I recently had the chance to go on my first Prairie Dog hunt. This has been on my bucket list for a LONG LONG time. We had a LOT of fun. We hunted with Wyoming Edge Outfitters located about an hour north of Devils Tower. They were fantastic! Great food, beautiful scenery, comfortable clean place to stay, and a great sense of humor (especially ol’ Nick). Needless to say, we had a blast both figuratively and literally. After all my searching, these guys are a true bargain. I would HIGHLY recommend them. They are a small outfit, so make your reservations EARLY!
What I learned on the trip –
Size – I thought prairie dogs were a little smaller than a ground hog. They’re not. They’re a LOT smaller than a ground hog. Large adults are about the size of a 1 liter pop bottle. Pups (there are a lot more pups) are about the size of a normal water bottle. So if you want to practice, practice shooting water bottles…
Gun shy – This is a little weird. If the town has already been shot over, they will be very gun shy. As soon as you get out of a vehicle, most of them are gone. Then again, if you miss one, don’t worry. It will normally let you shoot at it at least 3 or 4 times before it runs into its hole… Having a quieter rifle is better in this regard. We found 22 rimfire to be useless, but 17hmr was VERY effective out to 150 yards. I worked up some very accurate reduced .223 loads (1950 fps) that also worked very well out to 200 yds without making a ton of noise. Not enough to cycle my AR, but very accurate out of my bolt gun.
Wind – This wasn’t a surprise to me, but its always windy and the wind is always changing. I shot NRA Hi-Power matches for a few years including several trips to Perry, and was relatively successful. I didn’t find the wind to be very difficult to deal with, but others might.
Yardage estimation – Extremely difficult. Very few reference points to look at. Additionally, if you are shooting at a dog that’s 150 yards away, and see one in the back ground, it may be 400 yards out. Most of our misses were due to elevation.
Glass quality – I’ve never been an optics snob. A $200 scope has always been plenty good enough to shoot deer out to 300 yds. Also never saw much benefit in competition. Difficult to do really well at distance with a $200 scope, but $500 ish was plenty to place at or near the top of the field. After this trip, I understand the benefit of really good glass. I have an Athlon Argos 6-24 on my bolt action 223. Decent scope, and really good considering the cost, but that rifle deserves better. I also have an Athlon 4.5-27 Ares on my 6.5 Grendel upper. The Ares was MUCH MUCH clearer (at the same magnification) than my Argos. Extremely difficult to shoot pups at 500 yards in the heavy mirage with the Argos. With the Ares, it wasn’t nearly as bad.
Reticle – I already thought this way, but this trip confirmed it 100% First Focal Plain Christmas Tree Reticles are an absolute MUST HAVE for prairie dog hunting. Wind and distance is ALWAYS changing, so you’re not going to mess with your turrets very much. This type of reticle allows the shooter to make quick, accurate, and consistent hold overs for wind and elevation. Absolutely critical for shooting prairie dogs. Side parallax adjustment is also handy, but not required.
Sunscreen – I knew this already, but I forgot to reapply my sun screen during the day. Burned the back of my calves pretty bad. Set a schedule. Re-apply at least 2x during the day.
Cell Phones/radios – Reception around Devil’s tower is limited at best. Wyoming has less than half a million people total, so putting up more cell towers isn’t a very big priority. If you have a group, take radios so that you can communicate if you split up.
There are essentially 3 different ways to hunt prairie dogs. Some of the gear needed will depend on how you want to hunt them, and some of the gear is universal (like LOTS of water).
The first is to stay in one spot, set up with some kind of portable shooting bench (or prone if the terrain permits it), and spend the day shooting from that location. This works if you only have one or two hunters, you’re on a decent size dog town, AND you’re able to hit them with some consistency past 400 yards. This process allows you to shoot a lot farther, but it requires you to be a lot more accurate, and you don’t end up shooting through as much ammo.
