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Jackrabbit Hunting in Nevada
Every summer my wife and my youngest daughter head back to South Africa for the summer, and my older son and daughter come out to stay with me. This year we decided that I’d drive out to get them in Colorado then we’d take a couple of weeks traveling through California, Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado before driving back to Indiana. We planned to stay in some nice resort hotels as a base, and then head out for some water sports, hiking, and wouldn’t you know – air gun hunting.
Our first hunt took place out on the California / Arizona border in the deep Mojave Desert. After getting up and having a big breakfast, we headed out to a dirt road we’d spotted earlier, that led back into a very hot, very rugged region dotted with desert brush. This part of the Mojave is different than what I usually hunt, more barren, fewer succulents, and no Joshua trees. The spot we decided to try first was a couple of miles away from a golf course, and I suspected that Jackrabbits would sit out the day in the desert before moving down to feed at night. My son was carrying a Beeman R1 in .177, my daughter carried my Beeman C1 .177carbine, and I carried a modified Crosman 2240 pistol in .22. It was already close to 100 degrees as we drove along, and just minutes into the drive we spotted a large blacktail jack bounding across the road up ahead. As we stopped the car and quietly piled out, my son spotted a jack laying in a scrape about 50 yards away. He slowly stalked to about 30 yards with his sister and I trailing behind. We watched as he raised his rifle, clicking open the scope cover and off the safety, he let the hollowpoint pellet fly. We saw the pellet hit, a solid thud and a fluff of fur flying off the chest of the rabbit as it leaped up into the air and took a couple of steps behind a bush. My daughter had been working her way around from the opposite side and signaled that she saw the rabbit. I gave her the nod to take the shot as her brother was cut off by heavy brush. She sat down and braced the rifle on her knee. She later told me that she’d been able to see the big old jack between the branches of the shrub. Taking aim she braced herself and slowly squeezed the trigger and the rabbit lunged. As the three of us slowly stepped around the brush, we were surprised to find two nice jackrabbits anchored. The area looked promising, so as they hiked back to the car to get some water I decided to work my way around a wash dotted with brush and a few cactus. Moving very slowly behind cover of the rather sparse brush I spotted a rabbit scrape and could make out a little bit of the rabbits head. Raising my pistol and looking through the scope, I found that I had a clear, though small, shooting lane. I squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. After clicking off the safety and lining up my shot again I let fly a .22 round nose pellet. The rabbit dropped and I carried it back to the other two taken by the kids. We hunted the washes for about three hours and took a total of six big jackrabbits before calling a pool break. One of these rabbits was the hardest kill I’d ever made
We swam, shopped and rested before heading out around dusk for a last hunt at this spot. We were scheduled to move on the following day and wanted to try this area one more time. As we reached the area of our earlier hunt and parked, we immediately saw a rabbit bolt. We followed him about a quarter mile before he held up next to one of the few Joshua trees growing here. I took a kneeling position and aimed the R1, setting the scope at 9x. I went for the chest, and as I squeezed off the shot the jack just rolled over, dead by the time we got to him. I paced off the distance and it was 50 yards. All in all, it was a great hunt – we nailed nine jack rabbits in the two hunts. We made shots between 25 to 50 yards, sometimes in a fairly stiff breeze. The Beeman R1 and C1 are two of my favorite rifles for jackrabbit hunting. They are highly accurate and very powerful air guns. The heavy round nose pellets fed to both of these rifles worked better than the hollowpoints. They did not over penetrate, had better knock down power, and were more accurate at the 35 + yard shots.
The 2240 is an inherently accurate pistol, and topped with a good scope it was very accurate out to almost 25 yards. The gun I used has been modified with a valve job and 10” barrel and generates about 12 fpe. I have taken a number of cottontails and squirrels with this gun; however, on these big hares the knock down power was not really optimal. I shot one rabbit at about thirty yards and spent the next half hour chasing him through the brush to get inside of 20 yards for a killing shot to finish the job. In future I’ll try a larger bore pistol in .32 or 9mm to see if I can get better results. If not, I’ll stick to rifles for this quarry.
But the really great thing was spending the day with my two kids. They grow up so fast, that the chance to spend a day in the field doing something we all enjoy is special to me. Both my kids did very well with their gun handling, and I think that the next step is to take them with me for big game. These airgun hunts have been an excellent training ground. The only down side was that even though we were using sunscreen factor 30, we all got a burn to carry with us over the next few days.
