Author: Adam Back

The Wallis Run Rod & Gun Club, Trout Run, will be holding a squirrel hunt this weekend to raise money for the Wounded Warriors of Pennsylvania.

The event, scheduled for Saturday, February 26, will include two-person teams.

Heath Heller, a member of the club’s fundraising committee, expects about 95 hunters to participate.

He said the event is for a good cause and a fun day out for everyone.

“The camaraderie and camaraderie is like nothing else,” he said.

Hunters must be licensed and follow Pennsylvania state game rules.

The hunt is from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“We’re doing a pig roast, so we’ll have a meal for them later.” Heller said.

The hunt, he said, has drawn more hunters since it began a few years ago.

Registration is set for 7:30 am

The event will include raffles and live music.

Wallis Run Rod & Gun Club is supporting the Pennsylvania Wounded Warriors by raising funds that can be used to help veterans of the state in crisis, as well as wounded warriors and their families.

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When Duck Lore host Sean Weaver couldn’t make the Kansas waterfowl hunting trip last fall, Seth Morris and I took his place. Now we don’t have the call and lure skills that Sean has, but we can shoot birds with the best of them.

The jump shot is a good move to get out of the bag of tricks when you’re in an unfamiliar place, need to kill some time at noon, or just want meat for the freezer. While the idea of ​​pulling and shooting ducks seems simple, there are a few things to consider before putting the stem in a watering hole.

Here are my top tips for jumping shooting waterfowl. If you want to see all the action from our hunt in Kansas, watch Duck Lore Season 1, Episode 6.

He couldn’t deny that it felt like coming home. As the car turned down the lane toward the Southern Sportsman’s Lodge, I knew I’d see old friends and feel right at home. I walked up to the porch, opened the door, and as I walked into the living room, I really felt like I was here yesterday. The Southern Sportsman’s Lodge near Hayneville, Alabama doesn’t seem to change much.

Mounts of deer and turkey adorn the walls, and the comfortable sofas and armchairs seem to entice you to sit back for a while and soak it all up. He always wandered into the kitchen to greet the ladies who cook there and to pay. homage to the rows of paintings on the wall. From the past, celebrities from sports, entertainment, politics, and the like are featured.

All of these people have hunted here and enjoyed the hospitality of this historic hunting lodge. Many were here hunting with Jackie Bushman, father of the Buckmasters deer hunting organization and creator of the Squirrel Master Classic.

The Squirrel Master Classic is the brainchild of Bushman, founder of Buckmasters, one of the first deer-related outdoor magazines and television shows. Eight years ago, Bushman was looking for a way to bring hunters back to his roots, small game hunting, where many of us began this journey as hunters.

Jackie Bushman’s idea was this, to have a squirrel hunt in a fun competitive environment. The teams are made up of outdoor TV personalities, outdoor writers and editors, a dog handler with a squirrel dog to find the squirrels for you, and most importantly, a young man who is a 4-H shooter. .

The 4-H shooters are very important in this company as they are really the reason for the event, to introduce young hunters to the world of small game hunting.

Gamo Air Rifles (www.gamousa.com) sponsored the event and provided all hunters with a Gamo Swarm Magnum pellet gun. The Swarm Magnum is the world’s only ten shot air rifle and the 10X Quick Shot magazine allows the shooter to load ten pellets into the magazine, insert it into the rifle and fire ten quick shots before having to reload.

Trust me, we needed that quick second and third shot on this hunt since these squirrels had their running shoes on. Once they started running in the treetops, sometimes with spectacular leaps from tree to tree, you had to be fast, or you’d be left empty handed.

A revolutionary horizontal inertia-fed magazine integration into the Gamo airgun makes it lighter, more compact and low profile. This improved quick-reload technology prevents double loading a pellet: the magazine rotates and inserts a pellet into the gap using the inertia of recoil as the airgun is fired.

Utilizing a single-cocking break barrel loading system, custom two-stage action trigger, and an ergonomically designed stock with a thumbhole-style vertical grip, prominent cheek riser, and padded buttstock, the Swarm Magnum 10X GEN2 .22 offers balanced handling and a comfortable fit for precision target shooting and hunting applications.

