Find Success Treating Fox Squirrels Like Tree-Dwelling Whitetails

If I started this piece with the words, “The old buck gathered himself to go . . .,“ regular readers would doubtless yawn and say to themselves, well, the whitetail freak is at it again! But they might do a double-take if I finished the sentence, “and, chattering shrilly, dived into a hollow in the big oak’s trunk.”

I’d be talking, of course, about an old “buck” fox squirrel, but I still wouldn’t be out of character as a whitetail deer fanatic. The reason is simple; if there’s any outdoor pursuit that qualifies as “practice” for hunting whitetails, squirrel hunting is it. In most of America’s woods, the man who can regularly take a .22 rimfire rifle in hand and return in a few hours with a limit of bushytails will have little difficulty extracting a buck deer from those same woods. The skills required are exactly the same.

Oh, there may be some areas where squirrels are abundant and unmolested, where it is not that great a trick to bag the mulligan-makin’s . . . but, then, there are also places where cracking down on a freezerful of venison is—if not exactly “child’s play”—something very close to it. With both species, however, such honey holes are fairly few and far between these days, and these remarks may be assumed to deal with the much more normal situation wherein both deer and squirrels are hunted pretty hard and are hunter-wise. In such places, the parallels between the techniques needed for consistent success on both are quite striking. Nor is there any other species of American game animal with which I am familiar which is usually hunted on foot with a rifle and which demands so much of the hunter in woodcraft, know-how, and exacting marksmanship.

I know that last statement will elicit a few howls of outrage from readers who enjoy the challenge of hunting any of a dozen other species, and would apologize in advance (especially to the elk hunters), except that the statement remains true in my experience. And there are very few legal forms of hunting on this continent with which I haven’t had some experience.

Clear Distinction

Please bear in mind that I didn’t say that squirrel and deer hunting are harder work than sheep hunting or require more long-range riflery skill than pronghorns or woodchucks, or more woodsmanship than His Majesty, the wild turkey, or more cunning than His Craftiness, the coyote. I merely said that the bannertails and whitetails demand more of us in the overall application of a wide variety of different skills.

To name a few, these include the ability to see and interpret sign, the ability to move silently and to be inconspicuous (I almost said “invisible”) in the forest, the trained eye and keen ear to observe the minutest movement, a profound understanding of the habits and temperament of the game, intense and sustained concentration on the business at hand, and the ability to hit very small targets with a bullet at odd angles and under difficult circumstances. Those are for openers; there are more.

The method of choice of squirrel hunting is basically the same as that of the expert deer hunter: a combination of still-hunting and sitting, judiciously mixed to suit the terrain and conditions. This really begins when the hunter dresses for the outing, before dawn. I believe in camouflage, which means total camouflage, head to toe, especially including the face and hands. If you think the Caucasian face shines like a beacon on a dark and stormy night from a deer’s eye level, under the bill of a cap, you ought to see what it looks like to a squirrel in a tall tree when the owner has it tilted upward in the morning sunlight! Some hunters prefer camouflage make-up on the skin; I use a headnet. Others don’t bother and still get squirrels (or deer), but they’d get more—especially in hard-hunted areas—if they did something about that gleaming physiognomy!

Speaking of gleaming, I haven’t yet camouflaged a .22 rifle for squirrels as I have for whitetails, but I do take some pains to carry a dull-finished one, of which more later.

Don't Let Gear Be a Crutch

Footgear is important, as always. Lightweight, soft-soled boots with enough water resistance to keep out a heavy dew have much merit; one can walk almost as quietly in them as in a pair of tennis shoes, feeling brittle sticks before they snap. Depending upon the region, squirrels may be hunted in autumn, springtime, or both, and nine-inch boots do offer protection from the occasional copperhead that may not be felt before he snaps!

It’s a profound truth that being dressed inconspicuously is not exactly the same as being inconspicuous in the woods. An expert still-hunter would be noticed by fewer animals even if he went hunting buck naked than would the most completely camouflaged beginner who went plunging through the forest, stumbling through dry brush and caroming off tree trunks!

With camouflage, it’s relatively easy to be inconspicuous while sitting still, which is why more squirrels and deer are collected by hunters “on stand,” as it were, than in any other way. The catch is that sitting or standing really motionless isn’t so easy for most people. Oddly enough, it takes both concentration and practice, and is an art acquired only through experience. Doing nothing, in fact, turns out to be more difficult sometimes than doing something, or so it seems.

