Squirrel day

[CraigC]

I've been hunting the blackpowder season ever since it started but like a lot of deer hunters, the squirrels are both a source of entertainment and frustration. We have a bumper crop of them this year and I decided to spend yesterday chasing them. Naturally, when you're deer hunting, you're also neck deep in squirrels. When you're squirrel hunting, it's the woodpeckers. I don't know how but they seem to know your intent. The first three took about two hours. I stopped for a brief intermission and photo op. The next hour yielded two more. Which is enough for squirrel stew. I guess I need to pattern the new Yildiz 20ga so the next five don't take a whole box of shells.

 

[Saddlebag Preacher]

I watched a fox squirrel fall from a limb while in my deer stand last Saturday. He is a fat one and made noise all day. We had a couple of ice storms here about 4 years ago and still have some "widow makers" hung up in the trees. He ran across one and I guess he was too fat and it and him crashed to the ground. Probably scared every deer within a half mile. He jumped back up and up another tree he went. I'm going out squirrel hunting myself this weekend.

 

[Armored farmer]

I'e been threatening to take my AR pistol with .22conversion kit out into the hickory woods.
Maybe your thread will motivate me.

 

[Ole Joe Clark]

Thought about taking the 10/22 out after a few, it shoots better than I can hold. Or I could take my old Marlin model 80 with a new scope on it. Both shoot to less than minute of squirrel head.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

 

[1KPerDay]

Looks good. I wish I could shoot the squirrels that packed the engine compartment of my pathfinder with 19,402,399 pinecones recently. I can't shoot in city limits. I guess I should get a pellet gun.

 

[Mauser lover]

Or... An electrified trap designed to both kill and cook the little vermin!

I despise the four-legged, bushy-tailed, demon-rats!

On another note... We just moved, and squirrel hunting is much more of a "thing" where we live now, so I hope to start thinning the herd someday soon... Maybe next season.

 

[Charliefrank]

I loved squirrel hunting when I was younger. I still own the scoped remington model 581. It loved CCI Stingers more than any other ammo I tried to feed it. Any squirrel within 75 yards was stew. It's such a great way to hone your skills. It's where I learned to properly skin an animal including eyelids and lips. Good training for an up and coming trapper. Always brings a smile to my face when I think back on the simple but effective trick I used to pull on the little buggers. Inadvertently one would see or hear you and go around to the opposite side of the tree as you. I always carried a pocket full of golf all sized rocks just for this senario. I would through the rock behind them on the ground and the sound would scare them back around to my waiting cross hairs.

 

[Mauser lover]

Bwahahaha! Here little poofy rodent!

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I've been hunting the blackpowder season ever since it started but like a lot of deer hunters, the squirrels are both a source of entertainment and frustration. We have a bumper crop of them this year and I decided to spend yesterday chasing them.

You poor guy.
Some of us black powder deer hunters also hunt the bushy-tails with black powder.
A 20 gauge fusil that launches a 3/4 ounce round ball will hammer deer, AND the same flintlock with an ounce of #5 shot, will hammer gray squirrels.

LD

 

[Jack B.]

Looks good. I wish I could shoot the squirrels that packed the engine compartment of my pathfinder with 19,402,399 pinecones recently. I can't shoot in city limits. I guess I should get a pellet gun.

Since you and I live in the city limits I have found that a good soaking from a water hose works wonders for keeping tree rats away. They seem to remember.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

You could jack up the power on a rat trap, and trap them.

LD

 

[CraigC]

You poor guy.
Some of us black powder deer hunters also hunt the bushy-tails with black powder.
A 20 gauge fusil that launches a 3/4 ounce round ball will hammer deer, AND the same flintlock with an ounce of #5 shot, will hammer gray squirrels.

LD

That's the plan for next year. Since I've made the jump from cap to flint, i'm really having a hankering for a 20ga smoothbore.

 

[The Evangelist Cowboy]

I don't squirrel hunt per se but I do eat what I shoot out of the squirrels that decide to go after my bird feeders, they are good eating especially in a pot pie.

 

[tomturkey]

I need to get a gammo pellet rifle.

Where I hunt deer we are able to bait. There are no acorns at all so every thing is hungry. A friend gave me a few bushel of acorns he cleaned up in his yard where I live. Every time I put some down for the deer the squirrels have them carried off an buried before the deer get a chance at them. With a gammo I could shoot a limit of squirrels with out the noise of a firearm disturbing the deer.

My son has a bunch of spruce trees that drop those long pine cones. He sent me a picture the other day of the big pile of pine cones a red squirrel had piled against a spruce tree for a winters supply of food. Dang things do not clean them up along his drive way so he has to clean them up so they do not plug his snow blower.

I have noticed that deer to not even look up at a distant gun shot though. I am sure they would pay attention if it was a close shot though.