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June 17, 2022

Ramblings of an Old Squirrel Hunter | Sports

You’ve heard me talk a lot about squirrel hunting in the past, and I hope I haven’t bored you with it. This type of traditional, close-to-the-land hunting strikes a chord with me. I can’t help it, it just does. I think it has to do with where I come from and what shaped me as a versatile wood rat and hunter. We really can’t escape who we are.

I have been a squirrel hunter for most of my life. In some parts of the country, hunters think that’s a strange statement. They did not grow up hunting squirrels and it is not part of their hunting culture. In my part of the world, the southern Appalachian Mountains, there was a time when most young hunters started squirrel hunting. The squirrel forest is where we learned to be hunters. It’s where we learned all the basic skills needed to hunt everything from bushytails to Greater Kudu. You can too.

Squirrel hunting was made for new and first time hunters. You can hunt them almost everywhere; any wooded area is likely to have squirrels. East of the Mississippi is an estimated 384 million acres of forest. Much of this is on public lands like the National Forest and state wildlife management areas. As for private land, many times landowners will give you permission to hunt squirrels when they couldn’t hunt deer or turkey. There are no expensive leases required to be a squirrel hunter.

In addition to all the stalking and tactical skills, the squirrels will teach you other basics that every hunter should know. Learning to find and recognize the food that the game needs is essential for any hunter. If you think about it, much of what a wild animal does every day is walking around and looking for something to eat. This applies to deer, bears, turkeys, and squirrels. Squirrels will establish a home range, especially if it is centered around a good burrowing tree, usually a large, old tree that has holes for squirrels to crawl into. This is the bombproof shelter that squirrels will flock to when all else fails and can be the place to sleep during bad weather.

Squirrel hunting does not require a lot of special equipment. If you have a .22 rifle or shotgun and a pair of boots, you’re ready to go squirrel hunting. Camouflage clothing can help but is not absolutely necessary, use your old jeans and a sweatshirt. If you have a turkey vest, they are a great way to carry squirrels and whatever gear you choose to carry, as well as providing a seat cushion. A small game or bird vest is also helpful.

Any .22 rifle that can shoot accurately out to 50 yards will work just as well as most shotguns, and not necessarily a 12-gauge and three-inch Magnum shells, a 20-gauge will work just fine, or even a .410 for younger hunters .

When I was 10 or 12 years old on the first day of the season, I would jump out of my bed where I’m pretty sure I wasn’t sleeping. Getting ready involved nothing more than throwing on blue jeans and a flannel shirt and maybe grabbing a plate of Cheerios. Unlike the mountain of gear that seems to be necessary nowadays, I have my squirrel pin (it’s for attaching the squirrels I collect and is made by folding a coat hanger) on my belt and some .410 shotgun shells in my pocket.

I follow my dad out the door and he starts up the International Scout and off we go. This is a day trip close to home, so in a few minutes it stops on an old dirt road and we sit in the pre-dawn darkness. The anticipation, the suppressed emotion, is palpable. We’ve waited months for this, and now it’s here. The realization that the event is here, and now we are living it, seems good, almost euphoric.

I look back now, after so many years, and wonder if Dad was really as excited as I was on those opening mornings. Or was he just playing with a skinny kid who lived to go hunting? It’s just one of a hundred questions I wish I could ask you.

Many of today’s hunters may find it hard to believe that opening day of squirrel season was once such a big deal. I mean, as important as deer season. It was not uncommon for the surrounding woods to resound with the hunters’ shots on opening day. I remember my dad saying it sounded like a “young war”. In the past, hordes of hunters would go into the woods in search of a tree-dwelling rodent that could weigh a pound or two. Why? There are probably several reasons.

Fifty years ago, we certainly had more hunters. Hunting was something that more people considered important and more young people naturally followed their fathers, uncles and grandfathers to the squirrel forest, more than today. In some areas, like my native southern West Virginia, small game like squirrels might be the only game in town. Deer were not found throughout the state and wild turkeys were not abundant either.

September 11 marked the beginning of squirrel season in my home state of West Virginia. In some southeastern states, the season has already begun; others will soon follow. Would you consider an early morning trip to the misty forest this year? Maybe it’s been a long time for you, life and other hunting got in the way. The golden autumn forest, the squirrels and that boy with wide eyes full of wonder are waiting for you.