(Meanwhile, in the squirrel forest) Nick Mundt, Michael Waddell, and others from the Bone Collector team seemed a little exhausted. They were working the action of their Gamo air rifles as fast as they could, aiming at the top of a very tall oak tree and pulling the trigger. Unfortunately for them and our team, they weren’t connecting with their target, a very fast and very agile gray squirrel that was showing off acrobatics in the treetops.

This squirrel was good, he was fast, and he didn’t stick around to get shot anymore. This little tree-dwelling rodent was leaving Dodge.

Under full disclosure, I could have been shooting too, and should have, but I was trying to take photos and video, so I was no help with the squirrel. One of our dog handlers for the day, Shane Mason, watched the entire show with some dismay and offered words of encouragement such as “Guys please, one of you whack that squirrel!!”

This whole little vignette was taking place in a beautiful forest in Alabama, not far from Hayneville, and we were the guests of Neal Pettus, who was our guide and he showed us some wonderful squirrel forests.

As with most good things, the Squirrel Master Classic ends too soon. At the end of the second day of hunting, everyone gathers and the squirrels on each team are counted. There is much anticipation as Gamo’s Jackie Bushman and Lawrence Taylor count each squirrel.

I was on the Bone Collector team and to be honest we were feeling pretty confident as we had caught a record 33 squirrels the day before. However, when all was ready it was not, the hard-charging Bone Collector team had caught 59 squirrels in the two days, the Raised Hunting team brought in a whopping 60!

There was a lot of waving and patting on the back, not to mention some very happy but tired squirrel dogs. I went back to the hostel and walked one more time before leaving. The mounts of big bucks and turkeys, as well as photos of football players and country music singers from the past seemed to say, “Until next time”, I assured them I would be back.

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Of the 168 teams that participated in the second annual Brooksville Squirrel Hunt competition, my sons’ team, #87, the Gronk team, finished 27th with a total weight of five 4-pound squirrels and 9.53 oz.

Truth be told, we left the weigh-in at Stable Faith Cowboy Church around 2 pm last Saturday feeling prematurely smug about winning. The $20 entry fee came with two tokens for the world-famous free footlongs, courtesy of the nearby Coney Island Drive-Inn, and our hot dog lunch was quietly spent investing the $1,600 purse for first place.

Reality hits you fast in the chipmunk game, unfortunately. After the final count, the blue ribbon was awarded to Shannon Brass and Dillon Pinkston, who submitted a 5-pound, 1.85-ounce bag. Now that the kids recognize the standard for future competitions, they are hungry to participate again next season.

Hosted by Michelle Payne of Brooksville, this squirrel hunting competition launched last year. It was so successful that Michelle and others decided to make it a tradition to encourage children to participate in outdoor activities.

“We had aunts, uncles, grandfathers, grandmothers, cousins, moms and dads, and neighbors taking out youngsters (in competition), as young as 3 years old,” Michelle said. “This will be an annual event as long as we have supporters!”

In this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast, we take a deep dive into the heart of Southern cultural identity and the mind of Jerry Clower. Does that name sound familiar to you? Jerry rose to national fame in the 1970s when a story he told about hunting raccoons topped the country charts. I’m interested in those rare places where rural culture, and specifically hunting, intersects with the mainstream. Wilson Rawls closed that gap with his book “Where the Red Fern Grows,” and Jerry did it with a vermin-hunting comedy. He’s long gone, but I was able to meet up with his old neighbor from Amite County in East Fork, Mississippi: a man named John Newman. It will give us a behind-the-scenes look at who Jerry was, and some of it may surprise you. And believe it or not, Brent Reaves met Jerry Clower and saw his famous Gold Cadilac. Brent swears it was as long as a battleship. Trust me guys and gals, you won’t want to miss this one!

One of the agencies that manages fish and wildlife in North Carolina did some good things about 10 days ago, but the other one, uh, not so good.

