Oregon! Anyone seen any Diggers yet?

[Hired Gun]

The babies should be hatching soon if they are not out already. I can't afford to waist $100 on fuel for a dry run.

[Willys46]

If your talking sage rats, not this weekend. It was over cast and windy.
But if your talkign diggers on the clear cuts I heard they are just emerging. My shooting partner got the first one of the year last weekend!

Hope this helps, I was in the silver lake area!

[remingtonman_25_06]

I've seen a select few around my area. Seen em as early as 2 weeks ago. Gonna wait a couple more weeks for the babies to hatch and I think I"m gonna have at her. Try out the new 100g NBT load at 3350fps. That should give em a nice dirt nap!!

[Hired Gun]

Thanks guys. These are the focus of most of our varminting around here. At one time we used to call it Digger shootin' but over that last decade it has turned into Digger Hunting.


I too have found the .257 calibers to be efficient in bringing one too it's knees. I'm partial to 75 grain V-Max's out of my Accumark at 3960fps. If I ever see one again I will try to get a post mortem shot.

[Willys46]

I thought a 6mm rem with 55gr NBT was a little over kill! I can only imagine what a 25. would do. Keep us posted when the babies start comming out!

[remingtonman_25_06]

Those kinda look like the ones we go and shoot around North powder/Baker area. Those suckers are small! There only like 3" wide, and thats a fat pregnant momma!

We dont have any of those around here. Funny, you would think we would as this type of terrain is the same type down in central Oregon where you shoot these guys at.

The ones I've seen are actually big ol fat rock chucks. More like the size of house cats [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] They come out and sun bathe every once in a while. Only problem is there not in a very good spot [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Hired Gun]

The one in the picture is the California ground squirrel. They range fron California to Washington. They are thick around The Dalls. Around here they are found everywhere but our favorite place to hunt them is in the mature clear cuts. They burrow under root wads and under slash piles and in rocky places. The clear cuts age is important. The grass must be well esablished and the replanted trees not over 2 to 4 feet tall. Taller than that and you can't see them out sunning themselves.



A mature male can get up to 3 pounds or so. It takes a big gun to get some air time on them past 300 yards. You have to hold just under center of the gut sack for max expansion.