The second way is to stalk the prairie dogs. In this method, you shoot off of a standing tripod. Using the natural terrain for cover, you slowly make your way around or through the dog town. Here you’re taking shots 20 to 200 yards with most being 75 to 150. You do a lot of shooting, you kill a lot of prairie dogs, and you get pretty good at shooting off a tripod while standing. Apparently some guys belly crawl through the dog town in ghillie suits. We found that walking through ditches and staying behind the small hills or occasional tree was more than enough to get us within 100 yards.
The third way is a cross between the first two. You don’t really stalk the prairie dogs, but you do move around a lot. Whether you use light weight shooting benches that set up quickly, or you just shoot across the hood or bed of a truck, the result is the same. You set up on a dog town, shoot for several minutes to maybe an hour, then move to the next dog town and repeat. This works well if you have 4 or 5 different towns to shoot over and its quick to get from one to the next.
What to take –
The universal list includes a hat with a full brim (preferably one that has a built in cover for your neck as well), some good boots (I recommend Danner, at least one cooler, lunch, sun screen/block, plenty of water (minimum of 1 gal per person per day), comfortable hearing protection, and a vehicle with some ground clearance. A car or minivan probably isn’t going to cut it. We were lucky. We were in a full size van with some aggressive AT tires. Thankfully it was dry, and had been for a few weeks, and we didn’t have any issues. If it had been wet, we had a side by side available to rent. If the van had regular highway tread, we would have had problems. A 4wd pickup with decent tires should be fine. Of course you’ll also need guns and ammo. What kind depends somewhat on how you choose to hunt them. Also plan on how you’re going to go #2 because there are no porta-potties Probably worth having something for snakes, but we didn’t see any.
A note on boots. Most of mine are geared towards either cool to cold weather, or extremely wet and muddy conditions (muck boots). All of my leather work boots (mostly redwings) are totally worn out and were not going to have enough life left in them to be useful for my trip. I have 2 pair of insulated Danner hunting boots that have served me well. Boots didn’t cross my mind until a few days before I left, so I hurried up and ordered a pair of Danner 8” Kinetic waterproof boots. This turned out to be one of the best purchases I have ever made. I was only able to wear them to work one day (office work), before wearing them to the air port for the flight(s) out to Wyoming. They felt great as soon as I put them on. The first thing I noticed was how light they were compared to most of my other boots, including several pair of redwings that I’ve worn over the years. After the first day at work, my feet hurt just a little, but not bad considering I’d had them on for 12 hrs. After the second day, when I took them off at the hotel (after 16 ½ hrs), my feet were still a little sore in a couple places, but noticeably better than the day before. After the first full day of hunting, my feet felt fine. That day of hunting started around 7:30. We were back at the ranch around 7PM BUT a lightning storm the night before had started several forest fires in the area that were potential threats to the ranch. SO… we helped the rancher repair the spray truck, grabbed a quick bite to eat, then headed out to offer help digging hand lines if needed. The area of the fire we went to ended up containing itself, so we didn’t end up doing much. It was close to midnight before I finally took those boots off. While my feet were tired and sore, it wasn’t because of the boots. It was because I’d been on them for roughly 16 hrs. The boots had done fantastic. I’ve “liked” Danner boots ever since I bought my first pair of hunting boots (still wearing them), but I’m now officially a Danner fan boy.
Shooting from one spot –
The area we hunted had been hunted once before a few weeks prior. The dogs that were 250 yds or more away from us largely ignored our presence until the ground started blowing up around them, or their buddy exploded next to them. Even then, you could usually get at least 2 shots at a dog, sometimes more. The dogs inside of 200 yards largely vanished as soon as we stepped out of the vehicle. Based on this, I would say that the bulk of your shooting will be over 250 yards, probably over 300. You’ll need a stable shooting bench, or some other platform to shoot from. If you’re shooting prone from a shooting mat, take some towels to lay down on the black rubber. It gets SUPER hot in the sun. Bipods are nice, but IMHO you really want a front rest and a rear bag if you’re going this route. A canopy is nice, but it may be too windy to put it up. There will be very few trees if any, so having source of shade to relax in once in a while is helpful. As far as weapon choice, I would recommend something that’s capable of shooting high BC projectiles accurately and at a high speed. .223 would be a bare minimum. 224 Valkyrie, 22-250, 220 Swift, 243 Win, 6mm Creedmore, 25-06, 260 Remington… basically something that can buck the wind at or beyond 500 yards and shoots pretty flat with those heavy projectiles. You’ll want a cartridge and a gun that perform extremely well. Guns that shoot cartridges like this are known to heat up quickly, so it would be a good idea to take at least 2.