Nutria in Louisiana; My Lost Trophy
When I arrived in New Orleans on that late spring evening, it was already hot and humid, at least it felt that way to me after the unrelenting winter we’d had (I’ll never get used to these) in the Midwest. For once my rifles were amongst the first bags off the belt, so I stopped to check into my hotel and was soon on my way to Baton Rouge for a brief expedition to shoot nutria with an old buddy from Dallas. I had packed up my Beeman R1 in .20 cal and a Chinese B-21 rifle in .22 that I’d just acquired. Ever since reading an online article by well known airgun hunter Thomas Jue, I had been itching to get a nutria with one of my air rifles. So when I found out Rick was also going to be in town for a business meeting, we had made a plan to break away for an evening hunt before we took care of our respective business obligations. Rick had fished and hunted water fowl here over the years and had a pretty good idea where we should start. This was going to be his first outing with an air rifle, and we were both looking forward to going after these giant water rats. I picked Rick up at his hotel and took of following his directions to a spot a few miles outside of Baton Rouge.
Arriving at a nondescript canal that cut through the semi-tropical growth about dusk, we decided to hike along and see if we could jump a water rat commencing his evening feed. Working our way up the side of a muddy embankment Rick grabbed my arm and pointed to the other side of the canal. I caught a movement in the direction he was pointing which turned out to be a partially submerged form that on closer inspection turned out to be a fair sized nutria slowly swimming towards the opposite bank of the murky canal. I quickly sat down to shoot from a more stable position as the rat was not presenting a very big target and was about 30 yards away. I felt and heard a gurgling squash as I sank into the mud; in my excitement I had forgotten that I had been standing in a mud puddle when I decided to sit! I tried to ignore the mucky ooze I was now firmly entrenched in and drew a bead on the nutrias head just as he was reaching the shore. I have hunted a lot with my R1 and had faith in my ability to hit my target, I had never shot a nutria with it though, and had a passing concern as to whether the 14 gr round nose .20 pellet was going to be effective on such large quarry. I went through my ritual, a couple of big breaths, blow it out half way, and slowly squeeze the trigger. The crack of the rifle and thud of the pellet hitting home seemed to merge as I watched the big rat start to thrash around while letting out a brief squeal. I reloaded as the rat started to quiet down and fired a second shot into his head, where upon he laid perfectly still. We could not get to the other side of the canal to collect my trophy, so decided to keep hunting until we arrived at a small wooden bridge spanning the canal about a few hundred yards down. On the way we saw a couple more rats, but they were out of range and then gone by the time we could get to them. Crossing over the bridge in the rapidly diminishing light we started back towards the truck on the other side of the canal, with the intent of picking up the first nutria I’d taken with an air rifle. But the fact that it was getting real dark and we had forgotten to bring a flashlight conspired against us – as hard as I looked I could not find the rat. I don’t know if a gator or some other scavenging opportunist got him, or we just couldn’t find him, but my trophy was gone!
Darkness was well and truly upon us by this time, and we were not really prepared to embark on a night hunt, so grudgingly I loaded up my gear and changed out of my muddy pants and prepared for the trek back to town. Back in the Big Easy we settled down to a crawdad etoufe and a couple of cold beers to discuss the hunt. The R1 performed well with the round nose pellets, but I couldn’t help thinking that the same rifle in .22 or .25 might have anchored the rat more effectively. However, any statistician will tell you a sample of one is worthless, though based on this experience I determined that my next trip for this animal would see me with one of my larger caliber rifles. My first airgun hunt for nutria, and I had no trophy, no pictures, but a clear idea of what I would do next time around.
Snowshoe Hares in Utah
I had driven to Utah to hunt deer with a friend of mine that lived in Salt Lake City. The plan was for me to arrive a couple of days early to set up a base camp and scout the area before the season opened. Keith was going to drive up the night before and we would spend the next five days trying to fill our tags.
