![]() Luckily, a squirrel hunt will often produce a lot of action, especially once a squirrel starts concentrating While adults might consider it relaxing and peaceful, an 11-year-old may have another word for it - boring. It’s hard for many of them to sit quietly for hours in a tree stand. This is important to consider as we start young people out hunting. Lots Of Action, Long Seasons, And Liberal LimitsĪsk almost any parent and they’ll tell you that today’s young people are all about fast-paced action. ![]() The point is many small game species are abundant and often underutilized. 22 out a month earlier, you could enjoy those same woods all to yourself. Do the deer hunters in November cut into your solitude? Chances are if you take your. Most squirrel hunters enjoy solitude when they’re afield. If you prefer to hunt private land, just about every little woodlot harbors a few squirrels, and getting permission to hunt them is much easier than getting permission to hunt deer or turkey. Hunters can have a good squirrel hunt in as little as an hour or two, and access opportunities abound in Missouri, with public forest within an easy drive of just about anywhere in the state. Two of the top reasons were a lack of time and a lack of places to go - two areas that should not be of concern to a squirrel hunter. When was the last time you watched a show about squirrel hunting or bought a bag of food plot seed to grow bigger rabbits?Ī recent survey of former hunters asked them to identify why they stopped hunting. Meanwhile, many small game species, while still abundant, don’t get much attention. Many seasoned hunters found big game hunting more exciting or more challenging. As deer and turkey numbers grew over the past several decades, several things have happened. Today, the Department puts that number closer to a half million. Opportunity Aboundsįrom 1967–1983, Missouri squirrel hunters harvested between 2 and 3 million bushytails annually. ![]() While I’m certainly all in favor of folks going afield hunting for any legal game, I think there are a lot of good reasons for new hunters to start with squirrels. Today, I would wager more kids begin hunting by sitting in a deer blind with a. Tracking a running squirrel or rabbit with a 20-gauge shotgun honed our skills, which would pay off as we began wingshooting ducks, geese, quail, and pheasants. Years ago, most young hunters started out chasing squirrels and rabbits, usually spending a few seasons on small game pursuits before moving on to hunt deer and turkey. How long has it been since you enjoyed an experience like the one just described? Chances are, if you’re 35 or older, this is the kind of hunting you cut your teeth on. This one, too, soon lay on the forest floor, and I had the makings of a fine meal. Then, the unmistakable sound of claws on bark, and another gray paused on the trunk, tail twitching as it searched for the source of the noise. At the crack of the shot, the squirrel tumbled down through the canopy, and for a moment the woods were still. I braced the rifle against the tree in front of me, settled the crosshairs, and squeezed the trigger. But seeing a limb move and finding the source of that movement among the full foliage of the late summer woods are two separate matters, and it was several minutes before I finally spotted the gray squirrel as he stopped on a limb and began cutting the still-green husk off the nut. I came to a stop behind a giant pin oak as I finally spotted what I was looking for - the unnatural “bounce” of a limb springing back and forth from the weight of a squirrel using it to travel through the tree as it sought a shellbark hickory nut. Besides growing good mast like oak, walnut, and pecan trees, creeks also provide a hunter the chance to move quietly, since flood events periodically remove noisy dead leaves and the moist soil promotes quick decay of those that remain. Scanning the treetops for movement, I slowly eased down the dry creek bed.
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