Stalking –
There are different ways to do this, but what worked well for us, and probably the simplest is to use some kind of Tripod that allows you to shoot accurately from a standing position. I have a Bog-Pod that we used that worked well. We didn’t take enough tripods so I ended up loaning my tripod to my buddies 15 year old son and I used my Ewing spotting scope stand. I was able to make it work, but the Bog-Pod was definitely better in multiple ways. Good, comfortable boots are absolutely required here. There are cacti on the ground, so you want protection for your feet and ancle areas. You’ll need a way to carry water and ammo with you. A back pack works. I used a bolt action .223 and loaded the ammo into 30 round Pmags. I stripped 5 rounds at a time out of the mag to reload the bolt gun, and put the spent brass in my pocket (don’t leave a mess). While shots are available at over 200 yds, it’s normally better to just get closer. If there’s any cover available, you’ll probably be able to get within 100 yds pretty easy. One of the other guys used a 17 HMR for this, and it worked extremely well out to 150 yds. Past 100 yds, he had to hold into the wind and a little high. He left everything from 150 to 200 yds for me to shoot I used a reduced load that consisted of a 40 gr V-max and 7.0 grains of Green Dot. This gave me a velocity of roughly 1950 fps, ½ MOA accuracy, no recoil, and a mild report similar to his HMR. Plus it was CHEAP to reload in large quantities. Even in 10-15 mph cross winds at 200 yds, it was easy enough to hold a couple inches into the wind. I limited my shots to just over 200 yards. If they were farther than that, we would move closer. I did this by setting my parallax for around 150 to 175 yds. If the dog looked fuzzy, he was too far away to shoot. If he was only a little fuzzy, wait for him to stand up, put the horizontal cross hair on his head, move the trigger, and wait for the satisfying thwap…. If the dog was nice and sharp, aim dead on. If it was a little fuzzy, but close, aim 1 moa low. This system worked really well for me and could easily be modified to fit the performance of other cartridges. Other good cartridges for this would be the 218 Bee, 22 Hornet, 17 Hornet, and 221 Fireball. Full power 223/556 loads work fine, they are just noticeably louder which is worth considering if you are going to be shooting in close proximity to a buddy or two. If you hand load, a bolt action .223 is hard to beat because its so easy to work up a reduced hand load. Taking one rifle is enough for this type of hunt, but it’s always good to have a backup just in case I’d recommend having at least 300 rounds per day, and plan on taking at least 200 rounds with you when you start off, restocking at lunch time. You’ll also want a sling on the rifle. The outfitter mentioned that some guys like to belly crawl up to the towns. Between the hot dry dirt, cacti, varies types of dung EVERYWHERE, and the potential encounter of a prairie rattler (never did see one), I’m not really interested in crawling across the prairie just to shoot a few more prairie rats, I mean dogs.
Shoot-n-move –
I think this is where an AR shines. Set up quick, spend 30 to 60 min whacking a bunch of dogs quickly between 150ish and 300ish yards, then move to another town and repeat. After a few hours, you can start they cycle over back at the beginning. The more hunting pressure the town has received, the harder it is to get them to stay put long enough to start shooting. An accurate AR15 allows you to make the most of that short window of time. High speed low drag. Shooting from the bed of a pickup truck, out the window of the truck, or across the hood can save time and get you on the dogs faster. You’ll likely go through more ammo with this route, so I’d recommend having 2 uppers and at least 400 rnds per day.
