Early Season Squirrel Hunting Tactics
How to Bag Your Game in the Early Season
Squirrel season has opened in my state, and if it isn't open in yours yet, it will be soon if your state has a squirrel season. These, of course, are the tree-dwelling variety I am referring to, and which reward the successful hunter with a tasty treat at the end of the hunt.
Early in the season, squirrels are busy doing a few things.....building nests for the upcoming cold season, harvesting the ripening mast crops of acorns and other nut-bearing trees, and enjoying the thick tree canopy that allows them to travel almost unseen from a distance. Ah, but that canopy can also be their undoing to the attentive hunter.
One of the easiest ways to detect early-season squirrels is to simply look for branches that are moving contrary to their surroundings. If the wind isn't blowing, and the tree top is moving for a reason you cannot determine, chances are it is either Mr. Bushytail, or a bird, one of the two. Occasionally you'll find some other critter is responsible, but those two candidates are the normal culprits. If you pay attention, you will notice the swaying of branches caused by a moving squirrel tend to move differently than one caused by a bird.....the difference is subtle, but it is there. Squirrels almost always outweight birds that hop from limb to limb, and the weight of a squirrel causes a lengthier and more pronounced swaying of the limbs. And subsequent swayings are almost always adjacent to the first moving tree top that caught your attention since squirrels can't fly to another section of the tree and cause it to move. They use the tree itself for their highway.
Once you have determined that a squirrel is causing the commotion in the treetops, you can use the canopy against the squirrel to ease closer until you are comfortable with the range at which you are willing to take a shot. The squirrels will hold fast early in the season for longer periods of time than they will later in the season since they often believe they are well-hidden. A good pair of binoculars will aid in finding your prey when they are holding still.
In addition to the treetops, don't forget the forest floor. The last squirrel I shot this weekend was busy playing around the foot of the forest giants he lived in, and his playing brought him to within 10 yards of me before freezing in place at my presence. Unfortunately for him, he froze for too long and never did make another conscious move on his own since I claimed him with a shot from my .22 caliber airgun. Not only is the canopy above thick this time of year, but so is the ground cover, and neither of us realized the other was there until he came around the trunk of a tree while playing around.
This time of year, depending on the rainfall in your area, water sources can come into play as well. We are currently experiencing the worst drought in eight years in the midwest, and hanging around waterholes, ponds, creeks, and other sources of moisture can reap dividends as well. In the early season heat, I have the best luck early in the morning while things are still cool, and much later in the evening when twilight is approaching. The heat of the day is miserable for both man and beast, and ticks and other no-see-ums relish their chance at biting me when I spend too much time in the woods during the heat of the day.
A word of caution about the legal means of taking small game is in order. Before the season began, I perused the website of my state's DNR and noticed with some dismay that they had made a rule change that made all my .177 caliber airguns unusable for small game hunting. I am currently appealing this ruling, but for this year it stands, and I had to make sure that I had some .20 caliber or larger airguns on hand to do my small game hunting legally. So be sure that you are as legal as you were last year in your hunting methods so that your enjoyable hobby and outdoor pursuits are not sidetracked by your lack of keeping up with the rules. Nothing spoils a hunt quicker than being ticketed by the conservation officer who is just doing his/her job concerning you method of taking your game.
So pay attention to the canopy above, as well as the thick ground cover below while out chasing the tree squirrel around this year. And as the season changes the terrain, new tactics will come into play that will keep you bagging those squirrels hunt after hunt. We'll discuss more of them in later posts on this blog.
Hunt safe and have a great time in the outdoors.
