This is a varmint and predator hunting blog, so it's only fitting that we spend a little time looking at hunting the largest rodent in North America. Compared to prairie dogs, rats and other rodents, this critter is a relative monster. Forty- and 50-pound animals aren't uncommon, and there are stories about big ones that tip the scales at 100 pounds. That's a rodent twice the size of a big coyote.

If you're looking for a new rimfire this season, you're blessed with a lot of choices. Quality and price range from low to stratospheric, with only a few rifles hitting that magic middle ground that suggests you're getting more than you're paying for. In that category, I propose one rifle worthy of consideration: the Browning T-Bolt rimfire.

Optics are a critical part of varmint and predator hunting. And because good optics aren't cheap, whenever we throw down dollars for expensive glass, we want to end up with a product that meets our needs. Modern optical designers do a fabulous job of providing us with riflescopes, and while they can bend light like a Jedi Master, they can't bend the physical laws that govern it. As consumers, we need to understand those laws at least a little, and a good start is to be aware of something called the "optical triangle" and what it represents.

Many years ago there was a cute half-hour TV comedy featuring a character called ALF. The name was an acronym for Alien Life Form, and ALF's favorite earth food was cats. He used to say, "I love cats—with a side of fries." I thought of him again when a friend sent me photos of a fox he's seen stalking one of his cats.

We all recognize that our varmint and predator rifles fire many more rounds than our big game rifles. And because the game we hunt with those rifles is so much smaller, they must deliver a higher level of accuracy as well. More use and a high degree of accuracy both dictate we use thorough cleaning methods on these guns. And while most shooters do a good job of cleaning a rifle's bore, there's one part of a rifle's interior that almost no one cleans, mainly because it's impossible to reach it without the right tools.

"Torque" has a fancy definition that only engineers understand. But for practical purposes, I consider it a measurement of the turning force applied to a tool in order to tighten a bolt or screw. That makes it a big deal in the gun world because threaded fasteners exist everywhere, and they all perform best within a narrow range of torque specifications. Most gun owners don't get too involved in what those specs are until they start mounting scopes or tuning rifles for ultimate accuracy.

If you hunt in farming and ranching country like I do, you quickly learn that the bigger operations all have a place where they dispose of dead livestock. Around here, the commonly used descriptor is "dead-pile." And although that refers to livestock, if a coyote hunter has one of these in his back pocket, the name can apply to dead coyotes as well. These disposal piles are that productive.

Varmint and predator hunters need to make a special effort to take young people hunting. It falls to us because the game we pursue is better suited to the first time hunter than any of the traditional large species. Learning the basics of hunting and shooting is much easier in the low-stress, game-rich environments where varmint and predator hunters spend their time. And to a young hunter, a first woodchuck, prairie dog or coyote is a major trophy. To preserve the trophy and that moment, the best system I've found is called Shotkeeper.

I've mentioned before that it's not unusual to find predators napping in the sunshine. That should be an obvious truth when we realize they're really only canines. Just like your family dog, they'll often find a sunbeam to sleep in during a wintery day. For wild canines, any warm, sunny spot will do. But where I live, as shown in the picture at the bottom of this post, round bales are favorite predator perches.

Predator and varmint hunters have at least one thing in common with anglers and big game hunters: We all need sharp knives. Fortunately, there are a lot of products on the market that will help us keep them that way, but not all of them are versatile or compact enough for field use. For the past couple of months I've been working with a field sharpener that's the answer to an outdoorsman's prayer—the Work Sharp Guided Field Sharpener.