I’ve been a pretty terrible squirrel hunting guide to my oldest son Isaac the past few outings. We’ve made two separate, but quick runs to the woods, without seeing much of anything, let alone giving him the chance of shooting one. Truth be told, I was trying to tread lightly around some of my deer hunting spots, picking away at the edges and hoping to minimize my impact. Bumping deer is something I’m pretty good at however, so despite our best efforts we were still spooking whitetails. So if we were to spook them, I might as well show him a good time in a “target-rich-environment.”
Off we headed to the edge of a cornfield that was ringed with big oaks and walnuts. It’s not too far from some great deer stands, but this was more important. As an avid squirrel hunter of age 10, my dad gave me run of the woods to walk where I wanted on our land and plink what I could. I learned quickly that the shooting was most definitely not in the walking. Still, at that age, it’s tough to sit still, and everything up ahead looks better than where you’re currently sitting. So, I saw lots of squirrels, but until I learned to be more still and sneak through the woods, I didn’t shoot many.
Nowadays it comes easier, at least for me. Isaac wanted to trudge ahead, just like I did at his age, but the slower we went, the more we saw, until we were standing in plain view of almost 6 different tree rats. A few warning blasts later, and some fine tuning of his shot selection, we had 2 squirrels. Both head shots. I was proud. Not bad for a 9 year old’s first kill, using rifle sights no less. After his first, he wanted to leave and show mom, and after the second, he pronounced that he “did pretty good for a first time,” and that it was time to be done. Which I was fine with. Getting him to help clean them was a different story. We’ll work on that one.
Oh and we did spook a doe and a fawn that just about ran us over at 10 yards, so I’m 3 for 3 on that deal.
Joel
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