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June 17, 2022

New proposal could shut down and restrict popular Canadian big game hunts

If a new British Columbia government proposal is successful, hunters in the northeastern part of the province could soon see their opportunities to hunt elk reduced by 50% and the complete elimination of all caribou hunting.

A public comment period for the proposal will end tonight at 12 pm PST.

The proposed changes would affect a large swath of northeastern BC known as the La Paz Region, which encompasses approximately 22% of the entire province. While much of the area supports healthy populations of elk and caribou, the habitat of these animals has been severely degraded in parts of the region due to large-scale resource extraction authorized by the British Columbia government.

In June 2021, Blueberry River First Nations (BRFN), an indigenous group with treaty rights in the Peace Region, won a lawsuit against the province of British Columbia that expanded their rights to determine how the government can allow extractive activities. of resources on their traditional lands. In that lawsuit, a Vancouver judge found that, through years of booming industrial mining, drilling, and logging, the British Columbia government had violated BRFN’s constitutional rights to “hunt , fish and trap consistent with their lifestyles.”

In Canada, First Nations peoples have the constitutional right to govern their own hunting regulations, while licensed Canadian hunters must comply with regulations implemented and enforced by various provincial governments. British Columbia is approximately 95% unceded First Nations territory.

The proposed reduction to moose tags and elimination of caribou hunting for licensed Canadian hunters is an attempt by government officials to retroactively honor the treaty rights of the BRFN people and atone for decades of environmental degradation caused by unsustainable mining, drilling and logging. operations. Critics within Canada’s conservation community say it misses the mark.

“Instead of dealing with the restoration work, [the provincial government] decided to offer concessions on licensed hunting,” said Mark Hall, BC resident, avid hunter and host of the Hunter Conservationist Podcast.

Hall is a retired forester and environmental scientist with a keen understanding of the inner workings of science-based conservation in British Columbia. He says the British Columbia provincial government’s proposal to cut elk tags in half and eliminate caribou hunting altogether has caught conservationists across the Peace Region by surprise.

“He’s shocked everyone, that’s for sure,” Hall told MeatEater. “For people across the province who are working on collaborative tables for wildlife management, this was one that clearly came out of left field.”

Opponents of the proposal, like Hall, say it lacks scientific merit and won’t have a positive impact on moose or caribou populations, which are strong enough to support hunting at current levels.

“Elk populations in most areas this proposal would apply to are very healthy,” Hall said. “They estimate there are more than 60,000 elk in the entire region, with some of these areas having the highest density of elk in the entire province of British Columbia.”

Hall says that labeling adjustments, if needed, should be targeted at specific sections of the La Paz Region, not uniformly across a unit of this size and scale.

“This is not a reduction in hunter harvest because elk populations are declining,” he said. “There are some small areas where moose populations apparently aren’t doing as well, but this is a huge geographic area. So there will be some areas where they won’t do as well, just like there are herds of caribou that are in danger of extinction, while other herds are fine and have hunting seasons.”

Hall says there doesn’t even seem to be unanimous support among the various nations for instituting the proposed changes to hunting caribou and elk in British Columbia.

“We cannot speak for the nations, and there are quite a few of them,” he said. “But the reliable feedback that we’ve gotten from people who are involved in the talks is that for some of the nations, this is not what they asked for.”

He believes the recent proposal is a negotiated agreement between First Nations and the British Columbia Government.

“It is a concession, a negotiation to allow, hopefully, [First Nations’] consent on industrial projects to continue advancing until [the provincial government] figure out how they can start to restore some of these impacts to the land,” he said.

As a stipulation of last year’s court case, all new development on the Blueberry River First Nations land was put on hold. No new authorizations will be allowed until the BC government reaches an agreement with BRFN.

Hall went on to note that the British Columbia Supreme Court decision that initiated the proposed changes, Yahey v. British Columbia, did not mention the impacts licensed Canadian hunters were having in the region, but instead intended to address damaging ecological impacts. of large-scale energy development and resource extraction.

“The big thing that bothers many hunters in the province is that in the Yahey decision where they said that the government had done too much industrial development, they did not say anything about [the impacts of] hunting,” he said. “It was about the resource extraction industries: coal, gas, oil, forestry. He had nothing to say that they were authorizing too many hunters to be there. It was just the industrial impacts.”

While doing environmental stewardship work in the natural gas sector, Hall witnessed firsthand the staggering impacts of industrial development on the landscape of northeastern British Columbia.

