Originally Posted by
SecondChance
I only use 22's for squirrels. I mainly use a Mossberg Target 144 LSB with Lapua 22 Subsonics a topped off a Leupold 4x12x40mm scope. I then love to take a Magnum Research Ind. Lone Eagle Single shot 22 target with a Burris LER scope also with Lapua SubSonics.
I have sat at one tree and shot my limit of 5 with 5 shots and never had to move for they were cutting in the tree of pignuts. As you have said, it makes for some great memories.
Took my son on a hunt like that and I took my limit so fast that when we were leaving he said that his bed was still going to be warm and his milk cold!!!!!
I've only ever used a .22, started off with ironsights, then switched to a cheap but very good tasco 3-9 zoom intended for deer. I have actually hit a fox squirrel in the head with that thing at about 150-200 yards. Couldn't believe I hit it! I use a marlin .22 with a tube magazine. I have done the same about sitting in one spot and getting my limit of six in about a half hour on good years by a productive hickory tree. I hunt both gray, fox, and red squirrels in the same area. Gray's make the most noise, but are the most wary in my opinion. Fox squirrels are slow and somewhat clumsy, and definitely aren't as wary as grays. However, they make much less noise. Reds are just very bold. Everyone should start out hunting squirrels, it teaches good marksmanship, shot placement, as well as how to be quiet and perfect hunting. I aim for the head or the spine, if you hit a squirrel in the spine there is no blood on the outside. The few chest shots I have taken the squirrels don't run more than a few yards, and never have I not been able to recover them. They just seem to run in circles if they run at all. However, I learned painfully when I first started hunting that gutshots are not only extremely cruel but you are lucky if you can get a second shot off. Most squirrels shot in this way are unrecoverable. To me the fun is not in the shooting or killing, but the actual stalk and just being in the woods, and seeing things so many people never see.