In Cold Pursuit

"There's one, Jakey." My father's voice was edged with excitement, and I heard a slight rustle as he worked himself into position. Slowly, in a move practiced countless thousands of times over the span of some five decades, the little .410 H&R single-shot rose and found its niche against his shoulder.

Following the thin barrel skyward, my eyes fell on the thick-furred rusty red of a big fox squirrel. As I watched, the bushytail stretched himself out on the heavy beech limb, taking advantage of the brief bouts of sun poking through the gray December sky. Beside me, I heard the soft click as my father thumbed back the tiny scattergun's hammer.

The .410's bark cleaved the frosty air. Above us, the fox squirrel sagged and then, like a scene out of an old black-and-white movie, began a slow-motion tumble, tail streaming out behind him. He landed with a muffled whomp and a billowing puff of snow rose from where just weeks ago there had been leaf litter. All that remained visible was a partial tail tuft of red, brilliant against the cold white.

"Den tree," my father said as he laid the big male fox squirrel on the snow between us, his breath frozen and sparkling in the 22-degree air. "Can't tell you how many squirrels I've killed out of this one over the years." And then he looked away, back up into the branches of the huge, silver-gray beech, as if trying to spot another telltale flicker of movement through the frosty fog that circled 'round his flannel-lined canvas cap.

That a father and son were squirrel hunting isn't what made this scene unique. Nor was it the .410 single-shot, the big beech den tree, the hefty fox squirrel or the northeastern Ohio timber setting. What made this picture unusual, particularly in this day and age, was the fact that this squirrel hunt took place under neither the green-leaved maples of September nor the painter's palette that is the autumn woods of October. No, this was a winter hunt--complete with temperatures that hovered around the freezing mark and, most notably, snow.

Today, whitetails are all the rage and fewer and fewer folks give much thought to squirrels and the incredible outdoor education and tradition that is squirrel hunting. And of those who continue in the pursuit of bushytails, fewer still carry on long after the leaves have fallen and Mother Nature has blanketed the world in a cloak of chilly white.

My father, Mick Johnson, is one of the few. A retired high school biology teacher, he has hunted squirrels around his native corner of northeastern Ohio for the past 54 years. Traditionally, his season began the Saturday following Labor Day and continued through the end of December. Today, though, you can find him sitting against shagbark hickory, pin oak and maples well into the month of February--as Ohio is just one of several states that have extended their squirrel seasons by weeks if not months.

Why the dedication to something as simple as a squirrel?