“About 25 or 30 years ago, prices went up and a lot of natural gas exploration started, and it was done on a massive scale,” he said. “The province was promoting the industry, they were giving permits, companies were entering. It was big. I work in that industry. I’ve flown over it and you can literally see seismic lines running through the curvature of the earth.”

The phrase “seismic line” refers to corridors through a forest that are used by oil and gas companies as critical infrastructure to transport and deploy geophysical survey equipment.

“What puzzles people is that the judge has said that it is necessary to repair these industrial impacts on their [the First Nation’s] rights,” Hall said. “And instead of the province telling the nations, ‘Let’s start fixing these things, restoring, rehabilitating and reclaiming,’ they immediately said, ‘Well, let’s cut the resident elk hunters in half.'”

Hall’s son Curtis, who co-hosts the Hunter Conservationist Podcast and works as a fly-fishing guide and wildlife photographer in BC, sees the recent proposal as part of a worrying trend of ignoring science in the implementation of fly management. wildlife in the province.

“It’s not a science-based wildlife management decision,” he said. “After we lost the grizzly bear hunt in British Columbia due to an unscientific wildlife management decision, we hoped that would not happen again.”

The BC Wildlife Federation, one of British Columbia’s leading conservation groups, says reducing elk tags and eliminating caribou hunting will deal a substantial blow to the Peace Region’s economy.

“Licensed resident hunters spend a lot of money at local businesses, including sporting goods stores, restaurants, and hotels,” the organization recently stated in an Instagram post. “This plus the loss of revenue from the sale of licenses could result in a loss of $14 million to $19 million per year in the La Paz Region.”

As for non-resident hunters, these proposals could also affect them. People from outside of BC are currently allocated about 10% of all elk tags issued in the Peace Region through vendor quota.

Mark Hall says that any changes that may come as a result of the proposal will need to be implemented quickly so that they can be incorporated into the hunting regulations by 2022.

“Wildlife managers will take public comments into consideration and put together a decision package that will go to the forestry minister for a formal decision on whether to accept or reject it,” it said. “They have to go through the cabinet, get cabinet approval, then get the lieutenant governor’s approval as an order in council, and then they can publish the hunting regulations.”

The comment period for the proposal to reduce elk hunting and end caribou hunting in the La Paz Region ends today, March 23, at midnight. Concerned hunters can make their voices heard here.

There is also a “virtual round table” with local politicians scheduled for March 30. An eventbrite registration page describes the event as “an opportunity for concerned British Columbians to provide feedback on the government’s proposed changes to hunting regulations in the Peace River region.”

If the hunters in BC and their allies elsewhere can make enough noise during that process, they may salvage their chances in the Region of Peace.

Featured Image via Sam Lungren

June 17, 2022

Squirrel Hunting Season Begins in Iowa | News

(Des Moines) — As the fall months approach, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says it brings that special time of year that is squirrel hunting season.

Keeping in line with recent Iowa tradition, squirrel season kicked off the Saturday before Labor Day and runs through Jan. 31. Speaking on the KMA “Morning Show” Friday morning, Iowa DNR Forest Wildlife Research Biologist Jim Coffey says that while the season is in full swing, there are some limitations that hunters must take into account.

“We allow a combined harvest of six squirrels per day from the two species that can be hunted, which is the fox squirrel and the gray squirrel, which most people are pretty familiar with if they’ve lived in Iowa for a long time,” Coffey said. she said. “We have two other tree squirrels that aren’t available to be hunted, and that’s the flying squirrel, which is a nocturnal species and would be very difficult to hunt anyway, and then in some parts of Iowa we have the red or the squirrel.” Pine”.

Coffey says that hunters can shoot a combination of foxes and gray squirrels up to six per day, and can have a total possession of 12 on them.

The combination of the fox and gray squirrels, says Coffey, is because gray squirrels began to take over fox populations.

“(The fox) tends to be very much associated with open wood, or the savannah-type wood that Iowa was very used to years ago,” Coffey said. “The gray squirrel is a smaller species and is more associated with our more mature wood habitats. One of the biggest issues we get from squirrel hunters is ‘I’m losing all my fox squirrels, what’s happening to them?’ Well, as those trees mature, that species no longer has the same ability to survive and do its job biologically, so the gray squirrel tends to take over those areas.”

Coffey says one of the biggest complaints he sees is people finding access to land. However, she says there is a lot of land due to the sport being underutilized.