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, at its monthly meeting in late February, approved a handful of changes to hunting and fishing regulations that will benefit both sportsmen and the fish and wildlife they pursue and looking for.

Major ones were creating a spring season for gray squirrels, changing size minimums for hybrid and striped bass in Lake Norman, adding a new playing field covering 2,340 acres in Wilkes counties and Caldwell and the approval of a new camp for hunters in B. Everett Jordan Game lands near Pittsboro.

Spring squirrel season will go into effect on the second Monday in May 2023 and will last for two weeks. It will be in effect only on private land in North Carolina, and the daily bag limit will be eight squirrels per hunter. While spring squirrel hunting is new to North Carolina, several other states in the Southeast have popular spring hunting seasons that begin after spring turkey season ends.

Anglers can only keep striped and hybrid bass that are at least 20 inches long as of August 1, a change from the current 16-inch minimum size. The fishing limit will remain at four fish per day, per angler.

The commission voted to open 2,340-acre Kings Creek Game Land in Wilkes and Caldwell counties on newly acquired land. The treaty will be added to the western deer season and will have a one-day introductory season for both sexes.

The commission also voted to create a designated camping area in the Jordan Game Lands to allow hunters to camp during open hunting seasons. The camp will be restricted from September 1 to the last day of February and from March 31 to May 14. The camp will be restricted to hunters.

And now, as radio host Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story.”

Shamefully, the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission continues to view recreational fishermen as second-class citizens when it changes or adopts regulations. The latest chapter in this saga was at the end of February at the commission’s monthly meeting, when it voted to give recreational anglers a six-week flounder season, from August 16 to September 16. 30, with a daily catch limit of one fish and a minimum size of 15 inches.

Yes, that’s right, one flounder a day for six weeks.

You see, southern flounder is not doing well on the South Atlantic coast, especially in North Carolina waters, where a robust commercial fishing industry takes 70 percent of the annual harvest.

The commission had previously voted to change the 70/30 commercial/recreational flounder allocation in favor of recreational anglers, but members changed their minds at their last meeting, delaying any change for another two years. As it stands, the 70/30 allocation will remain in place in 2023 and 2024, then move to 60/40 in 2025 and 50/50 in 2026.

So for another four years, recreational anglers will basically be told to look elsewhere for flounder, while commercial anglers will carry on as usual. Oh, the commission voted to add a spring flounder season for recreational anglers, so they can target healthy summer and gulf flounder populations (commercials already had access to those fish), except a 1/1 season March to April 15 is a joke. ; flounder are not in accessible areas in any number during that six-week period.

Oh, and if one fish and six weeks isn’t bad enough, the commission warned that if, in its opinion, recreational anglers exceed their allotments at any time, they will have to “give back” those fish in future years, leading to even shorter seasons.

Two veteran North Carolina fishermen who gave seminars at the recent Central Carolina Fish and Boat Show in Greensboro had some interesting thoughts on the Commission’s decision.

“You don’t want to hear my real opinion,” said Noah Lynk of Harkers Island, which runs the Noah’s Ark Guide Service. “It is what it is. I guess we just have to deal with it. But in the last couple of years, maybe it’s just me, but I’ve been catching so many more flounder, and good ones, that it’s almost gone bad. You’re trying to catch red croaker and you’re just catching flounder. I think their (catch) numbers are all wrong.”

Jerry Dilsaver of Oak Island, an inshore crackerjack fisherman, especially in his Hobie fishing kayak, questioned whether the commission had really considered other options.

“It’s not good, and I haven’t heard anyone give me any reason to believe it’s fair,” he said. “If they are going to give us six weeks, they should change the dates so that the season starts around June 1. And why not allow a few 13-15 inch fish and maybe one 17+ inch fish? Biologists have shown us that the largest flounder are mostly female, so why are we pressuring people to catch these larger fish, the breeders? The commercials want to catch bigger fish, because they have more weight to sell.

“Last year, there were over 700 commercial fishermen selling flounder, and yet we are taking billions of dollars in recreational money from the state.”

