Read about all of my Hunting Adventures!
So, I am sitting around yesterday afternoon stewing about my fishing tournament from the day before. I was watching the NFL and I had a ton of fantasy players getting me points. But, at the end of the first session of games, Griffin came up and said "dad, when are we going squirrel hunting again?"
Well, that was a good question. I hadn't really thought about squirrel hunting in some time, though it is one of my favorite fall pastimes. It is action packed and, if you hunt like me, great exercise.
I did some quick research on my phone and, sure enough, it was squirrel season!
I told him that we would go, if he would clean his room. Truth is, we were going anyway. I just wanted to get free work out of the deal!
He did his chores and we loaded up the old Ruger 10/22.
Now, if you haven't read any of my squirrel hunting stories, you may not know that I hunt a little differently than many people. Instead of sitting and waiting, I take a more proactive approach. I will cover a lot of land and pursue any squirrels I see and hear. I want to get them treed and then pick them off. This Ruger of mine, which you can read about in the link posted above, is ridiculously accurate.
We started out listening at watching.
Within the first 50 yards, we had at least one squirrel near us. We could see it hopping back and forth between trees. Now, the challenge this time of year is, there is a lot of foliage and it is almost impossible to hunt them if they are in the top half of the tree. The leaves obstruct everything.
This squirrel was able to move around without giving himself away and eventually we gave up on him.
Another 100 yards and we came upon a hot area. This area always seems to hold a lot of them. Mostly this is because of the abundance of forage. There are beechnuts and acorns aplenty.
There were two squirrels that were active and they were running back and forth so fast that it was nearly impossible to keep up with them. Luckily, they would bark at one another.
One was on the ground and gave me a shot. Typically I don't like ground shots.This one was long and I had doubts that the squirrel would stay still. But he did and I squeezed a shot.
I had virtually no hope that I hit it, but I didn't hear or see the squirrel move.
Seconds later, the second squirrel appeared from a branch just above where the other had been and began barking. Pop! He held for a second before falling from about 20 feet.
Sure enough, we had hit the first one and scored ourselves two!
That being said, we had to get rid of both of them because they had "wolves," which are a hot weather parasite. I'd post a picture, but yall may not ever read any more of my posts! It took forever to explain what wolves and parasites were and how it wasn't actually the canine, nor would a grey wolf appear any time soon.
We didn't hunt for too long because it was very humid and Griffin was getting tired from hauling his Daisy.
Needless to say, it isn't quite time to keep them. Soon as we have a few frosts, though, it will be time for squirrel d'oeuvres!
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