“In many cases, squirrel hunting is an underutilized resource, so there is plenty of space available to hunt squirrels on public land, and of course you need a permit to hunt squirrels on private land,” Coffey said. “One thing I like to tell people is the beauty of squirrel hunting, it’s something we associate with when we were kids. So it’s a good way to introduce young people and new people to hunting, and as older adult, it’s a good way to relive your youth a bit so you can go squirrel hunting again.

For hunters just starting out in the sport, Coffey says look for an oak or hickory, as squirrels this time of year are strongly associated with acorns and hickory trees.

More information about squirrel season and hunting in general in the state of Iowa can be found on the Iowa DNR website.

June 17, 2022

Eric Raymond Willey, June 15, 2022, edition | obituaries

Eric Raymond Willey of Osceola died unexpectedly on June 4, 2022 in a car accident. He was 52 years old.

Eric was born to Raymond and Karen (Kluss) Willey in St. Croix Falls on December 13, 1969. He was baptized and confirmed at Zion Lutheran Church in East Farmington.

Eric started school at Cedar Lake School and then attended school in Osceola until graduating from Osceola High School in 1988. During his school years, he was involved in FFA and wrestling.

On June 12, 1993, Eric married the love of his life, Melissa Campeau, and was blessed with two children, Brandon and Brittany.

He worked the third shift at ITP in St. Croix Falls for many years and then moved to MPP to work the third shift in Osceola. From a young age, Eric learned hard work skills tending the lawn and working on local dairy farms. He was able to pursue his love of the outdoors by starting Willey’s Lawn and Outdoor Services. After years of taking his kids pedaling, Eric decided to share his passion with others by establishing River Valley Pedal Tractor Pulls, LLC. He was recently named president of the Wisconsin State Pedal Traction Association and voted as a director on the board of the National Pedal Traction Association. Through the years, Melissa stood by his side supporting his many endeavors.

Eric loved hunting deer, squirrels, and raccoons; ice fishing; cheering on his Green Bay Packers; cultivate his gardens (pumpkins, gourds, etc.); old tractor traction; all his pets; and spend time with his friends and family. His greatest achievements were his two children, Brandon and Brittany. He loved attending the pedals and getting great deals at yard sales and Mr. Deals. He frequently stopped by Kwik Trip to rack up bounties on him.

He was one of the last of the best.

Eric was preceded in death by his father, Raymond and his grandparents, Fred and Zeatta Kluss and Thomas and Opal Willey.

Eric is survived by his wife of 29 years, Melissa; son, Brandon (Sabrina) Willey; daughter, Brittany (Luke) Lindahl; grandson, Walker Eric Willey; mother, Karen Willey; siblings, Mark Willey and Robyn (Corrine) Willey; godson/nephew, Ryan Willey; nephews, Codie Campeau and Derek Campeau; niece, Paige Perlock-Campeau; father-in-law and mother-in-law, Dale and Judy Campeau; sister-in-law, Kristie (Kris Perlock-Campeau) Campeau-Perlock; aunt/godmother, Helen Jorgenson; many other relatives and friends, and of course his dogs Taxie and Max.

Instead of flowers, memorials to the family are preferred.

A funeral was held on June 10 at the Peace Lutheran Church in Dresser. Burial was in Farmington Cemetery in Osceola immediately after the service.

June 17, 2022

Every MeatEater Trivia VI Question

MeatEater Trivia is a bonus podcast that we release several times a month on the MeatEater Podcast feed. These are trivia you won’t find on Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy, because these questions come from our four departments: Hunting, Fishing, Conservation, and Cooking. I’m the show’s creator and host, Spencer Neuharth.

Episode 323: Let’s play, idiots! MeatEater Trivia VI just released today. Features Steve Rinella, Janis Putelis, Brody Henderson, Seth Morris, Chester Floyd, Mike Kmon and Brent West vying for the title of trivia champion. And, as always, the winner chooses which conservation organization MeatEater will donate $500 to in their name.

Here are the 10 questions on this week’s show. If you want to play along and find out the answers, be sure to listen to the latest episode of MeatEater Trivia.