Lastly, if you are going to this part of the country and have never been, take at least one extra day to go see things. If you’re driving, plan on spending time in the Badlands. It’s also worth the entrance fees to go see Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and Devil’s Tower. We stayed the night before in Gillette Wy, and made a loop around Rapid City to see Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse, then went back into Wy to Devil’s Tower. It’s all a very beautiful area. Well worth taking the time to see and enjoy it while you’re there.
What I learned on the trip –
Size – I thought prairie dogs were a little smaller than a ground hog. They’re not. They’re a LOT smaller than a ground hog. Large adults are about the size of a 1 liter pop bottle. Pups (there are a lot more pups) are about the size of a normal water bottle. So if you want to practice, practice shooting water bottles…
Gun shy – This is a little weird. If the town has already been shot over, they will be very gun shy. As soon as you get out of a vehicle, most of them are gone. Then again, if you miss one, don’t worry. It will normally let you shoot at it at least 3 or 4 times before it runs into its hole… Having a quieter rifle is better in this regard. We found 22 rimfire to be useless, but 17hmr was VERY effective out to 150 yards. I worked up some very accurate reduced .223 loads (1950 fps) that also worked very well out to 200 yds without making a ton of noise. Not enough to cycle my AR, but very accurate out of my bolt gun.
Wind – This wasn’t a surprise to me, but its always windy and the wind is always changing. I shot NRA Hi-Power matches for a few years including several trips to Perry, and was relatively successful. I didn’t find the wind to be very difficult to deal with, but others might.
Yardage estimation – Extremely difficult. Very few reference points to look at. Additionally, if you are shooting at a dog that’s 150 yards away, and see one in the back ground, it may be 400 yards out. Most of our misses were due to elevation.
Glass quality – I’ve never been an optics snob. A $200 scope has always been plenty good enough to shoot deer out to 300 yds. Also never saw much benefit in competition. Difficult to do really well at distance with a $200 scope, but $500 ish was plenty to place at or near the top of the field. After this trip, I understand the benefit of really good glass. I have an Athlon Argos 6-24 on my bolt action 223. Decent scope, and really good considering the cost, but that rifle deserves better. I also have an Athlon 4.5-27 Ares on my 6.5 Grendel upper. The Ares was MUCH MUCH clearer (at the same magnification) than my Argos. Extremely difficult to shoot pups at 500 yards in the heavy mirage with the Argos. With the Ares, it wasn’t nearly as bad.
Reticle – I already thought this way, but this trip confirmed it 100% First Focal Plain Christmas Tree Reticles are an absolute MUST HAVE for prairie dog hunting. Wind and distance is ALWAYS changing, so you’re not going to mess with your turrets very much. This type of reticle allows the shooter to make quick, accurate, and consistent hold overs for wind and elevation. Absolutely critical for shooting prairie dogs. Side parallax adjustment is also handy, but not required.
Sunscreen – I knew this already, but I forgot to reapply my sun screen during the day. Burned the back of my calves pretty bad. Set a schedule. Re-apply at least 2x during the day.
Cell Phones/radios – Reception around Devil’s tower is limited at best. Wyoming has less than half a million people total, so putting up more cell towers isn’t a very big priority. If you have a group, take radios so that you can communicate if you split up.
There are essentially 3 different ways to hunt prairie dogs. Some of the gear needed will depend on how you want to hunt them, and some of the gear is universal (like LOTS of water).
The first is to stay in one spot, set up with some kind of portable shooting bench (or prone if the terrain permits it), and spend the day shooting from that location. This works if you only have one or two hunters, you’re on a decent size dog town, AND you’re able to hit them with some consistency past 400 yards. This process allows you to shoot a lot farther, but it requires you to be a lot more accurate, and you don’t end up shooting through as much ammo.
The second way is to stalk the prairie dogs. In this method, you shoot off of a standing tripod. Using the natural terrain for cover, you slowly make your way around or through the dog town. Here you’re taking shots 20 to 200 yards with most being 75 to 150. You do a lot of shooting, you kill a lot of prairie dogs, and you get pretty good at shooting off a tripod while standing. Apparently some guys belly crawl through the dog town in ghillie suits. We found that walking through ditches and staying behind the small hills or occasional tree was more than enough to get us within 100 yards.
