It was short but well worth the travel. We left on Wednesday morning and took us a little over 12 hours of travel to get to where we had to be. After a good nights sleep and breakfast we left the lodge about 815 to head to our area. We talked to the land manager and got directions on where to go and more importantly where not to go.
After a 1/4 mile drive we were in the right spot. We seen our prey of choice and out come the guns and shooting sticks. With a big barrage the shooting started. After a couple bangs and then clicks the common comment was “ wtf my gun is empty already” or “ I wish they made bigger mags then these”. The comments would later turn to “ fml my thumb is sore from loading so much”. A bbq smokie lunch and a pack of smokes each we were off to another area. By about 3 in the afternoon our eyes were sore from spending the day looking through the scopes and our thumbs had built up a 1/4 “ of callous it was time to go to the local gun store and see about bigger mags. No such luck as others had the same idea previously and the were sold out. With sore thumbs and eyes we headed back were the shooting continued until early evening.
The next day was much the same. Steady wind, sore thumbs and sore eyes but this day was a little windier and made the shooting a bit more difficult. To make things sporty we started to stretch the legs on our rifles.
A great time was had and in total we figured we zipped about 400 gophers or so over 2 days of shooting. Not a lot by some standards but 2’ of wet snow this spring drowned a lot of them out. The hunting guide figured that there was only 10% of the gophers there compared to previous years. Regardless us guys in the North don’t have those critters and was good to get out for a little spring shooting.