1. white tails: A recent study on private land in Georgia used trail cameras at bait sites to monitor how deer behave when playing different sounds. What kind of noise overwhelmingly scared the deer the most? Non-threatening birds, wolves, humans or coyotes?
2. Cook: What is the term used to describe a vegetarian who also eats fish and shellfish?
3. Hunting: There is only one state with regulated hunting seasons for both moose and alligators. What is?
4. Public Lands: Name one of the five least visited national parks in 2019.
5. Biology: rufus lynx What is the scientific name of which North American animal?
6. Equipment: There are four states in the lower 48 that don’t have Bass Pro or Cabela’s. Name one of them.
7. Deer Camp: This is an audio question that you can listen to on the podcast. We played a minute of the worst hunting song ever written. You need to identify who the artist is.
8. Fishing: There are four types of bullheads in North America that have a color in their name. Name two of them.
9. Cook: Name two of the three ingredients that make up the Cajun Trinity.
10. Vermin: Tell me the name of a male or female badger.

June 17, 2022

The squirrel is just one of several hunting seasons now underway in Missouri.

(Salem) Missouri hunting seasons are starting to open now. Pigeon season was the first to open and archery season for deer and turkey began on Wednesday.

Another fun animal that you can hunt right now is the squirrel.

Dent County Conservation Officer Jason Midyett says squirrels abound, but don’t be greedy like these outsiders who will now pay a hefty fine for their gluttony.

Missouri hunters may hunt the eastern gray squirrel or the fox squirrel.

The daily limit is 10 and the possession limit is 20.

Squirrel season runs through February 15.

Another fun season also kicked off on Wednesday and that is concert season for non-game fish in Ozark streams and lakes.

The concert season runs through January 31.

June 17, 2022

DEC announces start of small hunting seasons | WWTI

NEW YORK (WWTI) — The New York State DEC announced that most small hunting seasons will begin Oct. 1. New York State DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos said the fall season is a great opportunity for hunters to enjoy the sport.

“Each fall, more than 60,000 hunters venture out to seek out New York’s abundant small game,” Seggos said. “It’s a great way to introduce new hunters to the sport and teach them how to be a safe and responsible member of the hunting community while reconnecting with the outdoors, establishing new traditions and experiencing the diversity of New York’s wildlife.” .

The ruffed grouse hunt will be one of the seasons beginning October 1 and open through the last day of February in most of the state. The DEC reminds hunters to positively confirm that they are hunting sage grouse rather than sage grouse, that it is an endangered species and that hunting is illegal. The DEC posted tips for hunters to help distinguish which species is which on its website.

DEC will release about 30,000 adult pheasants onto public lands for the upcoming season. The season will begin on October 1 for the northern and eastern parts of New York, on October 16 in the central and western parts of the state, and on November 1 on Long Island.

In Western New York, the Junior Pheasant Hunting Weekend will take place on October 9-10. In upstate and eastern New York, Junior Pheasant Hunting Weekend will be September 25-26, and on Long Island, it will take place October 30-31. In order to participate in the hunt, both the junior hunter and their adult mentor must have a hunting license. Only the junior hunter can carry a firearm and hunt birds on these dates.

Squirrel hunting season began on September 1 in upstate New York and will begin on November 1 on Long Island. The rabbit hunt will begin October 1 in upstate New York and November 1 on Long Island. Snowshoe hare season will begin October 1 in the North Zone, while hare hunting season in the South Zone will begin in late fall or early winter.

Wild turkeys can be found throughout the state, specifically in forests, old fields, and farmlands. The statewide seasonal bag limit is one bird of either sex and hunting hours are sunrise to sunset. The dates for this season are as follows:

October 1 to 14 in the North Zone
October 16 to 29 in the South Zone
From November 20 to December 3 in Suffolk County and on Long Island

Coyote hunting season will begin Oct. 1 in most of the state, and hunting seasons for other fur-bearing animals, such as bobcat, raccoon and fox, will begin Oct. 25. Season dates and zone limits for all furbearing animals can be found on the DEC website and in the Guide to Hunting and Trapping Regulations.

New York hunters will be able to hunt more than 30 species of waterfowl this season. Season dates in the five waterfowl zones are listed below:

Waterfowl Youth Days:

Northeast Zone: September 18 and 19
Southeast Areas and Lake Champlain: September 25 and 26
West Zone: October 2 and 3
Long Island area: November 6 and 7

Hunting days for military and veterans:

Northeast Zone: September 18 and 19
Southeast Zone: October 9 and 10
West Zone: November 11 and 13
Long Island area: November 13 and 14
There will be no special days for military or veterans in the Lake Champlain area.