I brought along my Beeman C1 to get in some snowshoe hare hunting as I scouted, figuring that as I covered ground I’d probably see some rabbits I could bag for the pot. The advantage of using an airgun instead of a rimfire was that I wouldn’t make noise and spook any deer in the area. After setting up camp in a powdery snow, I grabbed my rifle and pack then headed off. I worked the ridges glassing the mountainsides and valleys for a couple of hours without seeing anything, but did find some good habitat to hunt in the coming days. Walking through a forested area carpeted in snow, I stopped to look around. Out of the corner of my eye I detected a coal black eye watching me back, slowly making out the form of a rabbit hunched down beside a log about twenty five yards away from where I stood. He was big and wearing a white winter coat, secure in his camouflage. Raising my rifle I had to take the shot standing in an awkward posture, as I would have spooked him if I tried to reposition myself. The shot took the hare down on impact, a direct hit to the head. I gathered up my trophy and tethered him to a ring in my pack. The snow was starting to come down heavier, it was late in the day, and I reckoned I was still about three miles as the crow flies from my camp, unfortunately for me my trip was going to be a bit longer.
The snow was coming down in a flurry, and it was obscuring the mountains I had used as landmarks in a shroud of low clouds and snow flurries. I didn’t have more than a couple of hours of daylight left and I was getting a bit worried. Not wanting to get myself lost in this weather I decided to sit out this flurry and wait for a break in the weather – but also used the time to get myself ready to spend a pretty miserable night if I had to. I found a sheltered spot under the boroughs of a spruce and gathered up some kindling to start a small fire to warm up and make a cup of soup. Taking stock of my gear I found that I didn’t have much with me for a night out, my emergency kit, teapot, some candy bars, and a space blanket. I wouldn’t be comfortable but I’d survive. But after about an hour the snow broke and clouds lifted as rapidly as they had come, so a decision had to be made whether to stay in my make shift emergency camp or go for my comfortable little trailer. I thought I’d make it so killed my fire and loaded up quickly for the walk back. Making good time and recognizing the terrain from my hike in, I knew I was getting close to home. As I walked up the last hill to the flat where I was camped I saw my trailer waiting. And standing ten yards beyond that was a nice six point buck, who looked at me for a couple of seconds before crashing away through the brush.
There were several things that made this a memorable trip; it was the first snowshoe hare I’d taken with an air rifle. Getting stuck in the snow had been interesting, in retrospect I had been scared to death but managed to keep my wits. And oh yea, that quick look at the buck bounding away, was the last one I saw on my trip!
Colorado Prairie Dogs
There was still a light covering of snow on the ground even though the last few days had been warming up quickly. The track of BLM land I intended to hunt had been suggested by an air gunner I’d been emailing with for sometime, and I was hoping to find a good population of these chubby little rodents not subjected to a great deal of firearm pressure. I was looking for the remnants of some old stock holding pens, which in shirt order came into view. I love it when the directions I’m following are accurate and actually get me to where I’m going. Often on this type of trip where I don’t know the area or the person giving me directions, I never find the place I’m looking for.
It was about 8:00 am as I parked my car and grabbed my gear for the quarter mile trek to the buildings. My guide told me via email that the dogs burrowed all around this area and I could use the structure for a hide. My plan was to hike in a find a protected area where I could get into a prone position and throw my cammo netting over my body. I was shooting my Daystate in .177, so I wouldn’t blow my cover by cocking and loading the rifle, which is always the problem when using deep cammoflauge and a springer. I had left the tank in the car, figuring I’d hike out and find a new spot once my gun needed a recharge.
