Rifle: CZ 452 American 22” “Tigra”
Ammo: RWS Subsonic HP 40gr.
Scope: Bushnell Legend Ultra HD 4.5-14×44
This day started off with a bit of a surprise. As I awoke to my phone alarm, I saw I had a text in the status bar. The text stated “Running a little behind, be there in 10.” The night previous when I spoke with Brad about today’s hunt we settled on meeting at 6:30am. Brad was gonna end up at my place by 5:45am, which was 5 minutes after my alarm went off. Thankfully he stopped at a nearby store and gave me 30 minutes to get my stuff together and throw some food down my neck.
We made our destination with plenty of time to settle into the woods before the sun came up. The overcast conditions helped us with this. We both sat in spots we had earlier in the season. Wasn’t very long before we had some movement, but the overcast conditions were making the lighting difficult for us to pick it up. Brad spotted a squirrel behind us, but it was moving way to fast to attempt a shot. The squirrel we had been hearing all morning in the creek bottom was about to show itself to Brad.
Brad braced on the tree in front of him for the shot, but the squirrel disappeared. What really happened was that it scurried down a log into the bottom that Brad couldn’t see. That’s where I picked up the movement. The squirrel finally settled in front of a large red oak on the creek edge. By this time I was already in the scope and on target. I pressed the shot off and the squirrel almost disappeared in the leaf litter. Zero movement, which meant the shot was effective. I then ranged the shot at 49.5 yards. Around 15 minutes went by and Brad and I went to collect the squirrel. At that time I let Brad know this was the squirrel that “disappeared” on him.
We then began to creep through the woods slowly. Stopping every 10 to 12 steps to let the woods talk to us. Wasn’t long before we spotted another squirrel. We were a tad too overbearing with our movement and it scurried off in the opposite direction. By this time the precipitation had moved in. We were expecting rain, but not in the frozen form. Then some snow flakes mixed themselves in. Sometimes weather like this can enhance the squirrel movement.
As we continued through the woods we came up on our third squirrel. We thought we had been seen, but after advancing a little closer we spotted the squirrel again. While Brad moved into postion the squirrel spotted us. It dashed up the side of a tree to get a better look at us. Brad let loose a round of RWS Subsonic out of his rifle “Midnight” and the squirrel flew off the tree. The shot wasn’t lethal, and we began moving in. The squirrel hustled to the base of a large red oak. Upon arriving the squirrel started up the tree. It hunkered down in a “V” notch and Brad looked for a spot to shoot from. The squirrel would counter his movement, so I had to move to make the squirrel return to its original position. Finally Brad had enough visual for the shot. Upon making this shot, which was marginal, the squirrel “suicided” out of the tree, grabbing hold of a sourwood tree and running down to take cover at the hollow at the base. Rats, hate it when this happens.
I bent down to inspect the hole and could see the squirrel bouncing around in the hollow. No sooner than I saw this the squirrel came bolting out! It ran another 20 feet with myself in chase, into a stump hole in the ground. We were able, at this location, successfully dispatch the squirrel. One hard fought squack here.
As we made our way back to the truck we spotted one other squirrel. I wanted to get closer to take the shot, but the squirrel picked up our movement and scattered. While surveying the tree, Brad saw a squirrel poke its head out of a hollow to check the area. We sat and waited on this squirrel for around 20 minutes and then called it a day.
Sounds like you guys had fun. Too cold up north here for squirrel hunting.