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With no chance for success, you would not hunt. Without the prospect of failure hunting would have no merit. I don't hunt to kill, I kill because I hunt. Remember a moderate hit is lots more effective than a high powered miss. Best of luck.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

MACK vs. Chizzlers . . . MACK wins!

Wednesday morning 3-19-2014 Mack, his dad (my son), and I went to hunt some chizzlers in Iron County.  We left home base rather early but arrived just in time for the little rascals to start coming out of their dens looking for food and companionship.

 Mack takes a big one.

It was cold and windy.  Mack had not come prepared with a coat so I loaned him a down vest and hat that were behind the seat of the truck.  He and I set up a card table in the back of the truck at around 9:15 a.m.  We started seeing chizzlers right away.  We set up the smallest repeater .22 L.R. I had on a bipod and a sand bag for a rear rest.  Mack took careful aim and fired at many chizzlers.  He finally got the "hold your breath, squeeze the trigger, and follow through" fundamentals down and started to connect with the vermin.  Mack is only 6 years old and has hunted very little in his life.  He is a natural though.  He can hunt chizzlers with the best of them.

Mack's dad brought a bolt action heavy barreled .17 HMR rifle with a 4-12X scope and commenced to do major damage on the chizzler population out to 150+ yards from our shooting station.  The telltale "ploop" of a chizzler exploding was heard every half minute or so.  The slowest part of the carnage was the reloading of magazines.

Mack at one period was so cold he was shivering.  He couldn't hold the rifle still so I took over and he got into the cab of the truck to warm up.  I shot 10 - 12 chizzlers with Mack's small rifle and had a good time.  He then told me to come sit in the cab of the truck and let him shoot out the window opening.  Of course I obliged and we sat in the truck for another hour and harvested a couple dozen more varmints.  All the while we were shooting from inside the cab of the truck we listened to Mack's dad making the "ploop" rhythm from the squirrel-o-matic in the back of the truck again and again.

A farmer near where we were hunting came by to thank us for helping lower the number of profit eaters.  The farmer said this time of year each big chizzler you take out is 10 - 12 little ones that won't be born and eat even more alfalfa later.  We were helping agriculture and having fun at the same time!

Mack's dad had a meeting to go to so we cut it short and headed home at 11:30 a.m.  It was a short but good hunt.  Mack is a great hunting pal as is his father. 

We stacked up a few of Mack's varmints.

Mack had to bring back a dead chizzler to show his mom and grandma.  We let him bring one in the back of the truck.  He was so proud to carry it around the yard and tried to bring it in the house to show everyone.  Everyone has a different definition of what a "trophy" is, Mack had his on Wed. morning.  For a six year old kid with a borrowed rifle in the wind and the cold truly his chizzlers were all trophies.

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