The landscape was pitted with the burrows as far as I could see and there were already prairie dogs out grazing as I moved in. And while many bolted down their burrows when they saw me, a few stood on their haunches or stuck their bodies halfway out of the burrow watching me. I found an old wooden fence to sink down behind, that gave me partial cover. I unpacked my gear and laid my pack on the ground in front of me to use as a rest for my rifle. By this time all but one dog had taken cover, but at about 50 yards there was a sentry still sitting up watching me. I took aim, correcting for the slight crosswind and the required hold over, squeezing off my first shot of the day. I watched the puff of dirt behind him as he bolted down the hole. As there were no other dogs in the near vicinity at the moment, I pulled my brown/beige camo netting out and threw it over my body and hunkered down for the wait. About fifteen or twenty minutes later I saw one of the little rodents carefully crawl out of the hole, then another and another. Soon there were several of them grazing, with a couple of younger ones chasing each other around, within fifty yards of my position. Locking in on one, I settled the crosshairs on his head. Squeezing of the shot I heard and saw the impact as the animal slumped over. A couple of the closer ones let out a startled bark and bolted back down the hole, but many remained out. Repeating the process I took a couple more of the dogs before the bolted down the hole. This time I waited about a half hour, watching the animals further out before a couple of the less wary animals came out within range. I watched one of them run from one burrow towards another, and when he paused for a moment at the mouth of the hole I nailed him with a chest shot. He flipped back as I quickly slipped in another pellet and fired a head shot, I anchored him before he made it to the escape hatch. After this I waited for quite a while, but none of the critters seemed inclined to leave the security of their earthworks, at least within airgun range. I took this as a sign to move on, and headed back to the car. I drove a little further up to an area cut through with some washes, and decided to hike this to see what was around. After hiking for some time, I kicked up a jack rabbit. He ran about thirty yards, and stopped by a clump of brush, standing there with ears up and twitching around, ready to bolt at an instance notice. I slowly raised the rifle and lined up the shot. As the trigger released and the rifle report sounded, the rabbit dropped kicking around. I saw a couple of more rabbits but couldn’t get within range for a shot. Feeling I’d had a good days shoot, I stopped for a quick lunch then loaded up and began the three hour drive back to Denver.
The Sonoran Jackrabbit Hunt
My flight from Ontario arrived in Phoenix about two hours late, and I felt my impatience growing as I stood at the baggage claim waiting for my pack and rifle to come through. This trip was not starting out smoothly, but I was still in a pretty good mood, because soon I’d have my gear and be heading off into the Sonora desert to hunt jackrabbits. I love this desert more than any other in the States, the signature plant life is the impressive Saguaro cactus, a giant succulent that dots the rock strewn hillsides in improbable postures that present a surrealistic landscape. Tucked away in the desert brush would be black tail jackrabbits, which I think are one of the premier quarry to hunt with an airgun. They are wary, fast, and hard to spot as they lay in scraped out areas under the desert brush.
My pack was the first bag off the plane, but as luck would have it my rifle case was the last – but finally it arrived, and loading everything on a trolley I was off to pick up my rental car. I had reserved an SUV to allow me access to some of the rougher areas off the beaten track, and signing the paperwork I was soon under way. The plan was to drive down to Tucson on Friday night and meet up with Shelby, a friend and fellow shooter that I had meet on the project I was traveling in to work on, the following morning. On the way down I saw a coyote on the side of the road, and a cottontail scurrying across the road as I pulled in to my hotel.
The next morning I awoke and meet up with Shelby in the lobby at 4:00. We went out and transferred his gear to my car, and after stopping at a doughnut shop to fill our tanks on coffee and munchies we drove along a dirt road for about an hour or so to the Southeast of the city, to the base of a freestanding mini mountain range. The light was just coming up and I could began to make out that the terrain was what I’d hoped for, with an expanse of open desert running right up to a series of washes and canyons leading to the rough and rocky hills in front of us.
My gear on this trip had been selected with the intention of covering a lot of ground. My rifle was a Beeman C1 in .177 on which I’d attached a Leupold 6.5-20x scope. This rifle was light, propelled the heavy weight round nose pellets I was using at around 830 fps, and combined with the aforementioned optics was highly accurate. I used this gun to shoot many jacks back in California and it was a known entity that I had confidence in. Shelby did not carry an airgun, but had his Ruger 10/22 he carried along. The idea was that he’d be my guide on this trip, and maybe take a rabbit or two that was out of range for me. I wore jeans, a tee shirt, my leather hiking boots, and carried a Kelty day pack loaded with gear, food, and a two quarts of water. We were expecting the mid day sun to hit well over a hundred and it is important to keep hydrated on these outings.
We were hiking up towards a rock formation following the dirt road, when I spotted a big jack sitting partially obscured behind a bush. Actually, I did not see the rabbit so much as his ears, and with my naked eye could not make out a shooting lane for a headshot. Taking a steep closer I slowly lowered myself into a sitting position, and dialed up the magnification on the scope to 10x. The rabbit was about forty yards away, and between my slight shift in position and the magnification I could see about a two-inch patch of rabbit head below the ears. I slowly squeezed the trigger and an instant later heard the muffled thump of the pellet hitting home. There was a second of thrashing then stillness. Walking to the bush I found the rabbit laying dead, the pellet had impacted about a centimeter behind the left eye and had anchored the rabbit on the spot. Shelby was amazed; he had no experience with airguns and had been somewhat dubious about my selection of hunting gear.
