Gophers Take One For The Team

[STS]

I took a run over by Ennis Montana this morning to help a rancher friend with some gopher control. 132 shots yielded 125 bodies which made the landowner mucho happy. The .17 Mach IV does a nice job on them without any excess noise around the cattle. Gophers live in pretty places. And when the snow gets deep I work on some of the coyotes that stir up trouble come calving time.

 

[snert]

Beautiful. Simply stunning.

I have a 17FB and every time I pull the trigger I grin.

 

[Trooper836]

That's it!!, I am moving. Beautiful place to be and sounds like you did some fine shooting.

 

[STS]

The mountain picture is the south end of the Tobacco Root range and that ranch occasionally has a visit from some wolves. Where he is doesn't lend itself to elk coming on to his ranch, so the wolves don't spend much time there. I hunt elk on another ranch about 20 miles from there that has as many as 1500 head of elk on it in the winter. The snow forces them down out of the higher elevations and the wolves are right behind them. I stopped by there last week and the lady of the house told me that they had a big 6x6 bull get tangled up in a fence and the next morning there were 5 black wolves laying within 50 yards of a pretty busy highway feeding on the carcass. She had a good picture of the 5 of them just over the fence laying around. I'd be willing to bet that bull was being chased and was more concerned by what was behind him than the fence in front of him.
In the middle of December a friend of mine and I killed a couple of elk on that place and the next day there were 11 bald eagles cleaning up the gut piles. You see a lot of interesting things around here.

 

[boltfluter]

Beautiful scenery, and a beautiful coyote for this late in the year!

 

[Bocephus]

I took a run over by Ennis Montana this morning to help a rancher friend with some gopher control. 132 shots yielded 125 bodies which made the landowner mucho happy. The .17 Mach IV does a nice job on them without any excess noise around the cattle. Gophers live in pretty places. And when the snow gets deep I work on some of the coyotes that stir up trouble come calving time. View attachment 1332116View attachment 1332115

Great hit ratio!
Have friends near there in the Ruby Valley. A good 1022, several boxes of ammo and a few hours of sun can make a lots of smiles and memories.