I'm new here, but thought I'd share yesterday's hunt with you.
I have had a pretty lousy deer season here in the mountains of North Carolina.
Nocturnal deer, lots of hunting pressure, and a small deer population make it hard to hunt.
Well, today I went back to what I know: Squirrels.
I know how to hunt them and can usually find them
even on a windy day like Saturday.
My hunt was to be on public land near my friend Bob's place.
The mountain just past this pasture is where today's hunt occurred.
I crossed a small creek and headed into the hills.
The underbrush is thick here and with the wind blowing,
hearing a squirrel on the ground was going to be rough.
( I hunt squirrels by sound and sight)
While moving slowly through the area, I noticed a squirrel slithering down a walnut tree.
I moved towards it, but the squirrel never went up another tree.
That's sort of odd. Usually they will run up the next tree pretty quickly.
After realizing the squirrel stayed on the ground and hid, I started wishing I had Jack with me.
(I left Jack, my half Fiest, half Jack Russell,
at home because some gun hunters will shoot any dog
they see in the woods, claiming it was running deer)
I stood near a tree and waited patiently.
Soon enough I heard the distinctive sound of a bushy tail cutting a walnut. I eased toward the sound.
I saw the squirrel about the same time as it saw me.
It slid into a hole in the trunk of the tree. I moved in quickly and set up
near the spot where the squirrel entered the tree.
I waited.
Soon I saw a nose poke out of the hole.
Then the head appeared.
The squirrel scampered out and sat on a limb for about two seconds
before a 36 grain Federal bullet passed through his head.
I hunted most of the afternoon and ended up with two grey's and a boomer.
The boomers are small red squirrels.
They don't have much meat and I usually don't bother with them.
But, I mistook this one for a grey and shot it.
On the way home I stopped at some elderly friends for a visit.
My friend, Lucille, said I should kill a couple squirrels near her house
because they had so many around. O-K!
I slipped into the woods....
...and in less than fifteen minutes I had two more nice grey squirrels for frying.
The funny thing is, while hunting squirrels I saw four whitetails within gunshot.
All were does and I was only armed with a .22 so they all got a free pass.
I think all told, I walked 15 miles for that mess of squirrels.
But I enjoyed every minute of it! :mrgreen:
