VarmintAir's Airgun Hunting Blog

After About 10 Years Without One - I've Added A Spotting Scope - To My Hunting Kit Again

Up until about a decade ago, I had a spotting scope that I used when hunting rock chucks, at long range, in Montana and Wyoming.  A buddy and I, would stop on our way to hunt prairie dogs in eastern Wyoming, or South Dakota, and shoot rock chucks at 500/600 yards in the Absaroka-Beartooth mountains.  My spotting scope was an indispensable tool.

The model that I had at the time, was the Leica Televid 77, and as you would expect, coming from Leica, the optics were beyond excellent.   For a variety of reasons, we stopped making those trips, and about ten years ago, I sold off the spotting scope.

Fast forward to today, and now, living in Northern Arizona, I have found several reasons to need another spotting scope.  There is a lot of wildlife here available to view, but I mainly want to use it to optically recon potential ground squirrel hunting sites.

If you've been following my blog, you know that the ground squirrels that we have up here live in the surrounding Ponderosa Pine forest, and have a very specific set of habitat requirements for them to populate an area.

I've covered those requirements before, so won't go over all of it again, but will say, that the number one need, is a goodly number of 80 to 100 year old rotting stumps, left from when the area was logged, many decades ago.

The attraction to those old stumps, is the fact that they have started to rot in the centers, and around the edges, leaving openings that lead down into the ground under the stumps. That gives the ground squirrels the perfect place to build their underground dens. They climb up through the holes in the stumps, sit on the top viewing their territory, and/or eating seeds and nuts.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

The holes at nine o'clock, and eleven o'clock, drop straight down into chambers beneath the stump. The holes make great escape hatches for when danger is near. The ground squirrel that inhabits this particular stump, has been feeding on the readily available pine cones, and that pile of debris, is one of the things I'm looking for when glassing areas for squirrels.

I'm always searching for new squirrel habitat.  Because these guys do not populate any given area of the forest in great numbers, I prefer not to hunt the same spot more than twice in any given year.

Finding new spots involves covering a lot of ground.  Sometimes I drive right into an area that has ground squirrels.  Other times I see an area three or four hundred plus yards away, across a park/meadow, that looks like it might have potential, but my eight power binoculars just don't give me enough detail to really tell much.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

That far tree line is a good 400+ yards away.  There is no vehicle access to that area, and it is highly illegal to drive across that park.  The only option is to hike into the area, and check it out.  Not a big deal, unless it's the sixth hike that day, and when my squirrel habitat success rate is about one in every six hikes, then it gets old real quick. My solution to the issue, is to get a spotting scope, and where possible, recon the areas optically, from a distance.

The Leica scopes are first rate, but the reality is, I don't need a $3000 spotting scope to do what I want to do.  After spending some time researching spotting scopes, and talking to a few guys here locally, I settled on the Celestron Ultima 100 with the 45 degree viewing angle.  I picked it up from Amazon for $280 bucks.  I know, I know, it's made in China, so how good can this thing be for that kind of money.

Well, the guys that I talked to about them, were real happy with the performance, so I figured I would give one a shot.  First impression, it's big, well made, and heavy.  That 100mm objective lens, also helps to give nice bright images, and my aging eyes like bright images.

As I said, it's a big heavy scope.  It does need to be mounted on a good sturdy tripod.  I already have one of those, with ball head, for my DSLR camera. The Ultima 100 comes with a zoom eyepiece, that goes from 22 up to 66 power. For my application, I'm finding that from about 35 power to 40 power is the most useful.  At that power range I can readily see back into the trees, and it's easy to spot the types of stumps, and squirrel sign that I'm looking for, if it's there.  

Scope mounted on my tripod.

A closer view.

Sometimes, because of the high magnification, it can be a challenge to find, in the scope, what you want to look at.  This model has a clever fix for that problem.  There is a peep sight tube, moulded into the left side of the housing.  You look through that tube, move the scope until you locate your subject in it, and when you then look through the scope itself, you will be very close to being on.

Close up of peep sight tube.

