{"id":1990,"date":"2016-08-04T15:55:45","date_gmt":"2016-08-04T22:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregg57.sg-host.com\/hunting\/?p=1990"},"modified":"2016-08-04T16:18:23","modified_gmt":"2016-08-04T23:18:23","slug":"compatto-and-prairie-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/2016\/08\/compatto-and-prairie-dogs\/","title":{"rendered":"Compatto and prairie dogs!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend I was down in Texas on a hog hunt which was not so successful, because of the very hot weather and dry conditions the pigs had gone just about fully nocturnal. So I was hunting very early and very late until nightfall, with a lot of down time during the day. To keep occupied I took the opportunity to hunt rabbits with a couple new guns I was testing, but with it being so hot they laid low for a good part of day. During some of the midday down time when the temperature was spiking, it was suggested that I shoot a few pigeons that roosted in the nooks and crannies of an underpass near an abandoned bridge. I was told there were lots of pigeons, best of all was that if insisted on going out in the heat, at least this place offered some shade!<\/p>\n

For the outing I grabbed the Compatto, which has a lot to offer for this application: adjustable power to let me reach out and thump them or dialed down to finesse closer shots at lower power. And at any power, I can get laser like accuracy out of this rifle. Now add to this that it\u2019s very compact due to the semi bullpup design, ergonomic from any shooting position, with smooth cycling and high reliability, and you get an idea why this was my editors pick in a recent gear guide I wrote for Outdoor Life.<\/p>\n

\"Shooting<\/a>

Shooting in the shade was a great midday break from the direct sun, but these birds are nasty creatures!<\/p><\/div>\n

When I got onsite, the first thing I noticed was that there were birds everywhere, with constant flights of these winged rats flying drifting in and out. They also didn\u2019t seem overly concerned with me, at least at first! I started off by sitting next to a concrete pillar that I braced myself and started with longer shots at 75 yards, using either the 2nd or 3rd mildot down. There was no wind here to worry about, so it was all down to getting the elevation right. The pellet this gun prefers is the 18 grain JSB Exact, and I dropped several birds right off. The low report of the gun helped to delay spooking the birds.<\/p>\n

After that I started hiking around the pillars and shooting closer birds offhand, one after another they dropped. The Compatto is a good offhand shooter for me, and again owing to its compact design it is easy to move around with and to shoot from any position. The Compatto looks like a cool yet unassuming design, but almost everyone I know that\u2019s shot one has walked away more impressed than they thought they\u2019d be. I posted a short video of a rabbit hunt and Kip Perow of Airguns of Arizona has a nice dairy farm shoot for Eurasian collared doves with the Compatto.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m back home for a while and won’t get out for any traveling hunts for a few weeks (will do some local predators though). I\u2019m in my first kayak fishing tourney this weekend \u2026.. Yeah, I know\u2026. fishing and hunting \u2026\u2026.a regular renaissance man! But even if not hunting too much in the immediate future, I\u2019ll be down on my range with the Wildcat getting ready for EBR this year!<\/p>\n

Hope you\u2019re all having a great summer, if there is a topic, hunt, or gun you\u2019d like covered let me know and I\u2019ll try to make it happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend I was down in Texas on a hog hunt which was not so successful, because of the very hot weather and dry conditions the pigs had gone just about fully nocturnal. So I was hunting very early and very late until nightfall, with a lot of down time during the day. To keep … 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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990","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=1990"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1994,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990\/revisions\/1994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/hunting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}