Dan Kibler he has been covering the outdoors since 1985 as the outdoor editor of the Winston-Salem Journal and then managing editor of the Carolina Sportsman until his retirement last fall.

Small game hunting has severely declined over the decades of my hunting career, and I am part of that decline. When I was a kid, my dad bred beagles, and he, my brothers, and I would go out in the open every Saturday in the fall from the time I was 12 until I was 37. Then Mike, our best beagle: he could jump rabbits. and quickly chase them in a wide circle to our waiting shotguns and also the ringnecks cackling into the bright blue sky to open fire; Unfortunately, he died at the age of seven and Powser gave up breeding dogs.

So, during the 1980s, Billy, Skip, and I went squirrel hunting in the local woods of Mercer and Lawrence County, with some success. We then founded Camp F-Troop in 1986 and discovered “the great place” for ruffed grouse in the 1990s by searching the vast acreage of State Game Lands 86 in Warren County and looking for gaps with several years of regeneration of the foliage. We release 20 or 25 birds a day and kill only a couple a day, but we were amazed by their thunderous volleys and devious flight paths. This was an indigenous and uninhabited game bird worth pursuing. Our state bird.

But today, ruffed grouse populations have declined dramatically due to West Nile virus, habitat issues, and other issues, and many of us have given up hunting grouse altogether. Rabbits have also declined due to habitat problems, and wild pheasants have all but disappeared. So what should an avid small game hunter pursue before and after deer season? Squirrels, that is. Populations of these tasty animals have survived and thrived throughout the state of Pennsylvania, in small private forests, public parks, and State Game Lands where hunting is permitted and encouraged.

Squirrels are in season from October through February (before and after deer seasons) and are abundant wherever hardwood trees grow and produce food. Walnut trees attract them, as do oaks, maples, cherry trees, dogwoods, fruit trees, and many others. They are active in all seasons except the coldest days of winter, and if you hunt them with a single shot .22 rifle, it is good practice for deer season. Camp F-Troop regular Brad Isles led a hunting trip last month for the winter squirrels and had a lot of fun in the woods and in the kitchen. Brad says:

“My reasons for hunting squirrels are twofold: first, I had never eaten squirrels and wanted to try them. Second, he knew I’d be using Billy’s old .22, since he bought it from his widow Sandy some time ago. Knowing the history of the gun at Camp F-Troop and what the camp has meant to me over the last 15 years, it seemed about right. Small game hunting season is late and it gave us a reason to take a camping trip together in what would otherwise be a long, cold February.

“There were only four of us going on the hunt, and we chose Thompson Run Hollow for its good wildlife populations. We walked uphill from the creek through the pine and fir trees and then up the steep incline through the hardwood trees. We didn’t see much, so we changed our plan to a hunt behind the camp, where squirrels abound. I walked along the edge of Game Lands and then settled down to watch the squirrels. After a while, I shot a gray squirrel that was slithering through the felling, but missed. Not long after, I heard chattering about 40 meters up the hill. The squirrel ran and then stopped, and I dropped it.

“I skinned and quartered the squirrel and put the meat in a brine overnight. I chose a recipe Todd had tried last year, which involved making a light breading with salt, pepper, and a little Cajun seasoning, then air-frying the quarters. It turned out well, and I will definitely try again next year.”

DON FEIGERT is the location writer for The Herald and Allied News. His latest book, The F-Troop Camp Chronicles, and his earlier books are available by contacting Don at 724-931-1699 or dfeigert@verizon.net. Explore his website at www.donfeigert.com Or visit Leanna’s Books at the Shenango Valley Mall.

Here’s what you need to know when you’re ready to hunt crows.

There is crow hunting and eating the obligatory crow after a less than successful deer season. Jokingly, you might be surprised how a crow or two can get you back to your home. beginnings as a hunter; beginnings that you may remember as not so successful! It’s easy to think that chasing ravens is easy given the number you’re likely to see over the course of a hunting season.

However, ravens are sharp-eyed, intelligent, and cunning creatures that are not easily fooled. They know when they are under attack, whether by humans or natural predators like coyotes. Getting some of these cunning creatures onto the shooting range may not be as easy as you think, but we’ve got you covered with some vital crow hunting tips.