Okay, so is this thing going to work for my application or not?  Well, for starters, on my way out to the area where I wanted to test it, I could see a large herd of three or four hundred elk, feeding in a very large open area.  They were a good 1000 yards away, so I decided to stop and check them out with the new scope.

A portion of the elk herd.  Photo taken with small point and shoot camera, at max zoom.

With the Ultima 100, set at 35 power, it was very easy to pick out the big bulls, small yearling bulls, and the cows with calves.  Geez, I would hope so.  Some of the big bulls are the size of a small car.  It was a fun stop, but didn't really tell me much about how the scope would work for my needs.

Next, I headed into the forest, so that I could set up my target frame, and view a target that had .177, and .22 caliber pellet holes in it.  I was curious if I would be able to see those holes at 300 yards.  I figured that If I could see those, I would be able to clearly see ground squirrels, and stumps at much, much greater ranges.

The target that was placed at 300 yards.

Truthfully, I didn't expect much, but when the air was calm, and the heat waves were quiet, I could see the .177 pellet holes.  The half inch orange dots were easy, and of course the Shoot-N-C targets looked huge in comparison.  

I'm very satisfied with the purchase.  If you want a scope where you can tell the 12 different shades of blue and grey, on a mountain bluebird, at 500 yards, I think you would be better served with the Leica, but for my purpose, this scope is going to work out great.

So how does it perform for my application?  Well, I took it back to that park/meadow area that I posted a picture of earlier, and used it to check out that spot.  So how did it work out?  It was great, that picture of the stump up above, with the squirrel cuttings on it, was one of the things I saw when I scoped the area back in the trees.

That's all I needed to know.  I got out my RWS Rapier, the rest of my hunting gear, and hiked on over there for a short hunt.  How did that go? Well, that's a different blog story, but below is a hint.

So, is the Ultima 100 the equivalent of, or even close to the current Leica Televid 82, or even the older Televid 77?  Well, no.  I was a Leica sporting optics dealer for ten years, and the tight tolerances held, materials used, and processes those folks apply in the manufacture of their optics are second to none, and are borderline fanatical.  All of that definitely shows up in their finished products.   

However, having said that, for my application, the Celestron Ultima 100, is going to work out great. Now, I'm going to head back out into the forest, and check out some of the likely looking areas that I originally let pass, because it was either to hot and humid, or I just didn't have the energy to get out and cover the ground, to see what those areas might have to offer.

Stay tuned, Lots more to come.

 

 

 

 

 

Mixing Hobbies - Airgun Hunting - Still Photography - Videography - and Acoustic Guitar

A photo from some years ago. 

I have several hobbies, and it's fun to mix them all together.  Hunting with airguns is probably number one, but I also like to dabble some in photography, as well as shoot video of most of my hunts.  Another of my hobbies is playing acoustic guitar.  

I play mainly for the amusement of myself and my wife. Most of what I play is known today as "Classic Country,"  but for me, it's just the country music that I heard while growing up back in the 40's, and 50's. Tunes by folks like Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Kitty Wells, and many more.

A lot of times, at the end of a day of hunting, I'll put my airgun and other hunting gear away, break out a cold drink, my acoustic guitar, and just sit and pick some tunes for awhile. It makes for a nice relaxing end to another fun day of hunting with my airguns.

It's not unusual, while picking some tunes, to have tree squirrels, ground squirrels, and chipmunks make an appearance, to see what the heck that sound is.  A few years ago though, I was surprised to get a visit from a mule deer doe, and her twin fawns.

I had been playing for maybe 15 minutes, and had just started to play an old Hank Williams tune called, "You Win Again," when I looked up, and maybe 40 yards away is this doe and her two fawns.  One on each side of her.  They had come out of the forest, and all three were just standing there facing me, in total wonderment.  Looking like, "what are you, and what is that sound?"

I finished the song, and sat there watching them, watching me.  Next, I started playing a Patsy Cline tune, and about that time, mom flicked her tail a few times, turned around, and leading her twins back into the woods, gave me a look that said, "actually, I prefer Taylor Swift."  The encounter with her and her spotted fawns was priceless, and I will remember it for the rest of my life.