The third way is a cross between the first two. You don’t really stalk the prairie dogs, but you do move around a lot. Whether you use light weight shooting benches that set up quickly, or you just shoot across the hood or bed of a truck, the result is the same. You set up on a dog town, shoot for several minutes to maybe an hour, then move to the next dog town and repeat. This works well if you have 4 or 5 different towns to shoot over and its quick to get from one to the next.
What to take –
The universal list includes a hat with a full brim (preferably one that has a built in cover for your neck as well), some good boots (I recommend Danner, at least one cooler, lunch, sun screen/block, plenty of water (minimum of 1 gal per person per day), comfortable hearing protection, and a vehicle with some ground clearance. A car or minivan probably isn’t going to cut it. We were lucky. We were in a full size van with some aggressive AT tires. Thankfully it was dry, and had been for a few weeks, and we didn’t have any issues. If it had been wet, we had a side by side available to rent. If the van had regular highway tread, we would have had problems. A 4wd pickup with decent tires should be fine. Of course you’ll also need guns and ammo. What kind depends somewhat on how you choose to hunt them. Also plan on how you’re going to go #2 because there are no porta-potties Probably worth having something for snakes, but we didn’t see any.
A note on boots. Most of mine are geared towards either cool to cold weather, or extremely wet and muddy conditions (muck boots). All of my leather work boots (mostly redwings) are totally worn out and were not going to have enough life left in them to be useful for my trip. I have 2 pair of insulated Danner hunting boots that have served me well. Boots didn’t cross my mind until a few days before I left, so I hurried up and ordered a pair of Danner 8” Kinetic waterproof boots. This turned out to be one of the best purchases I have ever made. I was only able to wear them to work one day (office work), before wearing them to the air port for the flight(s) out to Wyoming. They felt great as soon as I put them on. The first thing I noticed was how light they were compared to most of my other boots, including several pair of redwings that I’ve worn over the years. After the first day at work, my feet hurt just a little, but not bad considering I’d had them on for 12 hrs. After the second day, when I took them off at the hotel (after 16 ½ hrs), my feet were still a little sore in a couple places, but noticeably better than the day before. After the first full day of hunting, my feet felt fine. That day of hunting started around 7:30. We were back at the ranch around 7PM BUT a lightning storm the night before had started several forest fires in the area that were potential threats to the ranch. SO… we helped the rancher repair the spray truck, grabbed a quick bite to eat, then headed out to offer help digging hand lines if needed. The area of the fire we went to ended up containing itself, so we didn’t end up doing much. It was close to midnight before I finally took those boots off. While my feet were tired and sore, it wasn’t because of the boots. It was because I’d been on them for roughly 16 hrs. The boots had done fantastic. I’ve “liked” Danner boots ever since I bought my first pair of hunting boots (still wearing them), but I’m now officially a Danner fan boy.
Shooting from one spot –
The area we hunted had been hunted once before a few weeks prior. The dogs that were 250 yds or more away from us largely ignored our presence until the ground started blowing up around them, or their buddy exploded next to them. Even then, you could usually get at least 2 shots at a dog, sometimes more. The dogs inside of 200 yards largely vanished as soon as we stepped out of the vehicle. Based on this, I would say that the bulk of your shooting will be over 250 yards, probably over 300. You’ll need a stable shooting bench, or some other platform to shoot from. If you’re shooting prone from a shooting mat, take some towels to lay down on the black rubber. It gets SUPER hot in the sun. Bipods are nice, but IMHO you really want a front rest and a rear bag if you’re going this route. A canopy is nice, but it may be too windy to put it up. There will be very few trees if any, so having source of shade to relax in once in a while is helpful. As far as weapon choice, I would recommend something that’s capable of shooting high BC projectiles accurately and at a high speed. .223 would be a bare minimum. 224 Valkyrie, 22-250, 220 Swift, 243 Win, 6mm Creedmore, 25-06, 260 Remington… basically something that can buck the wind at or beyond 500 yards and shoots pretty flat with those heavy projectiles. You’ll want a cartridge and a gun that perform extremely well. Guns that shoot cartridges like this are known to heat up quickly, so it would be a good idea to take at least 2.
