Fried Food Grows on Trees

February 19th, 2018

Squirrel Hunting Success

I had a wonderful squirrel outing today. I chased a number of squirrels, fired on two, and dropped two. Excellent. I think I can now say I’m an okay squirrel hunter, and since hunting squirrels is as hard as hunting deer, I must be an okay hunter, period.

That’s my position.

I’ve decided that hunting squirrels is not hard. It may be hard to do WELL, but doing an okay job is not tough. Here’s what you do: walk around in the woods. When you see a squirrel, shoot it.

The first squirrel was hanging onto the side of a downed tree. I have no idea why. He was just hanging there, doing nothing. He was in an area where I didn’t want to shoot. One neighbor has a house maybe 25 feet from the property line, which is ridiculous, and I want to be a big person and avoid shooting within 150 feet, but this squirrel was taunting me, so I walked up, got in a position where I was shooting onto my own property, and blew him to squirrel kingdom come.

I have spared other squirrels in that area, but if they insist on congregating there, I am not going to let them sit there and smirk at me.

I circled around the woods and came back, and wouldn’t you know it, I heard a squirrel barking near the house. It was farther away, but not too far. It was sitting on a downed tree, all curled up, so I went to my left until I had a safe angle, and I blew him off the trunk. Blammo!

There were a couple of other squirrels I could have annihilated, but I want to take safe shots that are highly unlikely to wound without killing, and I prefer not to be too close to other people, so I let them go. I also chased a few squirrels that vanished.

The second squirrel I blasted may have been responding to my squirrel caller. I took it with me today and used it a few times. For the most part, the results suggested that instead of “Squirrel Buster,” the device should have been named “Squirrel Offender” or “Squirrel Repeller,” but I heard the barks of the second squirrel while I was using the call. I tromped in the direction of the sound and saw him waiting for his ticket across the River Styx, and I obliged.

My best guess is that the caller is a sad hoax, but I will continue testing it.

I don’t wear camo or use a blind, and I am too impatient to sit for 45 minutes in one place, so I am probably not doing the best job possible. I don’t know what the general rules are, but I can tell you this: MANY squirrels don’t give a crap about your clothes or the fact that they can see your face. MANY will sit and stare at you while you walk up very noisily and point a shotgun at them. MANY are too stupid to hide properly when you get close. MANY will let you shoot them not long after you shot a friend of theirs a hundred feet away. Squirrels are not particle physicists. They are not that hard to outsmart.

I suppose the difference between an okay squirrel hunter and a good squirrel hunter is the ability to kill the 30% of squirrels who aren’t utterly stupid.

I feel good about my results. I can say I’m a hunter now, without too much concern about being exposed.

Tomorrow my BugBuster scope arrives, and hopefully, I will be able to use the air rifle on squirrels and increase my take.

I’ve been reading about the gun I’m using (Browning Sweet Sixteen semi-auto shotgun). Apparently, it’s a very nice gun. The Remington 16 gauge is built on a heavy 12 gauge frame (the 1100), so you get all the weight of a 12 gauge without the power. Sounds like a stupid gun to me. The Sweet Sixteen is light and pleasant to carry. I appreciate that after lugging it around for an hour. The air rifle is much heavier.

The 16 gauge shotgun has lost popularity in the US because of some dumb rules in competitive skeet shooting, but that won’t prevent me from hunting with it.

It works great with #6 shot. Squirrels plop right on the ground. I had to shoot one twice, but he came down instantly after the first shot and couldn’t run off.

I can’t wait to try the air rifle scope. I love scopes. With an accurate gun at the proper distance, you can literally see the exact point of impact, +/- 3/8″, while you’re in the act of shooting. With iron sights, you have to be right up against the target to do that. When I use iron sights from 100 feet, all I know is that I’ll be somewhere in a 2″ circle. That’s not good enough for shooting squirrels with an air gun.

I’ll post a shot of the squirrels. Cleaning them was horrible. I read that you’re supposed to cut them under the tail, stand on the tail, and pull on the hind feet, but these little squirrels are very attached to their coats. I had to fight like a tiger to get them skinned. The boot method didn’t work.

My squirrels are not big. I saw a Youtube squirrel-skinning video, and the squirrels the guy was skinning were like 1.5 of mine. Maybe smaller squirrels are harder to skin. Anyway, they’re in the fridge.

It’s funny, but anti-hunting journalists (there is no other kind) are saying mass murderer Nikolas Cruz demonstrated is propensity for killing by putting photos of dead squirrels online. What a ridiculous, narrow-minded thing to say. A murderer is probably more likely to hunt than other people, but hunting doesn’t make you more likely to murder. Why not go back over Jeffrey Dahmer’s history and post a photo of every trout he ever caught?

It occurred to me that I’m posting squirrel photos at a time when squirrel photos are in bad odor, but I don’t care. My people have been killing squirrels since firearms were invented. I can’t be responsible for the provincial notions of hypocritical, ignorant people who think barbecued ribs come from a rib factory.

I will report on the scope after I use it.

5 Responses to “Fried Food Grows on Trees”

  1. Mike Says:

    When I first started hunting with my uncle ( Dad never hunted but loved to fish) he gave me a hunting coat he had when he started. Tan in color except the old black blood stains and made of heavy canvas. Some guys had pants with leather on the front of the legs to help with the briar’s while rabbit hunting with beagles. My friends and I found the animals could care less what we had on, they acted the same either way. I think most are color blind? My uncle would sit in a deer stand wearing whatever he had on when the notion to hunt came on him and smoking cigarettes. He took as many or more than the guys with camouflage, attractant scents, cover scents and all manor of sporting goods store hunter bait. My youngest nephew killed the biggest deer I’ve ever seen in this area wearing a white t shirt, shorts and flip flops.
    I’m glad you’re enjoying your escape from the city.

  2. Juan Paxety Says:

    When you get the pellet gun, look up artillery hold. It helped my accuracy.

  3. Steve H. Says:

    Thanks for the suggestion. Someone else recommended the artillery hold the other day, so I looked it up. I learned something surprising. The Diana 54’s weird recoil system makes the artillery hold unnecessary.

  4. Og Says:

    You have greys. Reds can be about twice the size, maybe bigger. We almost exclusively hunt reds, preferring the size and flavor. Squirrel sous vide is about my favorite way to go.

    Generally reds are less aggressive and the greys chace them out.

  5. Steve H. Says:

    I remember the red squirrels in Kentucky. Nice and plump.

    The greys here are smaller than the ones I’ve seen people skinning on Youtube. I’m going to guess 12 ounces on average. A little bigger than a Florida rat.

    We also have fox squirrels. I have never seen one, and they are protected. For some sick reason.