I’ve written about squirrel hunting quite a bit in the past, and I hope I haven’t bored you. This traditional, close to the earth type of hunting strikes a deep chord with me. I can’t help it; it just does.
I think it has to do with where I come from and what formed me as a hunter and all-around woods rat. We can’t really escape who we are.
I’ve been a squirrel hunter for most of my life. In some parts of the country, hunters think that is an odd statement because they didn’t grow up hunting squirrels and it’s not part of their hunting culture. In my part of the world, the southern Appalachian Mountains, there was a time when most all young hunters started out by going after squirrels. In the squirrel woods is where we learned how to be hunters, picking up all of the basic skills needed to pursue everything from bushy tails to greater kudu, and you can, too.
Squirrel hunting was made for first-time hunters. You can hunt them almost everywhere – any forested area is likely to hold squirrels. East of the Mississippi, there are an estimated 384 million acres of woodland; a lot of this is on public land such as national forests or state wildlife management areas. As for private land, many times property owners will give you permission to hunt for squirrels when they might not for deer or turkeys. As a result, expensive leases are not required to be a squirrel hunter.
In addition to stalking and tactics, squirrels will teach you other basics every hunter should know. Learning to find and recognize the food that game needs is essential to any hunter. If you think about it, much of what a wild animal does every day is walk around and look for something to eat. This goes for deer, bears, turkeys and squirrels. The latter will establish a home range, especially if it is centered around a good den tree, usually an older, large tree that has hollow places that squirrels can get into. This is the bombproof shelter they’ll run to when all else fails, and it may be their sleeping quarters during bad weather.