Rifle: CZ 452 American “Squirrel Whisperer”
Scope: Clearidge Ultra XP 6-20x40AO Mildot
Ammo: SK SS HP 40 grain
This was another afternoon hunt in front of a rain event coming in for Saturday. Brad starts to have withdrawals, as do I, if I miss to many days in a row of squirrel hunting. Temperatures were fairly cold in the upper 40’s and falling as darkness rolled in. Sky was overcast.
As soon as we rolled into our area and started to gather our gear, a squirrel immediately began giving us a verbal bashing. I motioned to Brad to move towards the sound and see if he could take this squirrel. I had just received a call from my brother about more of his problem squirrels in his yard. They had chewed a hole in his barn doors to gain access to corn he was storing. He was calling me in for a hit to take out these nuisance problems. I agreed to help him out when I could. At the end of the call Brad made a shot, missing the squirrel. He tracked it to a large white oak where it pinned itself up to hide. I moved to the other side of the tree so that the squirrel would reveal itself to Brad. Brad really didn’t have a tree to prop on to take the shot, so I offered up my stix. He regretfully accepted them and got into position for a shot. It should have been a sure thing, but Brad isn’t real confident in taking an anchored, slow trigger press, shot. When he broke the shot I thought the squirrel was hit, but the way it scurried into another tree, we knew there was no contact. After a lot of discussion and disgust we moved on to another area.
As we made our next area, we walked up on squirrels actively foraging. One of these three squirrels, Brad and I agreed, was the dumbest squirrel we’ve ever encountered. It began barking at us. In an aggressive manner. As to say, “You better back off!” “I don’t care if you do have guns, you don’t scare me.” Now the other squirrel, at the time, was moving towards a nest. When that squirrel made the nest, it ran another squirrel out. So now we have two squirrels hiding and one “giving us the business.” We thought the one talking trash was a little on the young side so we went after the anchored squirrels. Brad filmed while I anchored on one hiding on the underside of a branch. I broke the shot and the squirrel was done, falling to the ground. The second hiding squirrel tried to hide in plain sight, and I had to reposition for a shot. There was a dead branch just in front of this squirrels vitals, but the head was somewhat clear. That’s the shot I chose to take. I made contact with the dead branch which threw the shot off and the squirrel got away. All this time “mouthy” was still sounding off. After the second shot though, “mouthy” ran off.
Brad did end up getting a squirrel in this same area as darkness was setting in. You guessed it “mouthy” was back on the scene, but made a nest soon after verbally assaulting us. I had to step in the wood line to get Brad’s squirrel to move in position, and his Eley subsonic round sent the squirrel quickly out of the tree.
Another fun outing, and good times spent with a friend.
Shots taken by myself: 2
Squirrels taken by myself: 1