I had my 10x50 aus Jena. Both give sharp detail at any range, but we could find nothing to shoot at. Tom was having no better luck; an hour passed before we heard his first shot. After awhile, Bob said, “Guess I’ll mosey over and see how Tom did. Nothing doing here.”
“Take him a can of Coke. It’s pretty warm in the sun.” While Bob dug one out of the cooler, I went on glassing.
Bob was hardly gone before I spotted one. The ’chuck was sit- ting erect just inside a tree line bordering the thick bottom. It hadn’t been visible when I looked there several seconds earlier. I lowered the aus Jena, moved the rifle around and found
the ’chuck in the scope. It wasn’t far, 150 yards at most, not really far enough to try my new rig on. But things had been so slow I doubted we’d see any more, and I was eager to try the rifle. So I closed the bolt on a cartridge and scrooched into position. The ’chuck was light in color and looked like an average
size adult – 9 or 10 lbs. It was half concealed by a broken off limb, so I eased the crosshairs to a tiny opening and squeezed. The ’chuck was slammed into the ground. I watched for ten seconds. Not even its tail moved. I sat up and eased out the empty for reloading. It hadn’t been a long shot but at least I’d got an instantaneous kill. As it turned out, Tom had hit his ’chuck too, but neither of us had another shot that afternoon. Several days later Jim Metcalfe and I were watching a
long narrow field flanked by a woods on one side and a tree- grown fencerow on the other. Apparently it had been a private
landing strip, for the washed-out remains of an old windsock hung from a distant pole. I studied it through the aus Jena; it dangled motionlessly. I asked Jim how far it was and he put the Bushnell laser rangefinder on it and said, “About 327. Why?” “Look to the left of it about 25 yards and that much
beyond. See that brown spot? It’s a ’chuck, feeding. I can see him but I can’t get a reading. Not reflective enough.” “That’s why I told you to range the pole. Gotta be about
350.” I scrooched down behind my rifle, which rested on a flat- topped adjustable tripod, rotated it until I found the ’chuck, and tightened the unit that held the top of the rest motionless. Set at 24x, the B&L gave a clear picture. “How much drop do you figure?” Jim asked. “Well, it’s about 14 inches at 400, so maybe 8 here.” “No wind.”
“No.” I couldn’t feel any and the grass wasn’t moving. I tried to leave a good line of light between the horizon-
tal hair and the top of the ’chuck’s shoulders, and squeezed. The whack of the striking bullet seemed almost part of the muzzle blast. “Nice shot,” Jim said. “Sure doesn’t take that bullet long
to get there.” “No.” I was still looking through the scope. “That’s the kind of shot the .22-250 is known for.” Before the day was over, we’d each taken two more
’chucks without a miss, though none was as long as my first. Jim was using a .22-250 too. Most of my friends do. Not all of them do, though. The holdout is TR Them,
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