Made it out after our downpours yesterday. Setup in a pasture overlooking a tree line that has produced many this year but nothing showed. I packed up and took a walk and spotted one at 78 yards and it remained out while I opened up my tripod. It sounded and looked like a hit so I navigated around all the water obstacles to check it out. As I neared the spot there is one watching me at 17 yards. I setup the tripod and dialed back the Nightforce and yolked it! I thought that maybe I missed the first but found both 10 feet apart! Continued my walk and spotted one at 205 yards and setup once again. The wind was blowing at about 10 MPH and was pushing me around as I was standing with no backrest. The Jewel broke and I knew that it was a miss! I reloaded and looked and there it was again. Shot again and sounded/looked like a hit so I waded through 2 ft. of water to reach the spot only to find nothing! I did see a rock shattered were I took the first shot and by the looks it splashed him good with rock fragments and maybe explains why it didn't go to ground as pieces were in the burrow! Started back and spot this one at 190 yards and with the terrain was able to go prone. I could hear the hit so I went wading again, without waders I might add, and was greeted with this carnage! The 70 grain Sierra BlitzKing from my 14tw .243 Ackley Improved at 3900 fps really makes a mess of them! This makes #114 confirmed, self imposed "corpse photo" rule, for this Season and perhaps my last outing.
Normally there is just a trickle of water in this stream fed from a spring-fed pond with the discharge side spotted with swamps. This dictates that it remain pasture with plenty of trees and the Chucks love it. I would call this area infested!