We moved along glassing the desert, and I managed to bag a couple more rabbits. There were no spectacular shots, we managed to spot the rabbits within range and set up the shots before they spooked. I don’t know if this is something real or an idea which resides only in my mind, but I have the impression that if I pretend not to see the rabbit they sense that their camouflage is working and will hold a little longer, allowing the hunter to get a step or two closer and settle into a shooting position. During the course of the morning hunt we hiked into an arroyo when pandemonium erupted, as a small army of grunting/squealing peccary boiled around us. There must have been ten or so of these little porcinoid critters that flowed around us and formed up into a ragged line as they disappeared into the desert. We wrapped up the morning hunt with my three rabbits and a forth that Shelby had nailed at about fifty or sixty yards on a dead run. By then it was about midday and getting very hot, so we took off for the hotel pool, food, and a cold beer while we waited for the evening hunt.
The evening hunt was in a different area that was just as scenic, however it was rabbit challenged. We didn’t see anything but a covey of out of season non-airgun legal desert quail running through the brush, but it didn’t matter. Like most hunters, I want to make my hunt and bag my game, but if I don’t, that’s cool too; just being out in these places and feeling like I’m an integrated part of it is the real reward. We started out as the sun was dropping, and did catch sight of a couple of bunnies and a snake on the roadside, but the guns were cased and a good Mexican restaurant in town was waiting.
Hunting And Mountain Bikes
One of the facts of life in Southern California is wildfire, every year some vast track of land in our mountains, hills, or desert gets burned down. It is sad to see an area you’ve hiked or hunted for years reduced to a stand of charcoal, on the other hand it is a natural component in this ecosystems cycle of life. There are varieties of plants out here that will not germinate until they’ve been fired, so you have to just shrug it off. Still, I was devastated to find the dirt road leading to my secret quail hunting spot, from the Mojave Desert up into the San Gabriel Mountains, chained with a forestry department sign stating the area was closed to motorized vehicles after a burn. Wanting to check out the area before season opened, but not wanting to hike the 10 miles back from the closure decided to throw my mountain bike on the racks, load up a pack with a light overnight kit, strap on my Benjamin multi-pump rifle and do a quick overnighter to survey the damage.
Driving in far as I could, I parked the car and unloaded my gear. I lifted my bike over the chain, shouldered my pack, and got under way. I rode a few miles, mostly climbing, along the dirt/gravel road. Often I had a cliff face over my left shoulder and a sheer drop over my right. The weather was perfect; warm with clear blue skies under just enough fluffy white clouds to be scenic, a beautiful day to be out. As I came around the bend into the first valley the view changed. The trees were all burned, many still standing but looking like a strong wind would crumble them to dust, with the rock formations that had previously jutted up out of the forest like islands, standing naked and alone. I got off my bike and hiked, but didn’t see any evidence of life. No quail hunting here this year, I thought, but more overpowering was the thought that I would not in my lifetime see this area recover to what it had been, with the mixture of scrub oak, junipers, and Joshua trees feed by the small streams and springs struggling through the semi arid forest lands. Ah well, maybe my kids would be able to enjoy it some day, I slumped back on my bike and rode off, a bit less energized than I had been.
It was a hard slog the next couple of miles, the whole valley had been charred and I didn’t see anything alive, except the occasional fly by of a dove or a songbird. I started the climb out of the valley and when I crested it, the next valley was untouched. The trees and plants were in good condition with no sign of the recent unpleasantness, and this had the affect of breathing some life back into me. I peddled up a section of single track to an especially verdant area bordering a small stream and decided to make this my camp. I unloaded my pack of everything but water and a small emergency kit I always carry, binoculars, and some jerky and headed off to see what I could find.
The rifle I carried was my Benjamin .20 caliber toped with a Tasco 4x scope. I like this rifle because it is very light and compact, accurate, and does a good job on rabbits and ground squirrel out to about 30 yards. It is a quality rifle, but carries a low price tag, which as I will relate later was a good thing. I was shooting Sheradin Diablo pellets, which are heavy and make a big impression on small game.