These four hobbies work well together, and I enjoy them all.  Here's the tune I was picking when the lady came out of the forest to check things out.

 

Download You Win Again 8-NORM_02-9-1 

I've got my fingers crossed, that mountain lions and bears don't like the sound of acoustic guitar music.  LOL!

 

Went Out To Sight In My FX Whisper - And Found A Nice Ground Squirrel Area As A Bonus

FX Whisper, sporting her new Hawke 4-12x50mm, Panorama EV Scope. 

The local temps finally dropped about ten degrees, and the humidity dropped by about thirty percent, so I thought I would take the opportunity to get out and get my Whisper sighted in with her new scope.

I only had about three hours to spend, so I decided to hit an area not to far away, and one that I had driven by many times.   The Forest Service map showed a 4x4 road that paralleled the county road for about three miles.  I had never taken it before, because with that easy access, I figured it would probably get a lot of traffic from the local hikers and bikers.  Nothing wrong with hikers and bikers, but my past experience had shown that a lot of those folks aren't real compatible with hunters. Especially this hunter.

I found the turn off, and headed down the 4x4 track.  It went in about a half mile before it turned and started paralleling the county road.  It was a pretty drive through the pine trees, but I was looking for a place that I could pull out and set up my target frame at 40 yards.

I was down the road about a mile, and hadn't found a place flat enough for my purpose, but as I was slowly driving along, I saw a small canyon opening up off to my right.  The mouth of it is pretty well blocked by young, ten foot tall Gambel's Oaks, and Ponderosa Pine trees.

Because of the density of the trees, I couldn't really see back into the area, but as I drove along, I suddenly came to a spot where a game trail exited the canyon, and there was a path through the trees.  I used my binos to sneak a peek back in there, and liked what I saw. Piles of deadfall, stumps, and blowdowns, with plenty of open area.  I decided that after I got the Whisper sighted in, I would come back and check it out. Anyone hiking, or biking down the road, wouldn't even know I was there. Another advantage to hunting with a quiet airgun, which my Whisper is, is no muzzle report to startle the tree huggers.

About 200 yards further down the road, I found the ideal spot to sight in the Whisper. It took all of five shots.  The first shot at 40 yards hit about two inches high, and one inch left.  I made a scope adjustment and fired another shot.  Almost there.  One more fine adjustment, and fire for effect. The next three shots were touching, right where I wanted on the target. Great, now lets go check out that canyon.

I hiked back down the road, and picking up the game trail, I headed into the canyon.  As soon as I was clear of the young trees, I started glassing the area.  It was great looking ground squirrel country, and within seconds I spotted squirrels out and about.

The first one I have a shot at is sitting on an old blowdown log at 52 yards.  It's dead calm back in there, so I just hold a little high for the 52 yard distance, center him with the vertical crosshair, and squeeze off the shot.  The pellet knocked him off of the log and out of sight.  

When I got over to him, I could see that the pellet had taken him through both shoulders.  I stopped for a photo-op, and then continued to hunt.  A little further into the canyon, I spotted three squirrels at distances of 43, 48, and 57 yards.  I started with the 57 yarder first, the 48 yarder second, and the one at 43 yards last.   I dropped them all with four shots.  I missed the first one, a bit high at 57 yards, but he didn't spook, and I got him with the second pellet.  The other two were one shot kills. Three squirrels in about 40 seconds, not bad.

The three taken at 43, 48, and 57 yards.

About this time, a pair of Red Tail hawks came screeching through the area, and that was the end of seeing any squirrels for about twenty minutes.

Things finally quieted down, and the squirrels started to appear again.  I hunted for another thirty minutes or so, and got three more ground squirrels.  The area turned out to be worth checking out, and I'll be back when I have more time to spend.

A couple more pictures from the hunt. 

 

The Whisper, Hawke Panorama EV scope combination is working out great.  I think I finally have this rifle set up just the way I want.  It's been a long time coming.

 

 

Part Two Of My Last Hunt...The Search For High Country...Ground Squirrel Habitat Continues...My Disco Strikes Again.