The standhunter, however, is actually not doing nothing; it only looks that way to an uninitiated observer. He is actively engaged in ignoring, through sheer force of will, a host of itches; cramps; pokings and proddings by pebbles and sticks; urges to sneeze, twitch, or cough; boredom and impatience; cold; his foot going to sleep; and mosquitos. He is actively not snapping his head around at an unidentified sound behind him. He is actively not squirming, scratching, sighing, or shifting the rifle in his hands. He is actively using his eyes and ears with an intensity unknown to the city-bred nonhunter. He is being aware of his surroundings in the minutest detail. It is, as I said, an art.

Patience?

Years ago, I would occasionally allow my mother, who is not a hunter, but who loves to see wildlife, to sit with me on a deer crossing when I wasn’t too serious about shooting something. She has a wonderful eye for game and was pretty good at sitting still, but she used to say that I made her nervous; she couldn’t concentrate on looking for game for checking to see if I was still breathing! That’s creative still-sitting!

I was younger in those days, and my muscles didn’t get stiff so quickly. I can still be that still, but not for hours at a stretch, which is why I do a lot more of my hunting by moving—”drifting” is a better word—through the thickets.

In some ways, this is even more difficult than sitting still, requiring all the same discipline, plus the necessity for controlled movement. It’s also much more tiring, especially of the muscles around the hips and upper thighs which are not accustomed to carrying the weight of the body for as long during each step as they must when the strides are as slow and infrequent as they are during still-hunting. But all the principles still apply; the hunter must be as nearly invisible and soundless as humanly possible, which is, in the best of us, not very.

One difference between squirrel and deer hunting is that the deer are more mobile. One can choose to sit all day in a good place and expect to have one or more wander by, and he’s only looking for one. There are no flies on just one squirrel, of course, but most of us are hoping for several in a day’s hunt. I have taken as many as four red squirrels out of the same tree just by sitting quietly and waiting, but mostly the hunter must expect to move along after each shot; he can hardly expect a herd of bushytails to trot by his well-chosen stand if only he waits long enough.

Calculated Movements

His movement should not be at random, any more than still-hunting whitetails should be at random. He should go wherever he goes for a reason, because he has seen “cuttings” in the next grove, or because he has heard a squirrel bark in that direction, or simply because the next stand of mast trees or a den tree is yonder. And he must stalk his objective as though it were the biggest whitetail buck he ever hoped to see, using the available cover, gliding silently across the openings if necessary, his senses alert to the possibility of game and his hands ready to move the rifle quickly if he has to, slowly if he can afford to.

It is inevitable that a good many squirrels will see you, no matter how you go about it, and that fact must be accepted. However, whether their reaction to you is fearful flight or mere suspicion depends upon how much disturbance has been created by your approach. If you drift into the area and lean motionless against a tree trunk without undue crashing and thrashing, chances are the little brute will flatten himself out on a limb and watch you with curiosity. You may even spot him and manage to pick him off. If not, he will grow bored with your inactivity and probably go on about his business within a few minutes, keeping an eye on you, but offering your choice of shots.

If, on the other hand, your arrival is excessively heralded, you may have to wait an hour or more to get a glimpse of him, if you do at all.

Exactly the same idea works in still hunting whitetails. There are degrees of fear, and if you manage not to terrify the does, you have a far better chance of at least seeing the buck.

Nuanced Preferences

Where spring hunting is legal, I prefer to get out after a squirrel stew before the trees leaf out entirely, just as I’d like to be able to do all my deer hunting after leaf-fall when the understory of brush is bare. I’ll settle for being seen more easily in return for seeing my game farther.

Neither squirrel nor deer hunting is at its best on windy days, for the same reason; the game is spookier and squirrels may not move at all. Furthermore, a squirrel hunter depends upon his ears almost as much as on his eyes, and a strong wind defeats him. However, some breeze isn’t all that bad in either sport, since it imparts enough movement to the woods themselves to partially conceal the hunter’s movements. I prefer dead-calm conditions for squirrels, and a steady breeze for deer hunting.

The management of a hunter’s own scent may not be quite as important in squirrel hunting as in hunting whitetails, but it is not to be ignored completely by an intelligent hunter. Squirrels may not rely upon their noses for survival to the degree to which an old buck does, but that doesn’t mean they can’t detect and identify man scent with danger. It’s a point that isn’t considered very often by squirrel hunters (or squirrel-hunting writers) and is misunderstood to an astonishing degree by many deer hunters. Scent management is a vital necessity to the latter, and perhaps no more than a subtle refinement of technique by the seekers of nut-chiselers; in any case, it should be heeded in both sports.