As I mentioned, this area was covered with rock formations that thrust up amongst the trees. They can range from a few boulders 20 to 30 feet high up to huge mounds a hundred feet high and covering a half acre. Old wood and new vegetation surround the foot of these formations, and are the dens and feeding sites of choice for a variety of animals large and small. I was particularly interested in the rabbit and ground squirrels, and glassing a jumble of boulders spotted a number of ground squirrels. Unlike the vast towns of ground squirrels I’ve hunted up the coast, these populations are generally around 10 or 20 animals in a group living amongst and under the rocks. Using the boulders and fallen trees for cover, I slowly stalked to within about 50 yards, when I was spotted. The squirrels went diving into the rocks, with one large “gopher” keeping watch from the entrance. I walked in to 30 yards at which time the sentry sank down the hole with the rest of his family. Sitting with my back to a large rock wall and peeking over a fallen log which lay in front of me I settled in to wait. My gun was primed with eight pumps, and lying across my lap, when I noticed a head pop up from a hole under a bush about 20 feet to my right. I couldn’t raise my gun without alarming the little bugger, so I sat and watched. After about five minutes another head popped up from the burrow under a rock I’d seen the sentry dive down, but still the guy under the bush would’ve let out the alarm if I moved. As luck would have it, the squirrel closest to me took off towards the sentry and they started running and jumping around each other. I couldn’t tell if this was a fight, play, mating, or some ground squirrel combination of the three. This gave me a chance to slowly bring my rifle up, and putting the crosshairs on the second squirrel’s head, let fly. There was a thumping sound as the pellet hit home and the squirrel did a multiple flip off the boulder. It was a solid hit, but somehow that squirrel flipped and flopped back to the hole. It is uncanny, the tenacity of these creatures; I have also shot them with larger bore firearms only to have them make it back to the burrow, where they die and are cannibalized by their burrow mates. I stayed put and with the exception of pumping up the gun, quiet. About 10 minutes later another one crawled out from a crevice further up and surveyed the landscape. He was about thirty-five yards away, and facing me. I put the cross hairs between his eyes and a little above his then squeezed off my shot, where upon he slid down the rock on his belly and did not stir again. I left after the second squirrel, as I don’t like to put too much pressure on these smaller family groups. Unlike shooting on agricultural land with dense populations, the goal in the backcountry is not to eradicate them. Working my way through a few more of these rock islands in the woods, I shot several more squirrels before calling it quits.
Getting back to my gear as dusk was closing in I set up a dry camp. It was dry, windy, and I didn’t want to take the chance of burning down this valley. It was about 4:00 in the morning when I was startled awake by a rumbling noise and the ground rolling under me. There was enough ambient light that I could see the trees around me swaying, then silence. I’ve been through a number of earthquakes before and since, but this was the first time I’d been out in the open, and by myself to boot, and it was eerie. I finally got back to sleep after it ended and my nerves calmed down. When I awoke the next morning I rolled out of my bag to see a covey of quail working their way across the flats, so I knew my birds had made it. I started the ride out soon after, venturing off on a deer trail for the fun of it. Ripping along I found myself at the top of v shaped gully with a small stream running through it. I hate these situations because I have an unfounded fear that I’ll go sailing down the side until my front wheel hits the bottom, then I’ll fly head over heels and do a face plant. Of course that never happens, and I always go rolling up the other side. So marshaling my courage I took off, and of course when I hit the bottom my front wheel locked and I did a face plant – landing squarely on my rifle snapping off the scope and caving in the barrel. I also had a nice road rash on my chin, elbow and knees. So the question as to whether or not to do another hunt on the way out was answered. Instead I dressed my wounds and moved on. Arriving back at my four-wheeler I threw the bike on the racks and started down the road. Rounding the bend I found a section of the road had slid down the long drop to the desert below, a straight fall to the bottom a few hundred feet below. Now I was well and truly done in, I couldn’t go back – the road was chained, and in front the road fell away. Looking at the road again I saw that I could get a bit of a run and roll up the bank and clear the cave in. Having passed that obstacle I continued down the road, working my way over, around, and through multiple small landslides. I finally got to the dirt road that winded through the desert to the highway, and beat a path to a local café to java up. While there I was told that a big earthquake centered about ten miles from where I was camped had hit, causing damage all over the Southland. The hunt was a lot of fun, but as is often the case, it is the events surrounding the actual hunt that make the memory stick with me. I saw two sides of the power of nature, fire and earthquake, which are very truly etched in my minds eye.