Game tank with tree stand.

If you haven't read the first part of this story, you may want to go over to the sidebar, and click on, "Scouting The High Country For Ground Squirrel Habitat, Took The .22 Disco Along."

After finishing lunch, and putting things away, I headed back to the main 4x4 track, that I was following up the side of the mountain.

According to my Forest Service Map, the 4x4 track that I was on, dead ended at a game tank that's about seven miles from the paved county road. Since I was already about four miles in, I decided to go to the end, to see what I might find along the way.

I went another couple of miles without seeing any likely ground squirrel country.  At this point, I was at about 9000 foot elevation.  The road made a large lazy uphill "S" turn.  When I hit the top of the "S" I came out into a nice small valley that was about 300 yards long, by maybe 100/150 yards wide.

Naked eye, I could see ground squirrels on stumps and deadfall.  I grabbed my FS map, and marked an "S" on it, for squirrels at that spot, and just kept on going.  I wanted to see the game tank at the end of the road, and the country around it.  Those can be some good areas for hunting tree squirrels in the fall.

When I got to the end of the road, there was the tank, and I was surprised to see a tree stand mounted nearby. It was obvious that it had been there for many, many years. The locked chain, that was holding it to the tree, had started to embed itself into the bark.

Since this was the end of the road, I decided to get out my canvas chair, sit in the shade, have a gatorade, and take in the sights and sounds of the forest.  While sitting there, a couple of Abert's tree squirrels came out of the woods, and headed for the game tank.  Once over the berm I lost sight of them, but it sure made me think about coming back in the fall, and using that tree stand to my advantage.

Also, while sitting there, I spotted what looked to me like a ground squirrel sitting on a stump, to the left rear of the tank.  My binos confirmed that the bump on the stump, was in fact a ground squirrel.

I slipped over to my vehicle to retrieve my Disco, range finder, and bipod.  The squirrel ranged right at 52 yards.  The wind was almost zero. I rested my right shoulder against a tree, and  settled the Disco onto my bipod.  Since I'm sighted in dead on at 40 yards, I let a little daylight show between the horizontal crosshair and the top of the squirrels head. When the crosshairs were nice and steady, I launched the pellet.  

The 16 grain JSB center punched the furballs skull, and it dropped out of sight.  When I got over to it, it was DRT behind the stump.  Below is a picture of the squirrel, with a quarter laying on it, to give perspective to the size of these squirrels heads.

To consistently make head shots on these guys, at these ranges, you need a gun that will group its shots well inside that quarter, more like inside a nickel, at 50/60 yards, and my .22 Disco does that with ease.

Below is a pic, looking back toward my vehicle. The tree to the left rear, by my 4Runner, is the one I made the shot from.  This little rifle just never lets me down.

I hung around for a little while longer, and while I was sitting there, another Abert's squirrel came out of the forest and headed over to the game tank.  For sure, I will be back to this spot when tree squirrel season opens in October.

On my way out, I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of some of the ground squirrels, that I saw sitting on stumps and blowdowns, in that small valley that I passed through on my way in.

These guys hibernate in late October to early November, and this one wasn't wasting any time filling up his underground larder.  He looked like he had a marble in each cheek pouch.

This next one has a great view of the area.  He needs to be careful though, because Redtail Hawks love to pick them off when they're sitting out like that, and so do I.

This last guy looks like he's enjoying the serenity and solitude. 

Exploring this area was a fun adventure, and well worthwhile.  When the high temps and humidity drop, I will be back. 

 

 

 

Scouting The High Country - For Ground Squirrel Habitat - Took The .22 Disco Along

High country park/meadow that I passed by while scouting.  This is at about 8500 foot elevation.

I mentioned awhile back, that it has been too darned warm and humid to get out and do much ground squirrel hunting.  At least for me.  But rather than waste the days, I've been scouting the forest, in my air conditioned 4x4, for new ground squirrel habitat.

I've got about 4,000,000 acres of forest to hunt in, but only a small percentage of that holds ground squirrels.  It takes some time and effort, to get out into the woods, and locate those areas that hold pockets of squirrels.

