Any Treerat Hunters Here?

[nralover]

Any of you guys and gals do any squirrel hunting? What is your preferred method?

[VolFan]

.22, slow stalk through hardwoods. Set up a ground blind if here's a good area.

[everythingthatswims]

I quit hunting them. They are fun but it's way too much work to make one taste good. Have to boil the darn things for an hour to soften them up to fry. Cleaning them is a pain too, that skin does NOT want to come off.

 

I stick with rabbits. Skin comes off like it's nothing, and the meat can go straight in the frying pan, tender as can be.

[preach4bass]

I had a squirrel dog until a couple of years ago. Now, I just plunk a few off the feed pile with the 22 when I'm deer hunting or shake a few vines with friends in the afternoons.

[F14A-B]

Yep, in August I'm in the hickory trees, checking beech trees, buckeyes, then oak ( mid sept ) sometimes pine, depending.. Of course walnut trees. I use 12 ga & .22lr

[clayton86]

Not really but I do smoke a few a year during bow season for deer. Things aggravat me so I keep a field point in my quiver or a non expanding practice broad head just for squirrels or any other small game targets of opportunity.

[gardnerjigman]

I quit hunting them. They are fun but it's way too much work to make one taste good. Have to boil the darn things for an hour to soften them up to fry. Cleaning them is a pain too, that skin does NOT want to come off.

 

I stick with rabbits. Skin comes off like it's nothing, and the meat can go straight in the frying pan, tender as can be.

 

Pretty much what I did too. I'll go with some friends every now and then, but they take them home to eat them. To much work for something already tougher than jerky. 

 

Rabbits, I'll hunt and eat them all day! Humplets with gravy baby!

Not really but I do smoke a few a year during bow season for deer. Things aggravat me so I keep a field point in my quiver or a non expanding practice broad head just for squirrels or any other small game targets of opportunity.

 

I always smack a few during bow season. Pesky little turds. I quit using a field point after I shot one mid section, and then listened to him chew on my arrow for 15 minutes on the ground before I finally got annoyed enough to climb down to expire him and call it a day. Now I use the "thumper" style heads. Basically like getting hit by a riot control bag. Kills small game easy, and makes those stray dogs never think twice about coming to the farm.

[Jdw2920]

I love it my favorite kind of hunting. I have mtn curs that o tree them with

[desmobob]

I like to find a big patch of mature oaks and sit down in the midst of them with a Thompson/Center Contender pistol with a scoped 10" .22LR match barrel.  After you sit motionless for 15 minutes or so, they'll start appearing everywhere.  

 

A squirrel-skinning gambrel makes it a lot easier to skin them without getting hair on the meat.  And a good parboil changes the meat from being like rubber to being like...  slightly softer rubber.  ;-)

 

The other guys are right: rabbits are MUCH better!

 

Tight lines,

Bob

[Kentuckysteve]

I love them.Hunt them every season.My backyard is a hardwood forest and a squirrel heaven.I get my old marlin 60 with the scope and sit at the base of a tree and just wait.It don't take long usually.I think crock pots were invented for squirrel's.I use the tails for fly tying.

[kcdinkerz]

I just find a big tree and sit with my 22. Sometimes when I stalk them if they see me and run to the other side of the tree I throw a branch over and most of the time they come back around. Crockpots are great. And skinning isn't that bad.

[Bluebasser86]

Use to hunt them all the time with a single shot, open site .22. You learn to take your time and pick your shot carefully when you only get 1 try.

 

I still whack a few with my bow every year while I'm deer hunting, there's only so much getting barked at I can take. 

[jbarnard]

ill usually drop a few every year dad likes em i like to hunt rabbits with the hounds myself rabbit just seems to taste better to me