Crows in the San Gabriel Mountains
On a pre deer hunting scouting trip the year before, I’d worked my up a canyon that climbed out of the high desert to about six thousand feet into the pine and juniper covered back country of the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California. I had stumbled across the ruins of an old ranchhouse that consisted of the concreted block foundation of the ranch buildings, and old water tank that was still being fed by the spring a little further up the hill, and interestingly enough plantings of non-indigenous plants that must have been reproducing out here for the last 50 or 60 years. There were rose bushes scattered about, and a couple rows of eucalyptus towering above the ruins which line the road coming into the canyon. Up above the ranch house the canyon narrowed and climbed more sharply up into the mountains, with a small stream trickling down the center.
I saw a lot of small game in the area and picked up some deer tracks, but what caught my attention as I looked around was the large number of crows gathering up in the gum trees. These birds would let me get fairly close, but as soon as I raised my little .22 pistol to take a shot the birds seemed to sense all was not right and took flight. I holstered my handgun and decided to give this a serious try when I got the chance.
Business took me overseas for a couple of weeks, but after my return I took a few days to play with my kids, visit my wife, and get over jet lag. Then I started to plan my crow hunting trip. Because the crows had been skittish when they saw the gun, I planned to go in full camouflage and to set up before daylight. As these shots could potentially be out to 50 yards I opted for my Beeman R1 in .177 shooting a medium weight round nose pellet. I had used hollowpoint and flat head pellets on crows a couple of times before, with dismal results. I figured the round nose pellets would give me the right combination of shocking power and penetration. I had tried calling before, and did not have much success, so decided to rely on knowing where the crows were roosting and a good set up to see me through.
In the pre dawn darkness I drove up the dirt road, bouncing over the wash boards and steering around the pot holes when I could. Slowly I made my way up to the higher elevations until I came to a point about a mile below the abandoned ranch house and found a place to park. My gear consisted of the rifle describes above, my camouflage was realtree to match the foliage I was hunting in, and included mask, mesh gloves, and my gun was wrapped in cammo tape. My pack held water, food, binoculars, a selection of pellets, and a small shooting stool. I also had a dead rabbit from an earlier hunt that I was going to use for bait, and a crow decoy I’d found at a swap meet.
I set up in the eucalypts towards the end of the tree opposite of the primary roosting tree. I set up the rabbit, slightly off to the side of the road with my decoy set a couple off feet away. There were a couple of tree on this side of the road that I though the birds might use well checking out my set. I found a comfortable area to settle in with my back against the trunk of the tree and some fallen branches partially hiding me from the front. I had a clear shooting lane to my bait, the trees behind it, and the trees to either side of me.
As daylight crawled up through the morning mist, I started to hear cawing and pick up activity a few trees down from my hide. I heard a big bird land in the tree I was leaning against, but this was one of the only blind spots to my hide. As quietly as I could, I cocked my rifle and slipped in a pellet, then laid the gun across my lap. Not more than a couple of minutes later, the crow hopped off the branch above me and glided down to a branch on the tree across the road, right above my bait. This presented me with a clean head shot at about 25 yards, so I laid the rifle across the branch in front of me to steady my aim and squeezed off the shoot. The crow swung over, hanging upside down from the limb he’d been perched on for a couple of minutes, then dropped stone dead almost landing on my decoy. All of the sudden there was cawing and birds soaring all around. Another bird landed on almost the same branch, but this time I had a chest shot. I lined up and fired, hearing a thump and a little puff of feathers. He made a little jump and came down about 10 yards from where I sat. The birds began to wise up and started soaring and swooping, voicing their displeasure all the while. My last shot of the morning came when one of the bravest of the flock glided on to a high branch in the tree beside me and let out a caw. Leaning back and firing almost straight up I directed a pellet right up through his mid section. He fell down a couple of branches and stood on a branch, obviously wounded and unable to fly. I line up the coup de grace and let it fly, literally knocking the bird out of the tree. With this the rest of the flock took off.
By this time it was starting to warm up, and I had noticed a number of ground squirrels moving around on the hillside a couple of hundred yards up the canyon when I’d first scouted this spot, and decided to end my hunt with these little varmint. But no matter what I did with the squirrels, I was satified that three crows in the bag using an airgun was a good day’s hunt by anybodies standards. Undoubtedly I could have scored more birds with my shotgun, but it’s really more about the hunt than the kills anyway, right?