I really enjoy the exploring part of the hunt.  It gets me into areas of the forest that I've never seen, and that's always an adventure.

This time, I headed about 35 miles east of town, and took an old logging road that headed up the side of one of the mountains.  No way to tell much about anything from looking at maps.  You really have to get out there and put some rubber on the road.

As I headed up the 4x4 track, the immediate countryside looked great for deer and elk, but not much happening as far as ground squirrels were concerned.  We have a very large deer and elk population around these parts, and I see a lot of both while prowling these back country roads.

The ground squirrels, on the other hand, have a very specific type of terrain that they prefer.  It can't be to densely forested, and there needs to be a population of young, mature, and medium aged pine trees.  They can't be to close together, and there needs to be a goodly number of 80 to 100 year old rotting stumps for them to build their dens under. A scattering of old blowdowns and piles of deadfall won't hurt either. The terrain doesn't need to be real flat, some slope is okay, but overly steep doesn't seem to work for these guys at all.

I was about three miles from the pavement, still climbing, and hadn't really seen any country that looked promising at all.  At this point, my mind starts playing the usual games like, "well this is going to turn out to be a bust, let's turn around and try another spot."  

Well, I've been doing this long enough to know, to just shine that kind of thinking.  You never know what will be around the next bend, or over the next rise.  Once again, ignoring my party pooper brain paid off.

A short time later, I came over a small rise, and off to my left was a nice area, with all of the attributes that I was looking for.  It was fairly open, and ran about 500/600 yards long by about 200/300 yards wide.

I put my binoculars on the forest, and immediately saw these two sitting on a stump, in the shade, watching me.

A different 4x4 track took off from the one that I was on, and headed west down the middle of the area I was looking at. I hung a left, and decided to see what I might see. Man was that ever a good decision. There were squirrels sitting on every third stump.  Below are some pictures I took while slowly driving and glassing the area.

When I stopped for this picture, there was a squirrel sitting on each of the three stumps.  By the time I got the camera up, the one in the middle had bailed.

One each on the left, and right stumps.

Went another 50 yards, and this loner was out sunning himself.

Another 75 yards, and I spot this guy working on his tan.

This is looking really, really good.  Another 50 yards and I spot the pair below. One on the stump at the left, and another on the stump on the right.  All of these squirrels were within 40/50 yards of the road. I could also see others, that were 80 to 100+ plus yards away.

WOW! This was way above my expectations.  This is the best ground squirrel area that I have found so far.  By now, it was getting close to mid day, so I pulled in under a nice big Ponderosa Pine, for shade, and decided to break for lunch.  I got out my folding canvas chair, broke out the $5 footlong I picked up on my way out of town, and started enjoying a good sandwich. 

It was very warm and humid.  Humid, like around 80 percent.  Not the kind of weather that makes me want to hunt, but I still enjoy looking around me to see what might be happening squirrel wise.  In addition to the sandwich, I also got out my binos, range finder, and .22 Discovery. One never knows what one might see.

I finished the sandwich, and grabbing my binoculars, gave the area a quick once over. It never freakin' fails.  There was a big old pile of deadfall, that I had been looking at while eating, and when I put it in the glass, I see a ground squirrel sitting back in the shadows watching me.  I did not see it with my naked eye, but with the binos it really stood out. 

I zapped it with the range finder, and it gives me a range of 46 yards.  I picked up my Disco, chambered a 16 grain JSB, held a little high on the squirrels head, squeezed off the round, and what you see below was the result.  This little rifle is one deadly rig.

Needless to say, as soon as we get a break in the weather, I will be back up there putting the sneak on these guys.

Stay tuned.

 

A Trio Of Hawkes - Ready To Pounce On Small Game - And Varmints

L-R, Benjamin Discovery .22, FX Rapier .22, FX Whisper .22.   All with Hawke Panorama AO IR EV series scopes mounted.

A couple of months ago, I picked up one of the Hawke Panorama AO IR EV 4-12x40mm scopes for my Disco.  At the time, I was looking for a scope to replace the Bushnell Legend that I had mounted on her.  