Let’s take a look at the equipment, methods, and end result of a successful crow hunting. If you’ve ever had a murder of ravens screaming in the woods around your tree like I did, scaring away every animal in a five mile radius, then you’ll understand why we hunt them.

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Raven Hunting Gear

Perhaps the best thing about this type of bird hunting is that you won’t have to break the bank to get started as a raven hunter. In fact, you may already have most of the items you’ll need, with the exception of raven-specific gear. Raven hunting is a great way to control populations of these marauding birds and, even better, to give the hunter a target during the cold winter months. Often when other seasons are over, so it’s a good way to get your hunting fix.

If that’s not enough to motivate you, consider that ravens can be rough with other birds. Mainly because they have been known to plunder duck nests of their eggs, extract newly planted seeds from the soil in crop fields, and even kill young cottontail rabbits in the spring.

Here’s what you’ll need to put an end to all that:

• 12 gauge, 20 gauge or a good .410
• Crow Call (mouth or electronic)
• Motion Crow Decoys
• owl decoy
• full camouflage

have a complete owl body decoy may be one of the secrets to bringing wary crows to the shooting range, as they absolutely despise owls. For charges, a 2-3/4-inch shell loaded with 7-1/2 buckshot is enough, but if you can find them, charges number six will take them down at the same time.

Location

While farmland with nearby wooded areas is ideal, ravens can be found near suburban parks and homes foraging in trash cans and other debris for food. We’re not talking about hunting in a park or the next door neighbor’s yard, just these are good areas to notice where they’re coming from in the morning and where they’re going at night. Cornfields are usually ideal areas to locate them. Just about anywhere you find white-tailed deer or turkeys feeding, these black birds are likely to be nearby, too.

If you have an area where you can set up a hiding place, it’s best to hunt hidden near a feeding area for several hours. These will be the best uses for your lures and calls, as traveling birds can see and hear you without too much difficulty, but you must remain hidden until a shot comes along.

There are really no run and gun tactics for crows as they can and will spot you from a distance. However, traveling through the flyway corridors that these birds frequent can give you time to find a hiding place. Hopefully you’ll spot them before they spot you, and if you spot a few squirrels along the way, all the better.

Vocation

Electronic calls are best as they can be used to mimic most of the many sounds that crows make and they make many specific sounds. There are “come here” sounds, feeding calls, distress calls, and gathering sounds. The best idea is to learn them all and then learn them in one call. A good electronic call or a manual call, combined with movement lures in a place with good food, often results in a deadly combination.

Mouth calling is a great way to get even more in on the action, as you’ll need to learn the proper techniques to have any success. Electronic devices are great, but they come with extra transportation and setup, which isn’t a big deal until you realize you need to move around a few times. A good lanyard will keep your call close at hand and stay close after each shot once you’ve dropped it.

putting it all together

Wait until you are almost ready to hunt before setting your decoys, as sharp-eyed crows may catch you in the process. Wear full camouflage with a face mask because these birds had sharp eyes to spot danger. If you can, set it up before sunrise to stay hidden until crunch time, if not, just stay quiet on the shutter for a while until things settle down, as crows travel back and forth between these areas At different times.

Lures can be placed in trees or on the ground to mimic feeding behavior. An old trick to get some lures up into the treetops is to use a spare fishing line attached to it along with some kind of weight to launch it into the air, but the problem is getting it back down.

The other great thing about raven season is that the seasons are usually of a decent length and have generous bag limits. The only problem you’ll really have with shooting crows is that you’re going to use a lot of shotgun shells, as it’s so much fun, so start shopping for sale shells now!

Please take a look at my book”the path of the hunter” from HarperCollins. Be sure to follow my Web pageor in Facebook Y Youtube. To go rack center And use coupon code Craiger for a new way to display those antler sheds!

NEXT: SQUIRREL HUNT TACTICS FOR WHEN ALL THE TILE ARE DOWN

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