{"id":1975,"date":"2016-07-10T21:00:49","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T04:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/?p=1975"},"modified":"2016-07-10T21:04:06","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T04:04:06","slug":"1975","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/2016\/07\/1975\/","title":{"rendered":"Prairie Dogs, plinking, and target practice…. summers going well!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hope you\u2019re all having a great summer so far! I\u2019ve been on the run, since summer started I\u2019ve been to Scotland, Australia, Florida, and California on business. But I\u2019ve managed to get in some hunting as well! I was in Texas a couple times on a hog and small game hunts, was in South Dakota a couple times to shoot prairie dogs, been getting in some local coyote, and doing a bit of catch up on gun testing and general bench-work. Going back to Texas in a couple weeks for hog up North, then heading South for some varmint\/predator shooting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today was good, I pulled the Brocock Compatto and the Concept Elite for some plinking\/target shooting, a general good old fashion fun shoot. I noticed on my last SD hunt that I was shooting a lot from a kneeling and sitting position (which after losing 30 lb by the way, is a whole lot easier), so today decided to really focus on offhand shooting. I\u2019m finding that as I get older, I have to work harder to stay in shape and to shoot well. I made myself a promise to spend at least a couple hours every week practicing my offhand shooting. Both of these rifles are great offhand shooters, which isn’t always the case with compact rifles. Its all about ergonomics, and on the Compatto especially the Daystate influence comes through.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>

I spent a lot of time shooting off a knee on my last trip to SD, and felt really good and solid. But still will practice on a regular business.<\/p><\/div>\n

I’m also spending time on the bench getting ready for this years EBR …. for once I’m taking my own rifle and a rest. The rifle? The FX Wildcat in .25, the accuracy on this rifle is outstanding, So I’m trying to get a couple hours a week on the 25 meter range with this gun.<\/p>\n

South Dakota was fun: I was down visiting my buddy Brent Waibel at his lodge in the South \u2013 Central part of the state. It’s called Bad River Birds and Bucks, and a beautiful property with lots of game. He has a couple prairie dog\u00a0towns too close to livestock for centerfires that he sets aside for me to shoot over with Airguns. I brought a mini air armory along, but two of the guns I particularly enjoyed shooting were the FX Wildcat and the Compatto. I covered about 10 miles per day hiking the hills,\u00a0 shot about <\/span>50-60 dogs, and see a lot of other wildlife along the way.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>

I put in the miles, and enjoyed every step of it.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Eyes<\/a>

Eyes were always on look out. There are literally hundreds of these burrowing rodents running around at any given moment.<\/p><\/div>\n

Compact guns like these are great for packing up and down hills, especially when it\u2019s as hot and humid as this trip proved to be. Of course, if the guns can\u2019t perform the portability means nothing\u2026. But both of the rifles are performers! On the few occasions when the wind died down I took shoots out to 75-100 yards with the Compatto and out to 125 with the Wildcat. I love the Compatto as a compact ultralight hunting rig, but the Wildcat is hard to beat as a long range small caliber gun!<\/span><\/p>\n

I jumped a couple yotes but too far and wrong guns, saw a lot of deer and a few pronghorn, and this place has more pheasant than you could hope to find in one place\u2026 and wild birds at that. I\u2019ll have some articles coming out soon in Predator Xtreme, Outdoor Life, Fur-Fish-Game, and Airgunner that tell the storys of all these hunts, and will have some YouTube videos posting as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Saw<\/a>

Saw many mulies in velvet, this is a great destination for deer hunting … only can’t use Airguns.<\/p><\/div>\n

BTW: If you are interested, we will schedule a three-day prairie dog shoot and Airgun extravaganza out in SD next year. Great lodging, food, lots of prairie dogs, and I\u2019ll bring a mountain of guns along. We\u2019ll be posting more info soon. Have a great week and I\u2019ll follow up with you next week! With everything else going on and all the traveling I’ve fallen behind in answering your posts to the blog, and am going to go catch up now.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hope you\u2019re all having a great summer so far! I\u2019ve been on the run, since summer started I\u2019ve been to Scotland, Australia, Florida, and California on business. But I\u2019ve managed to get in some hunting as well! I was in Texas a couple times on a hog and small game hunts, was in South Dakota … Continue reading »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103,70,91,76,48,105,104,124,20,26,33,78,7,50,1,101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airguns-of-arizona","category-brocock","category-bullpup","category-deer-hunting","category-destinations","category-ebr","category-extreme-benchrest","category-fx","category-long-range-shooting","category-pest-control","category-prairie-dogs","category-shooting-technique","category-smallgamehunting","category-summer-time-hunts","category-uncategorized","category-where-to-hunt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1975"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1984,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions\/1984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}