As to the matter of armament, I confess to a certain inflexibility. An argument can be made for a rimfire rifle for squirrels of the same action-type as the hunter’s standard big-game firearm, but a squirrel rifle really needs only two virtues—accuracy and fine sights. A still hunter rarely walks as much as a mile in a morning’s hunt, so weight is of less than paramount importance, nor does he have to handle his rifle like a whitetail hunter, trying to get on a brush-busting buck. One of the better squirrel hunters I’ve known used to carry an old Remington Model 37 target rifle, unmodified, with a 10X target scope. The whole rig must have weighed around nine pounds, but this fellow could stick a Long Rifle bullet in a squirrel’s ear in the top of the tallest red oak in east Texas, even if that was all he could see of the animal.

Precision Over Handiness

Nobody—well, almost nobody—tries running shots on squirrels in trees with a rifle, so precision counts a lot more than handiness.

My own current favorite squirrel rifle is a Kimber Model 82 bolt-action .22 LR with a 4X Leupold Compact scope. It is neither lighter nor more accurate than my Savage-Anschutz Model 54 Sporter (both group like premium-grade target rifles), but the Kimber sports a handsome lowluster, oil-type finish, whereas the Savage shines. Shiny rifles turn me off, in hunting either squirrels or deer, so the cleanlined, classic little Kimber has earned its place in the squirrel woods very quickly.

Both of these guns are expensive, but I do not mean to suggest that a moderately priced .22 will not do the job on bushytails; in fact, any .22 with sufficient accuracy will serve, regardless of action type or price. I have owned several semiautos—Brownings, Remingtons and Rugers—which grouped well enough for squirrels with a little experimenting with different brands and velocities of ammunition. A squirrel rifle, in my eyes, must be capable of groups around a half-inch for five shots at 35 yards to qualify, preferably groups of that size at 50 yards or better. Being “good enough to hit a squirrel’s head every time” is not quite good enough; very often, half of a squirrel’s head is all that’s visible, and that’s what the rifle should be able to hit, from a solid position, every time.

As to sights, a scope—preferably a high-quality, big-game scope—is the only option. Four-power magnification is enough, 6X is close to optimum, more is okay if you like it. Target definition is the objective here, rather than close holding. Watch out for parallax; most big-game scopes will have some at squirrel ranges. Solid-nose ammo is fine, having the advantage of better accuracy in most rifles (as a general rule; there may be exceptions) and less wind drift. On the gray, or “cat,” squirrels, such ammo works well enough with body shots as well, but on the much larger red, or “fox,” squirrel, a high-speed hollow-point offers slightly more positive effect. The ultra-velocity numbers—submagnums such as the CCI “Stinger,” Winchester “Expediter,” or Remington “Yellowjacket”—are much too destructive, even if they exhibit the necessary accuracy in your rifle.

Accuracy

It has been said before, but needs saying again, that if you take the trouble to test 10 different .22 ammunitions in your own gun, you will not only be surprised at the variation in grouping ability but you will possibly discover one which cuts the average group literally in half. It can’t be predicted, either, but must be proved in bench testing and may have to be returned to the factory for adjustment.

All this is analogous, of course, to deer rifles and ammunition, whether you use handloads or factory stuff. The requirement for pinpoint accuracy is not so severe in a rifle made for the whitetail woods, but accuracy is something of which you can’t have too much, in any rifle.

It should be noted, too, that many deer rifles make excellent squirrel shooters with reduced-velocity handloads, usually featuring a cast bullet. This is another whole subject for which there isn’t room here, but velocities should be held to about 900 to 1,200 feet per second, maximum, with 35-yard accuracy as the final criterion. I’ve taken a lot of squirrels with rifles chambered to such cartridges as .257 Roberts, .300 Savage, 7mm Mauser, .308 WCF, .30-06, and even the .45-70 (using round lead balls). Use of such loads in one’s regular big-game rifle, needless to say, offers another off-season opportunity to familiarize oneself with the sights, trigger, safety, mechanisms and general feel, all of which adds up to a plus when deer season rolls around and reinforces my contention that squirrel hunting is the best possible practice for the deer hunter.

Not that squirrels are not worthy game in their own right, for they certainly are. In fact, the case may be made that deer hunting is a fine way to hone one’s hunting skills for squirrels, instead of the other way around. I wouldn’t argue that point for a moment.

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