Shannon and Garrick of Red Frog Team joined us in Silver Lake to shoot sage rats and the 1200 yard and mile targets July 6-8, 2018. We had a great time! Red Frog is a tactical training company that offers elite-level training in locations around the US. Garrick is a retired Navy SEAL and former BUDS instructor – I learned a lot just watching him shoot. Here in Oregon, Red Frog offers classes at the Tri-County Gun Club in Sherwood – to sign up for a class, visit RedFrogTeam.com. Be sure to check out their cool apparel for sale on their website.
On Friday night, after we set up the long range steel, Eric and I ate burgers at the Silver Lake Cafe and played pool in the bar with the locals. We then hung out at the Silver Lake Motel with Shannon and Garrick from Red Frog, guide Patrick, his eleven year old daughter Olivia, and Brian the gas gun guru, telling stories much too late into the night. The early July weather was perfect, the alfalfa was freshly cut, and the juvenile sage rats are fattening up for hibernation in August, so the rat shooting conditions were excellent.
Saturday morning, Maria cooked us breakfast at the Silver Lake Cafe and Candy kept our coffee cups full. Olivia wanted chocolate pancakes (not on the menu), so Maria whipped up the most ridiculously good chocolate pancakes ever. We headed out to the pivot and set up benches and easy-ups, and started shooting rats. After a bit, Garrick and Brian set up a 100 yard paper target stand to test some new loads and zero a couple newly mounted optics. In the afternoon, Patrick got out the 6.5mm Creedmoor and his newly upgraded 300 Win Mag, and we started shooting the steel targets 1200 yards away across the pivot. That night, we all got a little fatter at the Cowboy Dinner Tree Restaurant. Everyone went with the 30oz top sirloin steak, except me. For the first time, I went with the whole roasted chicken: it was delicious. Because I ordered the chicken, I was a little more liberal with my servings of salad, cowboy beans and freshly made rolls, which was a nice change up. Saturday night, we got out the spotting scope and checked out the moons of Jupiter and Garrick gave some of us a demonstration on the use of night vision devices.
On Sunday, we were out in the field early enough to catch the rats as they emerged around 7:15am. We had a chance at a morning badger, but you have to have the rifle ready! (Eric and I got a less common noon badger on Monday) We shot rats until about 10, then headed back to the Silver Lake Cafe for breakfast and to check out of the motel. Then we headed back to the farm and set up to shoot steel at one mile (1760 yards). The wind as blowing, but fortunately it was almost perfectly at our backs. Shannon bested all of us at the mile with a fist-sized group of five hits out of ten shots on the man-sized steel silhouette. We were impressed!