The Legend is a nice scope, but I always found myself wishing that the crosshairs were a bit thinner, and that it would take a sunshade.  After some research, I settled on the Hawke Panorama AO IR EV series to meet my needs.  The Panorama series do not include a sunshade, but they are available as an add on accessory.

I've had the scope mounted on my Disco for a couple of months now, have had the rifle out on a half dozen ground squirrel hunts, and I am really pleased with the performance of this scope.  So pleased that I ordered up a couple more.  Another 4-12x40mm for my RWS Rapier, and a 4-12x50mm for my FX Whisper.

Below is a shot of the end of the box.  It shows the floating reticle. Hawke offers a couple of different reticle options on this model, I went with the half mildot.  Since the reticle is etched into glass, and not attached to the edge of a tube, there are no mechanical strength issues, and they can make it very fine.

These scopes have the front adjustable AO.  The third knob on the left side of the scope, is the on/off brightness control, for the illuminated reticle.  Using this control, you can choose either red or blue illumination. 

About half of my scopes are side focus, and the others have the front AO. I switch between the two types of focus adjustment, pretty much seamlessly. 

Above is the 4-12x40mm Hawke Panorama AO IR EV mounted on my Disco. At a length of 39 inches, this rifle is essentially carbine in size, and weighs 7.2 pounds as you see her. It's just a great size and weight to carry for hours while hunting either ground squirrels or tree squirrels.  

Above is my RWS Rapier.  I replaced a Leupold 3-9x33mm EFR scope, that was on her, with a 4-12x40mm Panorama AO IR EV.   I've had a love, hate, relationship with the Leupold for years.  It's a nice scope, but I'm always just a bit dissatisfied with the duplex crosshair, and the fact that it doesn't take a sunshade.  

After hunting with the Hawke Panorama on my Disco, I decided that the same scope on the Rapier, would be everything I was looking for.  Fine crosshair, sunshade, and a weight of only 17.3 ounces.  

At only 40 inches in length, this rifle is also carbine in size.  It weighs 8.5 pounds, but because of the excellent balance, seems lighter.

I needed a set of medium scope mounts for the Rapier, so I ordered a set of the Hawke's to try.  They are very nicely made, and are lined, to help minimize ring rash on the scope tube.   

Last, but not least, is my FX Whisper.  I've had a BSA scope mounted on her, and once again, I was not happy with the thickness of the crosshairs. The BSA probably has the thickest crosshairs of any of my scopes.  A perfect candidate to be replaced with a Panorama AO IR EV.  

I went with the 4-12x50mm Panorama for this rifle, simply because a scope with a large objective looks better on this gun.  Because of the height of the magazine, the use of high rings is a must.  A scope with a 40mm objective looks goofy on this rifle. How's that for some scope vanity.  LOL.

This rifle runs 42.25 inches in length, but only weighs a few ounces more than my Disco. The synthetic stock really keeps the weight down.

Next up, is to get the Rapier and Whisper sighted in with their new glass, and get ready to do some ground squirrel hunting with them.

Here recently, It has been too darned warm and humid to do any actual in the field hunting. Nothing like 85 degrees, and 85 percent humidity to kill my desire to do much hiking around.  For about another month, It's the monsoon season up here, and remains fairly warm and humid, especially humid.

Rather than waste the time though, I've been scouting new areas for ground squirrels. Riding around in my air conditioned 4x4 isn't bad at all.  Last week, I found a couple of really good spots.  In both areas, using my binoculars, I could see lots of squirrels sitting on stumps and deadfall.

Now, I just need to wait for the humidity to drop back down into the 20/30 percent range, and we'll be on the hunt.  I love hunting these guys in the deep forest.  There is just nothing like it. 

While scouting, I started taking some pictures of some of the squirrels I came across. Here's a couple of examples, shot from inside my vehicle.

As soon as I have some time, I'm going to post a story or two about the scouting experience.  It has been a blast, and time really well spent.  Plus I've had a chance to see a lot of really beautiful country.