Squirrels Alah Charlie
 

Decided I’ll pop a couple every few days so I’ve got enough for Brunswick stew at Christmas !

Way to go Craig,

when I think of squirrels, I always think of my Sako in 17 Mach 2, I guess I'll have to take one of My parker's out and try it that way.
I was sitting on the deer stand a few days back and was watching a Foz squirrel go about his business, I thought of you Charlie, was hoping to get a good picture of him but it wasn't to be.

Stan

A Virginia original recipe! What time should I be over? (No butterbeans in mine, please). I can bring some squirrels, too.:corn:

Just for future reference two ounces of shot ARE NOT NEEDED for squirrels :rotf::rotf::rotf: Next time I decide to waylay some I’ll use my 1 1/2 ounce load of #6’s .

I’m contemplating making it for Xmas luncheon the Tuesday before Xmas at the shop . Also plan on making pheasant Jambalya and quite possibly the venison stew I’ve made several times from a recipe posted here .

thanks for thinking of me on them squirl hunts and sightings....with 2 ounce of shot you got more lead to hit the squirl with 2 1/2 ounce for them tough fox squirls....ha.....charlie

I wish you were closer, Charlie. I'd like to have someone to hunt squirrels with here. We have plenty and I have never encountered a squirrel hunter on any public land in North Missouri. We have LOTS of squirrels -- fox and greys.

if I lived closer we would keep them squirls busy.....we got lots of gray squirls but very few fox squirls.........charlie

When I was a kid I killed enough squirrels to feed an army for the winter with my .410 and 11/16 oz. loads of 6s. Few they were that could escape that load. They had to get to a tall old pine and go to the top to be safe. Oaks, pecans and hickorys didn't get tall enough to protect them.

When I was young I was only allowed to shoot squirrels with a 22 single shot . And if I didn’t shoot them in the head my grandfather would tell me about it :whistle:

If that 22 would have been in my hands and we were planning on Squirrel for dinner , we would have been mighty hungry !:rotf:

Grandfather was right beside me the first time I plunked a deer . Had my brand new 700 BDL 243 WIN with a Frank Special Bushnell Scopechief IV 2.5-8x on top , doe was about fifty yards away and he told me shoot her a little bit above between the eyes . As he was almost finished saying it the gun boomed the deer dropped and the hole was where he told me to put it . Granted he’d carried me all over creation that summer shooting groundhogs with my nice new 243 shooting Remington 100 grain CorLokt factory loads .

This Remington always looked like the proper squirrel gun to me --

Attachment 111904

now that is a squirl gun....mighty nice....charlie

When I was a kid I'd sit on a hillside of oaks on my Pappy's farm and pick them off one-by-one with the Winchester 67A. Shoot half dozen, take them to the "skinning tree", give them to my mom and she'd quarter them and brown them in butter. I can still smell the kitchen. :)

That’s what I started with ! Winchester 67A bought the gun for $15 when I was seven , I saved up $7.50 and my pop paid the other half . My father refinished the wood and my grandfather cleaned the metal and cold blued it . As some might say , that 67A was the start of my downfall and a lifetime of ruination in guns and hunting Bwahahahahaha :rotf::rotf::rotf::rotf::rotf:

I'm teaching my oldest grandson how to shoot with the 67A and the Winchester low-wall. He's taking to it like a duck to water. He's 7 and he's already ringing steel at 50, 70, 80 and 105 yards. He's the fourth generation to use that 67A. :)

I had a single shot 20 gauge Stevens when I was a kid and I killed a lot of pheasants, bunnies and a few ducks with it but when I hunted squirrels I always used the Remington bolt-action .22 with a cheap Weaver scope that my parents gave me for Christmas in 1958 when I was 10 years old. That was a deadly little rifle and I would always try for head shots. I hate lead pellets in my meat, once having cracked a molar on one. Even when shooting grouse and woodcock I try to lead them enough to minimize shot pellets in the breast meat. I am often successful but not always.
Took the head clean off a grouse two seasons ago but this year in Maine I killed a woodcock somebody else must have peppered with lead shot as I discovered a pellet in the breast meat. It was a No. 8 Rio pellet and I was shooting RST 8's…. :whistle:

Incidentally, that woodcock breast is almost overdone!




.

When I was a boy I had a JC Higgins Tenite stocked .410 S X S. My Dad owned and ran a big country store. He sold shells and cartridges, and I'd use the 11/16 oz. 3 inch loads for squirrels, in size 6. I killed a lot of squirrels and rabbits with that little gun, and sold the squirrels for $.25 each. I know it was illegal to sell game, but I did. The shells cost me $.12 apiece, at the time, AIR. if I had to shoot twice I broke even ....... not good.

One CHRISTmas I asked for a .22 rifle. I was given a new Remington Nylon 11, a bolt action, clip fed gun. I could get .22 ammo from Dad for not much over a penny apiece. I reasoned that I was going to get rich market hunting squirrels, rabbits, and an occasional 'coon. I abandoned the .410 for the .22, and never looked back. Never did get rich market hunting, however ............

The lady my grandparents worked for kept race horses and fighting cocks . She also paid a bounty on hawks and groundhogs . My grandfather supplemented his income killing hawks and groundhogs . This was in the 50’s and 60’s , she paid $5.00 for a Hawk and if memory serves $3.50 for groundhog tails . At the same time or county paid a $0.50 bounty on hawks . So my grandfather would turn his hawks in to the person at the farm that handled that part of it then cut the heads off and take them to the county clerk . All he ever used were a couple 22 Hornets and a Remington Model 722 in 222 REM I still have .

Bounties were paid on hawks in some counties of GA, also, in those days. Camden Co. comes to mind as one who did. My several cousins who lived there picked up extra spending money shooting them. Their Dad, my uncle, had a 218 Bee, but those boys were opportunists and took hawks any way they could.

My, my, how times have changed.

Yes my grandfather used to talk about setting leg hold traps on top of fence posts to catch them .