My daughter, Heather in Oregon, went on her first varmint hunt today. She's showing off her first gray digger (California ground squirrel), shot at the White River Game Management Area on the eastern side of Mt. Hood.
Her gun is an old Marlin 15Y (Youth) single shot with an old Leupold M7 4x. Heather and her brother Sean in Oregon both started shooting with this old training rifle.
She did OK with the gun. Six confirmed and six probables. (I saw them definitely get hit, but no body was found - likely crawl-offs due to the rather weak .22LR.) Also several misses, and several others ran others off because she took too long to get on target. But that will improve with experience. Some of the gray diggers spooked so far that a shotgun would have been better. I nailed a few of the ones that were beyond her range. Passed up a lot of closer shots since I was spotting for her.
The gray diggers here are very wary, and spook easily. There are only two ways to hunt them. Very careful stalking, or simply getting into position at a promising spot and waiting them out.
I spotted most of them at first, but once she got some pointers and figured out what to look for, she started spotting them herself, some before I saw them.
The old Marlin is a good training rifle, but it's not a good field rifle. Heather needs something better. She was not keen on the report from my .223. I'm thinking maybe an accurate lightweight 10-22 and a good bolt action .17 HMR. In the meantime, her 20ga 1187 needs to have the youth buttstock altered. She's grown, and the comb is too high now. Need to add Tru-Glo turkey sights as well.
Heather says she really liked varminting and want to go again.