A friend and I are looking for a place to hunt prairie dogs sometime next year. We both have limited budgets, he is a disabled vet, and we are looking for ranches that need help in reducing populations, rather than an expensive hunt. We hope to camp and would be very respectful of the land, and and the landowner's wishes. If anyone here could give us tips on who to contact, and what areas have the best chances for us to get permission from landowners would be very much appreciated.

ETA We would be driving out from Ohio, and are not sure of the best times of the year to hunt.

Spring and early summer in my area. By August they start to get scarce.  You need to find some public BLM land and go exploring. Ranches make a bit of extra cash leasing out spots to hunt. Might want to look at SD areas also.

Thanks!  I hunted them in SD with a .22 35 years ago when I was there in the Air Force. I have been reading that many areas were poisoned out in SD, and the hunting is not so good there anymore.  W have been getting in some ground hog hinting, and shooting golf balls at 200 yds, but we wanted to try our hand at prairie dogs, the golf balls get boring after a while.

Yup, catch them early in the season. A second reason is that if you're hunting ranch land, you want to be out there before the owner starts irrigating alfalfa pastures. The ground is much easier to walk and drive on and there are many, many fewer mosquitoes!