Our Rock Chucks are just about done for the year here in Idaho. In most places they are already gone, but here in the higher elevations where I live they stay out just a bit longer. Saturday I got 8 & today I got 9 but it's very hard to retrieve them because they fall down in the crevices most times & you can waste your whole hunt trying to get them out.
Saturday I was hunting over an Alfalfa field with a 20 foot high reef above it & the farmer was cutting hay on a field above it.
Of the 8 I shot I could visibly see 3 of them but didn't want to walk through his hay & crawl through a fence so no photo's.
Today I hunted a place I've hunted for over 30 years & it's always been in either wheat or barley, today I was shocked. A whole bunch of it was good old Idaho potatoes! Chucks don't like potatoes & aren't crazy about grain but they love barley. I got the first 3 Chucks that I spotted, all about 110-130 yds with the 25 TCU Contender & a 70 gr Sierra.
Then the farmers dog came down & took one of them, I've never had that happen. She's pretty old to be that far from the house, there are a lot of Coyotes in these Lava reefs & I wouldn't have been surprised to see one attack her, today she took that Chuck & ran home.
When I first hunted this spot over 30 years ago it was honey combed with lots of holes down into the ground but has slowly grown over in many places & with the farmer using fertilizer lots of tall grass has hidden many of the holes in the ground, it's dangerous to walk around in the grass.
I moved a quarter mile & set up on another reef & shot 6 more but this reef is really dangerous to walk around on & today was even more so. I recovered one Chuck & was about to walk down to a bloody spot when I saw a dead Chuck got in a TRAP, yikes! As I looked around in the grass I found 4 more traps, all set for catching Rock Chucks. No way was I going to try & retrieve any more Chucks in that stuff. Maybe if I would have had a "celebrity" with me I might have chanced it but being alone I didn't want to risk getting nailed with a trap out there all alone. The S&W is my 45 Mountain Gun for Badgers & snakes.
Longest shots were 168 & 171 yds, the 70 gr Sierra really tears them up!
Dick