Stalking –
There are different ways to do this, but what worked well for us, and probably the simplest is to use some kind of Tripod that allows you to shoot accurately from a standing position. I have a Bog-Pod that we used that worked well. We didn’t take enough tripods so I ended up loaning my tripod to my buddies 15 year old son and I used my Ewing spotting scope stand. I was able to make it work, but the Bog-Pod was definitely better in multiple ways. Good, comfortable boots are absolutely required here. There are cacti on the ground, so you want protection for your feet and ancle areas. You’ll need a way to carry water and ammo with you. A back pack works. I used a bolt action .223 and loaded the ammo into 30 round Pmags. I stripped 5 rounds at a time out of the mag to reload the bolt gun, and put the spent brass in my pocket (don’t leave a mess). While shots are available at over 200 yds, it’s normally better to just get closer. If there’s any cover available, you’ll probably be able to get within 100 yds pretty easy. One of the other guys used a 17 HMR for this, and it worked extremely well out to 150 yds. Past 100 yds, he had to hold into the wind and a little high. He left everything from 150 to 200 yds for me to shoot I used a reduced load that consisted of a 40 gr V-max and 7.0 grains of Green Dot. This gave me a velocity of roughly 1950 fps, ½ MOA accuracy, no recoil, and a mild report similar to his HMR. Plus it was CHEAP to reload in large quantities. Even in 10-15 mph cross winds at 200 yds, it was easy enough to hold a couple inches into the wind. I limited my shots to just over 200 yards. If they were farther than that, we would move closer. I did this by setting my parallax for around 150 to 175 yds. If the dog looked fuzzy, he was too far away to shoot. If he was only a little fuzzy, wait for him to stand up, put the horizontal cross hair on his head, move the trigger, and wait for the satisfying thwap…. If the dog was nice and sharp, aim dead on. If it was a little fuzzy, but close, aim 1 moa low. This system worked really well for me and could easily be modified to fit the performance of other cartridges. Other good cartridges for this would be the 218 Bee, 22 Hornet, 17 Hornet, and 221 Fireball. Full power 223/556 loads work fine, they are just noticeably louder which is worth considering if you are going to be shooting in close proximity to a buddy or two. If you hand load, a bolt action .223 is hard to beat because its so easy to work up a reduced hand load. Taking one rifle is enough for this type of hunt, but it’s always good to have a backup just in case I’d recommend having at least 300 rounds per day, and plan on taking at least 200 rounds with you when you start off, restocking at lunch time. You’ll also want a sling on the rifle. The outfitter mentioned that some guys like to belly crawl up to the towns. Between the hot dry dirt, cacti, varies types of dung EVERYWHERE, and the potential encounter of a prairie rattler (never did see one), I’m not really interested in crawling across the prairie just to shoot a few more prairie rats, I mean dogs.
Shoot-n-move –
I think this is where an AR shines. Set up quick, spend 30 to 60 min whacking a bunch of dogs quickly between 150ish and 300ish yards, then move to another town and repeat. After a few hours, you can start they cycle over back at the beginning. The more hunting pressure the town has received, the harder it is to get them to stay put long enough to start shooting. An accurate AR15 allows you to make the most of that short window of time. High speed low drag. Shooting from the bed of a pickup truck, out the window of the truck, or across the hood can save time and get you on the dogs faster. You’ll likely go through more ammo with this route, so I’d recommend having 2 uppers and at least 400 rnds per day.
Lastly, if you are going to this part of the country and have never been, take at least one extra day to go see things. If you’re driving, plan on spending time in the Badlands. It’s also worth the entrance fees to go see Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and Devil’s Tower. We stayed the night before in Gillette Wy, and made a loop around Rapid City to see Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse, then went back into Wy to Devil’s Tower. It’s all a very beautiful area. Well worth taking the time to see and enjoy it while you’re there.