Opening dates for regular duck seasons:

Northeast Zone: October 2
Lake Champlain area: October 13
West and Southeast Zones: October 16
Long Island area: November 20

DEC encourages hunters to continue to use common sense during the fall hunting season and remember basic training such as always pointing your gun in a safe direction, treating every gun as if it were loaded, being sure of your target and more. there when shooting. and keeping their finger off the trigger until they are ready to fire.

June 17, 2022

Squirrel and archery seasons in full swing | News, Sports, Jobs

As I write this, both squirrel season and archery season are in full swing. I haven’t been successful in either, but it’s still very early in the season.

Although it has started to cool down a bit during the night, it is still quite hot during the day. It usually doesn’t feel like hunting season until daytime temperatures get a little more moderate.

The main reason I have been leaving is to take my grandson. As I have often said, any time to take the youngsters into the woods is worth it. They are the hunters of the future.

As for squirrel hunting, the area we hunt doesn’t have many trees that produce hickory, beech, or other nuts, so we have to rely heavily on oak.

I have heard other hunters say that they have seen many acorns, but in our area they seem to be scarce. To date, the couple of times we’ve been out, we still haven’t seen a squirrel.

And now to bow hunting. Since crossbows have become legal in our state, most hunters have transitioned to them, I know I have.

Before I dive into this, I know that opinions vary on the use of crossbows. I think its popularity is due to the stealthier trait of not having to draw a compound bow, while there are excellent eyes trying to catch your every move.

And of course the accuracy of a good scoped crossbow is much better than the average compound bow user.

My two youngest grandsons have taken some deer, bucks and bucks, with a crossbow, out of the most forgiving move, hunting blind.

This year, the 13-year-old decided he wanted to try a compound bow. So, we bought one, which he said could be an early Christmas present that is highly adjustable in both length and weight. One that can increase as you grow into it.

While trying to find a bow with these features, the owner of a local sporting goods store told me that they are almost a thing of the past due to the high-end nature of people who use crossbows.

After purchasing the bow and setting it up, he spent several hours practicing from the ground. When he became an expert, we took a portable target into the woods and I had him shoot from the ladder we’d be on. This is something I would encourage most hunters to try. It helps you see how down angles can affect your shot placement. He shot well, so we were ready.

After being on the stand several times and seeing a few deer, including a few bucks, he is beginning to understand the challenges of drawing the bow. She’s being very patient, and I think she’ll eventually get the chance from her.

As hunters, we all go through different stages during our lives. Things that used to seem very important now do not seem so important and other priorities have taken their place.

It’s heartening to see the wonder and excitement a boy shows as he begins to take his place as a future sportsman and hunter.

I know you’ve heard me say this before, but I think this is one of the most important things we can do to pay off in a sport we’ve enjoyed in recent years.

I feel that we have an obligation to try to help children on this path.

Whether it’s a boy, a girl or a relative or not, I think we can all find someone to help.

It may sound like a cliché, but a child can make a difference. And in today’s culture, anything would be an improvement.

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June 17, 2022

Missouri squirrel hunters arrested for massive harvest

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be out of date. Look at the timestamp in history to see when it was last updated.

Missouri Department of Conservation image

ELLINGTON, Mo. – An informant told Missouri Department of Conservation agents about a group of hunters who killed nearly 500 squirrels in and around the Current River Conservation Area. The 16 hunters will head to court to face a judge for hunting 151 squirrels over the limit.

The squirrel hunters weren’t from the area. But, over two days they harvested 471 squirrels. Missouri regulations do not allow more than 20 squirrels in any two days. All game must also be separate and identifiable to each hunter.

An image of the bust posted on Facebook shows scores of hairless squirrels. The bodies appear to have been charred by a fire. It is still unclear what the hunters were going to do with their catch.

All hunters were cited for possession for having over the limit number of squirrels and warnings were issued for failing to keep wildlife separate and identifiable.

If you see a possible violation of the Missouri Wildlife Code, please contact your local conservation agent or Operation Game Thief at 1-800-392-1111.

June 17, 2022

Reflecting on a successful squirrel hunt | Sports

The black trees stretched their twisted branches into the barely perceptible dark gray sky as I slipped silently into the grove of hickories and sat expectantly.

The light increased, then two red squirrels passed by, but after 30 more minutes not a single black or gray squirrel appeared. Over the past week they had cleared away any remaining hickory nuts in this area, it seemed.

