we got on Day 3 (Saturday). 42 degrees and low clouds. Certainly NOT the weather that’s going to make the prairie dogs stand up and get shot at. To make a bad situation worse, rain was on the radar and headed our way. After the 2.5 inches we had the previous day, we knew it was all over. You can’t drive around the boonies in GumboLand after that much rain. Not going to happen.
So we headed home at 7:00 AM yesterday. That’s the way the game is played, you can pick your guide, time of year, etc, but you can’t pick your weather.
A few other notes that I think are worth passing on to anyone out there thinking of heading west to harass the varmints.
– This shooting is tough on rifles. Again this year, I had multiple gear failures. My .223 Axis magazine broke the retaining clip off the back of the magazine. It’s spring steel and it just snapped off. So I was shooting a single shot Savage Axis for the rest of the day. Luckily, a gun shop in the town we were staying in was a)open late, and b)happened to have one. So problem solved.
– Possibly related to the magazine problem was my Boyd’s thumb-hole stock. The laminate wood around the retainer where that steel clip latches has torn away. I only noticed it last night when I got home, but failure was imminent such that I wouldn’t be able to keep the magazine in place.
Both of these issues brought home to me the importance of bringing multiple rifles and preferrably in the same caliber so if a gun goes down for the count, you can swap and you can feed the backup gun the ration intended for the original.
There you have it. I just handed everyone an excuse to buy more guns. I’m here to help. 
– In conversations with our guide, he noted that his shooting parties had been PLAGUED by AR failures the last two years. Since many hunters have now switched to AR platforms, it has become evident to him that many ARs are breakdown prone and often the owners did not thoroughly test the ARs before bringing them out to hunt.
The most common problems were magazines that caused jams and discovering that the AR did not function well with newly bought bulk ammo picked up just before the trip. Add to that the fact that 3 of his hunters this year already have had catastrophic action failures of various types that damaged the ARs badly and certainly beyond field repair.
AR users, it sounds like if you plan to shoot it at all, you better have it thoroughly tested WITh the exact mags and ammo you intend to shoot while hunting. You should also have a backup rifle.
I’ll post some pictures as soon as I get them downloaded.
Grouse
Regardless of weather, sound like you had fun and that is what counts! 
