Species Guide
Prairie Dog Shooting in the Texas Panhandle
The complete rifle guide to one of the country’s most underrated shooting sports, on some of the best dog towns in North America.
Prairie dog hunting is one of the most underrated shooting sports in the country — and the Texas Panhandle is one of the best places in North America to do it. Flat terrain, long sight lines, extreme ranges, and populations of dogs that provide fast action from sunup to sundown make the Panhandle a destination for precision rifle shooters from across the country.
We ran prairie dog shoots for 27 years. Here’s everything you need to set one up and execute it effectively.
Why the Texas Panhandle for Prairie Dogs
The Panhandle’s flat topography and open sight lines create ideal conditions for long-range shooting. On a good dog town, you’ll have targets from 50 yards to 500+ yards simultaneously. The wind is constant — learn to read it or go home — which makes the Panhandle a genuine test for any flat-shooting rig. Dog towns in Hansford, Ochiltree, Lipscomb, and Hemphill counties have historically been productive.
Best Calibers for Prairie Dog Shooting
Short Range (Under 200 Yards)
- .17 HMR — Affordable to shoot, devastating on dogs at short range. Limited past 150 yards in wind.
- .22 LR — Budget option for close work. Not recommended past 100 yards for clean kills.
Mid Range (200–350 Yards)
- .223 Remington / 5.56 — The workhorse of prairie dog shooting. Affordable, flat-shooting, and widely available. Excellent to 300 yards.
- .22-250 Remington — Faster than .223 with flatter trajectory. Outstanding to 350 yards. A classic prairie dog round.
Long Range (350+ Yards)
- .204 Ruger — Extremely flat shooting with minimal wind drift. Purpose-built for varmint shooting at distance.
- 6mm Creedmoor — When you want to stretch the range past 400 yards with precision. Excellent in wind.
Essential Gear for Panhandle Prairie Dog Shooting
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High-Magnification Varmint Scope — Vortex Viper HS-T 6-24×50
6-24x with a fine reticle and side parallax — essential for picking apart dogs at 300–500 yards in flat Panhandle light, and enough turret travel to dial rather than guess.
Heavy-Barrel Varmint Rifle
Bolt-action or semi-auto with a heavy barrel for heat dissipation — you’ll shoot hundreds of rounds in a session. Bring two rifles if you have them, or plan to let one cool.
Electronic Ear Protection — Howard Leight Impact Sport
You’re shooting all day out here. Electronic muffs protect your hearing from the shot while still letting you hear your spotter calling misses between strings.
Bipod — Harris S-BRM
A quality bipod paired with a rear bag is not optional — you’re shooting prone over extended periods and need a rock-solid position. The notched legs and swivel let you level the rifle on caliche and prairie sod that’s never as flat as it looks.
Complete Gear Checklist
- Rifle: A bolt-action or semi-automatic varmint rifle with a heavy barrel for heat dissipation.
- Optics: High magnification is essential — 6-24x or 4-32x scope with a fine reticle and parallax adjustment.
- Bipod: A quality bipod is not optional. You’re shooting from prone over extended periods.
- Rear Bag: Combine with a bipod for a rock-solid shooting position.
- Electronic Ear Protection: You’re shooting all day. Protect your hearing while still being able to hear your partners.
- Rangefinder: Know your exact distance. Essential for dialing turrets or applying holdovers consistently.
- Ammunition: Bring more than you think you need. A serious shooter will fire 500+ rounds in a full day session. Buy in bulk.
Prairie Dog Hunting in Texas: Rules and Finding Ground
This is the part that stops most people, and the answer is simpler than it is for deer or turkey: prairie dog hunting in Texas is almost entirely a private-land, ask-a-rancher proposition.
Where the Law Puts Them
Texas classes prairie dogs as nongame animals, which is why there is no closed season and no bag limit on them. Licence requirements for nongame are not the same as the feral hog exemption, so check the current Outdoor Annual for what you need to carry rather than assuming either way.
What does not vary is permission. Shooting a dog town on private ground without the landowner’s say-so is trespass, regardless of what the species is classed as.
Finding Prairie Dog Towns
Contact local county extension offices, farm bureaus, or ranch supply stores in the Panhandle for leads on active dog towns. Feed stores in Dalhart, Hereford and Dumas are worth a stop in person. Google Earth is useful for identifying disturbed soil patterns consistent with active colonies — the bare mounds read clearly from above.
Lead with the damage, not the sport. A dog town eats pasture and undermines pivot tracks and fence lines, so on the right place you are not asking for a favour — you are offering to help with a problem. Say which days you would come, how many shooters, and that you will pick up your brass.
Public Ground: Manage Your Expectations
The Annual Public Hunting Permit is the cheapest access in Texas and worth owning for whitetail, hogs and turkey. But prairie dogs are not named on its species list, so do not buy the walk-in permit expecting a dog town. For this one, private ground is the route.
If It Becomes a Written Lease
Plenty of dog-town access is a handshake and a gate code. If it turns into a written lease — and a group of shooters putting 500 rounds a day downrange is exactly the arrangement a landowner wants on paper — settle the liability question before you sign. The American Hunting Lease Association sells liability coverage built specifically for hunting leases, covering both the hunters on the lease and the landowner.
The lease insurance link above is an affiliate link — we may earn a referral fee if you buy a policy, at no additional cost to you. We are not insurance agents and this is not insurance advice. See our affiliate disclosure.
Timing matters as much as access. Our guide to when to hunt prairie dogs in Texas covers why spring and early fall beat every other month for making the drive worth it.
More Panhandle Species Guides
Five species, one stretch of country. Each guide covers where they live, how to get on the ground, and the gear the Panhandle actually asks for.
Species Guide
Whitetail Deer
Canyon breaks, cedar draws and wheat edges. How to read the country, time the rut, and find where mature bucks actually hold.
Species Guide
Mule Deer
Spot-and-stalk across the Caprock escarpment. Sixteen days of general season, and the glassing that decides all of them.
Species Guide
Rio Grande Turkey
Birds that roost over river bottoms and walk miles to feed. Calling, decoys, and reading the daily loop between roost and field.
Species Guide
Hog Hunting
Year-round, no bag limit, and no license needed on private ground. The one species landowners want fewer of.
Gear Up for a Full Day on the Dog Town
From heavy-barrel rifles to bulk ammo, we break down the varmint gear that holds up to 500+ rounds a day.