Upping the challange for squirrels
Some of my fondest memories from my youth in Michigan are about squirrel hunting. I used to come home from school and put on my hunting vest with the game tag and grab my old bolt action shotgun and walk through the corn field across the street to the middle of the section which had a hill too steep to plow that covered about 60 acres and had been left as a woodlot. Being surrounded on all sides by fields of corn, sorghum, beans, etc. the woods had a healthy population of squirrels. I would usually bring home a limit to clean and have for supper the next day. That woodlot provided a lot of meals to my family but it was inside city limits so I was limited to using a shotgun.
When I got my driver’s license I would go to the nearest State Game Area where I could use my 22 rifle and focus on head shots that didn’t tear up any edible meat. In my early 20’s I joined the USAF and moved away and didn’t hunt squirrels again until two years ago. A friend invited me to go after the slightly larger tufted-ear squirrel that we have in some areas here in New Mexico. By then I had a custom built Ruger 10-22 with a variable power rifle scope and brought home a limit of 8 squirrels with 9 shots. More important than the number of animals taken was the experience. What a great time we had that day. The mountains, the towering Ponderosa pines, and the beautiful blue sky all contributed to the fun we had.
I thought a lot about that day over the next few months and finally decided I would like to go again but would like to make the hunting even more of a challenge then that provided by the shots to the tops of the tall pine trees. This last year I returned with a Ruger MkIII mounted with a long eye relief pistol scope. We again shot limits of 8 squirrels but this time I used way more than 9 rounds but if you can believe it the day was even more fun than the year before.
Remember, very few of us in this day and age will go hungry if we come home empty handed. We should remember that having a good time is the first and primary goal of our hunting trips.