oregon ground squirrels

[Razaboo]

This message is for anybody living in the Bend, Redmond area of Oregon.

I got a huge surprise from my 9 year old daughter last night. For her birthday she wants to go ground squirrel hunting in eastern Oregon. I am posting this hoping someone can give me some leads on where to go and whether or not the squirrels are out in late April or early May. Now I don't want anyones "honeyhole", just some suggestions of a good place to take my kids hunting. Thanks in advance for any replies.

Stan and Jessica(my daughter)

 

[moonlight]

I am from Mt. Vernon in Grant County about 120 miles east of Bend. The squirrels are up in my neck of the woods and I know a lot of people in the Redmond area who have been out reducing the population also. I know that a lot of the people in that are travel to the desert between Bend and Burns to get their Sage rat slaughtering fix, so you might look into that. There are also a lot of ranchers in the Powell Butte and Prineville area that would probably be willing to let you on their property to help keep there rat populations down. Just ask around the area and be respectful of others property if they let you on. Keep your shots in the right direction and you and your daughter will have a great time. What a great way to introduce a youngster to the sport of hunting. Good luck and have a great time.

 

[Gator]

Down by Fairview Or, I use to go up there and shoot several hundred of them a day, I'm trying to remeber the ranchers name( it a simple name too) he lives about 10 miles north of town he owns land on both sides of the hiway his place was just over ran with them, The county said he had over a 100,000 gophers on his place, he wasn't able to poison them due to all the golden eagles around his place, after we shot up 5 bricks(500rds) of 22's the fingers hurt so bad from loading those 10-22 clips we was using 7 rifles(all 10-22) with 4 guys shooting and the barrels still got hot,we saw several of them that had some white in them too, The eagles would sit out in the field just eating away on the ones we shot. The first day we kept track of the numbers until we was over 300 then no-one counted any more. I remeber his Name it is Melvin D!ck, really that is his name.
Try calling him and see if he having the same problem as before we couldn't even drive out into his field without caving in tunnels from all the holes, the holes was only a few feet apart there was so many of them, the oats field next to this field was ate back about 80 ft from the fence due to all the gophers, The next day we came out to the field to do some more shooting all the dead ones was gone. We used a piece of plywood on top of my pickup rack and used that as a shooting platform worked great.

 

[Gator]

Razaboo did you get down to lakeview or fairview right down on the State line to hunt those gophers yet.

 

[oldoregon]

I spent all of last summer going into the logging woods and shooting columbian ground squirrls all day. My 1 day record is 297. I shot well over 3,000 of them with my marlin model 60 .22 (I hope I dont sound like I am bragging too much) . This was in union and wallowa counties of northest oregon. Columbians are about the size of a prarie dog, and wherevewr they live, they absolutly infest the place. There is a piece of property in union county that is owned By DR Johnson (the timber guru of oregon) it is run by wallowa forest products of wallowas oregon. I seriously believe this to be the best squrrel hunting are in the state. The squirell populatiuon is well into the millions there, and the mill would be glad to have you help thin them out. Any question please PM me. You could spend all day every day up there, and not put a dent in the problem.

 

[Razaboo]

We will be haeded out next thursday the 22nd through the 24th.

I'll try to get some pics of the kids and post them after we get home.

Thanks for all of the help and ideas.

Stan

 

[polarbear]

I am hoping to get over to my buddy's place just out of Prineville in a couple of weeks to throw lead at those little sage rat bastards. There are a couple of ranches that we hunt that are chocked full of em. The cool thing is, you can shoot a wheel barrow full of them and the nexy day the coyotes will have them all cleaned up for you. We also shoot some pretty fat song dogs too. I am going to try and get take my 7 year old daughter along and get her into it. She is a great shot with a 22 and this is the kind of fun that kids love. We also get to look for mulie sheds.
Eric