Moving through the valley, I entered a large, cathedral-like room of beautiful, ripe hemlocks and immediately saw a gray running in the treetops. Sliding from trunk to trunk, I followed him. Finally, the squirrel saw me and stopped almost straight ahead, silhouetted against the sky. I placed the sight on the squirrel and began to squeeze rapidly. Unfortunately, without warning, my back and arm suddenly twitched just as I fired and the gray disappeared. Really, that was unexpected.

Moving through the hemlocks, I reluctantly huffed and puffed my way up a nearly vertical slope, finally reaching a small bench. As he gasped for breath, a gray ran down the slope just out of effective firing range, and then another. I immediately sat down to wait.

After a few minutes, a branch of yellow leaves bent to my right as a gray jumped onto another tree about 30 yards away. I raised the rifle, the squirrel stopped, but I noticed several twigs in front of it. Ignoring them, I fired, the squirrel instantly jumping to another tree and disappearing. Damn, he knew better than that. Frustrated with my decision, I kept waiting. Twenty minutes later, another gray approached me. This time there were no intervening twigs and when the .22 magazine snapped the squirrel fell.

Admiring the beautiful bushy tail, I advanced 100 yards and sat down to clean it. I had just finished when the sound of a walnut falling on the leaves made me look up. A gray ran up a walnut tree and stopped on a branch about 35 yards away. The little rifle spat and the squirrel fell. With the shot another squirrel appeared about 60 meters away, disappearing after one or two jumps. Quickly and quietly closing off the firing range, I sat and waited, rifle at the ready.

An annoying red squirrel suddenly appeared and ran up an oak tree in front of me. The agitated gray lashed around the tree with the aggressive red in pursuit. After several turns up and down the trunk, the gray ran higher up the tree and stopped looking behind him. The sight swung, steadied, and the squirrel went down with the shot, hitting the ground hard, the thud causing an unseen black squirrel to jump up a nearby tree, upside down, chattering loudly.

Despite noticing some intervening twigs, I foolishly fired anyway. The squirrel circled the tree and disappeared; some people learn slowly.

Why did I shoot with twigs on the road when the squirrel didn’t see me? Patience is a difficult trait to learn, it seems, despite knowing better.

In the same instant the black faded, I caught a flash of movement as another squirrel darted toward a maple tree just a few trees away. I shifted slightly to look at both trees at once, determined to wait at least another half hour before moving.

As the minutes passed the sweet smell of wet fallen leaves filled my nostrils, several chipmunks ran through the nearby leaves, noisy blue jays scolded me, and a small flock of chickadees, sedges and nuthatches fluttered happily around me. . Autumn woods are endlessly busy and entertaining.

Suddenly I heard the scratch of claws on the bark and the black reappeared far above me. Leaning back and bracing the rifle against the side of a tree, I lined up the shot, pulled the trigger, and the black dropped, causing the gray to slide to my side of the tree, presenting a clear shot. Perfect. The rifle swung, steadied, and gray joined black.

Wow, when you’re squirrel hunting, things can happen fast.

Walking to a 15 foot area, I collected my three squirrels and realized that only one more busy queue would complete my limit. It takes some time to clean up and cut down three squirrels, so I was busy for a while. When I was done, I looked up the hill and spotted a distant squirrel on top of a hickory tower; closing the distance i tried to draw a bead on my raised quarry. It was at an angle, the tree swaying slightly in the wind. Eagerly I tried the hard shot and predictably missed. The squirrel jumped onto another tree, flew up the trunk, and shot down the side of the hill like a rocket.

Walking slowly forward, I spotted another squirrel, played cat and mouse with the wary black for 30 minutes, finally impatiently taking another poor shot at the constantly moving creature and missing again. Well, they’re small, elusive targets.

Moving higher up the bank, I sat down in a likely-looking area, where after a short wait a gray appeared out of nowhere just 15 yards away. Very slowly I raised the rifle and pulled the trigger…click! The magazine was empty. Feeling really silly, I wondered if I would ever catch that last squirrel.

Reloading, I went ahead and sat down again. Time passed slowly when unexpectedly and seemingly out of nowhere, a gray jumped on a log right in front of me. This time the scope settled, the rifle fired, and I finally reached my limit.

Few things give me a sense of accomplishment like harvesting a limit of squirrels with a rifle. Now it was time to go home and enjoy a delicious fried squirrel dinner, a true delicacy.

Thank you for reading kmaland.com

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