Took a trip down to the Kingston Waterloo Area on Wednesday, not to sample the beer or wiener schnitzel, but to do some serious groundhog hunting! I met up with “Mean Dean” about 11:00 A.M. to try and knock back a growing Groundhog problem on some of his managed property’s. Dean loves nothing more than putting the smack down on groundhogs except maybe Turkey Hunting… and Deer Hunting… and Moose Hunting… well I suppose he pretty much likes hunting everything!
We hunted in a newly planted alfalfa field where the Dirt Pigs were very spooky as the new growth was very low with no cover for them. Dean made a couple of 200+ yard shots with his tricked out Remington .220 Swift and 6.5-18 X 50 Leupold VX-III L/R Duplex Scope. He has done some serious work to this rifle and it shoots like a laser! I spanked a couple 200 Yarders myself with my Thompson Center Pro-Hunter chambered in .204 Ruger and topped with a Leupold VX-III 4.5-14 X 50 L/R & Varmint Hunters Reticle. The 10, 20 and 30 MPH windage points worked perfectly, and I sure made good use of them as the wind was 20 mph and gusting to 30 mph many times while we hunted the long alfalfa fields! I thought I had bragging rights when I switched up rifles and made a 317 yard head shot in a viscous cross wind with my Browning Varmint Stalker .25WSSM! This rifle recently got a face lift when I installed a VX-III 8.5-25 X 50 L/R with Target Turrets and of course the Varmint hunters reticle. I was pretty proud of my shooting prowess until Dean pulled off a spectacular shot on a big Hog sitting on a rock at 387 yards. I got it all on video and I probably watched that video 50 times today! When I say that .220 Swift shoots like a laser I ain’t kidding. We only hunted a couple of the new fields as most are being cut right now and we managed to shoot over a dozen hogs in a couple of hours.
Stay tuned for more Varmint action in the coming days because there is about 2000 acres of hay being cut in the next few weeks and we are going back. 
Firearms Training & Hunter Education
