How to Cash-in on the Squirrel Crop
Day 1: Eight Squirrels in 3 Minutes
Editor’s Note: Know how to change your squirrel-hunting luck. When you put more thought and better tactics into your squirrel hunting, you’ll end-up with more bushytails in your coat. Here’s how.
The little patches of light began to flicker as the sun attempted to knife its way through the heavily-leaved hickory trees. I heard the squirrels long before I saw them. Tree limbs shook, and the early morning dew dropped as bushytails sprang from limb to limb, playing and feeding. As I crept close to my quarry, I heard the hulls of nuts falling on the forest floor, while the bushytails consumed the meat of the hickory nuts. I was close now. I had made a well-calculated stalk from 30-yards away. My movements had gone unnoticed by the squirrels. I was well within range for my rifle and riflescope. As I started to scope the trees for the closest target, I heard a squeaking 10-yards away. I had heard the sound before. The sharp, front teeth of a tree rat were cutting a nut, but where? Halfway up a tree, I spied what appeared to be a large knot on the limb. I looked through the scope and saw a fat bushytail eagerly eating a large hickory nut. When my crosshairs rested on the squirrel’s front shoulder, I fired. The squirrel tumbled from the limb. Another squirrel three trees ahead whipped his tail and barked. Finding him in my scope, I fired again. He met the same fate as the first squirrel. By now squirrels were scurrying through the treetops. I tried to focus on one fat gray squirrel as he raced from limb to limb, but he was too quick for me to take a shot.
Then the squirrel ran out to the end of a limb and hesitated just before he sprang. For a split second, the animal’s motion was frozen. My rifle cracked, and there was a dull thud as the bullet hit its mark. I had finished-out my limit of eight squirrels in less than 3 minutes. Opening morning of squirrel season had been a splendid success. And, hunters across much of the nation are enjoying squirrel season now.
|