For you who aren't familar with varmint hunting in California, the area around Cedarville has a lot of ranchers who grow thousands of acres of alfalfa nd have a tremendous infestation of belding ground squirrels. I, of course, consider it my civic duty to help these poor ranchers by ridding them of as many of these ground squirrels as possible. So, here is my rambling narative of a weekend squirrel shoot.

This past weekend, 4/23 & 4/24, made a trip to Cedarville to get a little squirrel practice. The weather guesser said rain on both days. But, Saturday it sprinkled a little in the morning and then get pretty nice in the afternoon. Sunday it started damp from the Saturday night rain and quickly cleared and warmed up to be a really pleasant day. The wind was especially calm on Sunday. The vultures, seagulls, hawks and eagles were all well fed on both days.

Driving over the pass from Alturas to Cedarville was especially scenic.



But, on to the shooting. Saturday, I used the Ruger 22 Hornet and the TC 12" 17 AH. The ranch had several shooting parties so, we stayed in one location and shot morning and afternoon. It was a recently plowed dirt field that connected with a green alfalfa field at about 250 yds. It started out wet so you couldn't see your hits. It kept us busy for the day and many squirrels ate the lead sandwich (with the red plastic seasoning).

Sunday started sunny and warm. Most of Saturday's shooters apparently went home so we were able to move to a different location that hadn't been shot over on Saturday. After driving through the gate, I was able to shoot about 35 rds with the TC 17 AH in about 45 minutes. Then we set up the benches and commenced to work them over on this field that allowed ranges out to 500 yds. I was using the TC 17 AH, 223 XP-100 and the 223 700 BDL in the Choate stock. The ground was still wet so you couldn't see the misses very well. Shooting was steady all day. About 2:30 we decided to go try Saturday's spot for awhile. Got some mice (fresh out of the burrow juveniles) over there. Shooting the mice at 50 to 100 yds will give you a workout!

Scenery from the ranch area was impressive!



Measuring mouse with 17AH.



To close out the day we drove to an area that we hadn't visited on this trip and finished the trip using a fresh 50 rd box of 17 AH with an easy hour of shooting. Last shot was a good for a dead squirrel.

My old Bronco. Vetern of a lot of hunting trip miles.



I thought the trip made for a great weekend. The squirrel count wasn't large but, it was adequate for couple of old codgers and helped the rancher out a bit.

Gary

Howdy sounds like ya had a good weekend. Nice pics too. Always nice to get away for a hunt

Now thats my kinda story, Keep up the good work, and keep posting the great pictures.
Congrats on the fun weekend.

Knifeboy