Squirrel hunting season?

[Paschale]

I was walking by an open newspaper at a coffee shop or someplace, and I saw a blurb about opening day of squirrel hunting season in Lousiana.  Who's been hunting for squirrel on here?  Do you hunt 'em for the hide, or the meat?  Does it taste like chicken?   :D

I sure as heck would like to see a chipmunk season...they're pests in my garage!

[SwampDonkey]

Paschale:

I was visiting someone and he had an old grainery behind the house. All the windows were missing and it had cedar shingles for roof and siding. I got lookin at the grainery and there was a bunch of squirrels climbing up the outside wall and in the missing window ledges, on the roof. That guy musta had a major plague of squirrels that year. Better get out the rat traps and peanut butter. :D

cheers

[Jeff]

Lots of people eat em. Tammy's dad ate every one I could get. I quit hunting them after he died cause I DONT eat them. The tails I would give to a fly tieng friend. It can be great sport as september and october are great times to be in the north woods.  

[Tom]

Squirrel is delicious.   Fried in bacon fat for breakfast, it and a plateful of grits will keep you going most of the day.  It's so good, it makes you forget the egg you didn't cook. :D

Chunked in a pot and stewed with some rice makes a good supper.

Heavily peppered, it's good for a working lunch, all by itself. :D


Makes for some pretty inexpensive but good vittles.

[Jeff]

Anything is good with grits. :D

[SwampDonkey]

I've come to suspect anything is good down south with grits and lotsa ketchup. :D :D

[Norm]

I haven't been squirrel hunting in years, we used to do alot of it when the boys were younger. They can tend to be a little tough but if you soak em in a gallon of water with a half of cup of kosher salt overnite they are much better. I like mine cut into small pieces and slow cooked in a crock pot.

Now skinning em is a whole nother problem. :D

[SwampDonkey]

We used to skin'm for their hide, got $2.00 a piece when I was a kid. I used to save the odd tail for tying salmon flies too. Deer tail was much better though. Boys the salmon used to nail them 'deer hair green butt' flies. ;)

[etat]

Slowly boil in water until meat seperates from the bones.  remove from pot.  Seperate meat and bones.  Return meat to a pot with fresh water and add just a bit of the broth from the first cooking. . Dispose of bones to dog.  Add dumplins, salt, and pepper to taste.  It'll beat any chicken and dumplins ya ever eat.  


Dad used to fry up young ones and we'd eat em for breakfast.  Old squirrels get tough if you just fry em.  

I've know folks that skin out and fry up head and all, and crack the head and eat the brains with breakfast.  I've tried it myself, but not really one of my favorites.

[Bro. Noble]

CK,

I was thinking about my maternal grandad ever since this thread started.  I can still picture him holding a kitchen knife by the blade and whacking those squirrel heads with the handle :D :D  He had some big mulberry trees in his yard and would let me take his old .22 single shot (with one shell) to pop a squirrel out of the trees.  If I scored,  I would get another shell,  till I missed.  Several years after grandad died,  one of my uncles said he had something I ought to have.  That old rifle is one of my favorite posessions 8)

No one has mentioned squirrel gravey-------that's the best ;D

[Woodcarver]

Squirrell  was Sunday dinner more often than not during the hunting season when I was growing up.

My dad bought my brother and I each a single shot 22 as soon as we were old enough to learn to use them safely. He hunted with an old 22 "special"  pump action that belonged to my grandfather originally. Octogon barrel and a peep sight mounted on the stock. He rarely shot a squirrel anywhere but in the head.
It wasn't quite as powerful as the modern 22 magnum, but it certainly was accurate.

The older squirrels are the harder they are to skin and the longer they have to be cooked, but they are always worth the effort. Makes me hungry thinking about it.  
 

[Murf]

There's a season for squirrell?   :

Boy o' boy, are me an' Deputy Dawg in trouble ...  



The only thing he likes better than baking himself in front of the fire is bounding through the forest after squirrels, chippies  and the odd group of turkey.

We live in a pine plantation that is over-run with Red Squirrells, if we don't keep the numbers down they'll chew their way into every building in sight. Deputy Dawg and a .22 with a good scope keeps em' at bay.

[EZ]

Use to do alot of squirrel hunting, now that I bow hunt I dont want to go back in the woods and stare that big buck away. ;D Coarse I guess it dont really matter cause I always end up with a smaller buck. :
The wife always use the pressure cooker for squirrel, that way it didnt matter if that little guy was 20 yrs old it would be tender. She always made squirrel gravy out of it.
I always skinned them from starting in the middle, ring around the back and stomack and pulled both ends.
EZ

[Haytrader]

EZ,

That's the way we skinned em too. And be careful not to get hair on the meat.
Cut into chunks and bake with mushroom soup, potatoes, onions, and carrots.
Do dove, pheasant, and some quail the same.

[hillbilly]

              8) Nobles right some fried squirrels, fried potatoes,gravy and some homemade biscuits are sure hard to beet.  We do a considerable amount of squirrel hunting here, my brothers and myself raise southern black mouth kerrs(OLD YELLER) there pretty good all around dogs.  This time of year till almost christmas is when we do the most of our hunting,after the leaves fall off the dogs can see a little better to follow those runnuway grey squirrels.If you will take a bucket of water and dip your squirrel in it a couple of times, gettem pretty wet before you skin them, you wont get any hair on the meat. ;)  
              hillbilly

[ARKANSAWYER]

LBJ and I have been busting them up.  They only allow 8 a day here so we are not out long.  I had just about hunt them as any thing.  We fry them fast after rolling in salt/pepper flour till golden brown.  Then we take the meat and put it in a pressure cooker so that the meat stays above the water.  After 30 mins of rattling it will come out so tender that it will just fall off the bones but tase fried.  We pressure cook it also when we make dumples.  When we get the meat and dumples out of the pot we add rice, celery and onion to make a tasty side dish.  It has no name and very seldom is any left over.
  We shuck our tree rats by cutting by the tail and pulling them out backwards.  I can shuck one in about 2 mins and LBJ can eat on about that fast.
ARKANSAWYER

[DanG]

Bushytail Limb Rats ain't fit to eat around here till up in Jan. or Feb. The ones thats feeding on green pine cones taste like turpentine, and the ones eatin' green pecans taste like quinine.  :-/

I been watching a flock of young ones grow up in front of my shop. They're living in an old hollow chinaberry tree. I guess that big ol' corn snake that used to live there has moved along.  They're fun to watch, and I ain't got no pecans to protect this year, anyway. If I have to "thin" them out in the future, I'll have to use a shotgun. There's too many houses and people around to be shootin' up in the air with a rifle.

[Tom]

22 caliber "C" caps work in tight quarters.  It's almost like shooting a BB gun but has a little more OOMPH! and is a great squirrel round.  It's a lightly loaded short.

I have shopped the internet for info on them and can't find anything.  I was introduced to them by a customer 5 or 6 years ago who took squirrels from his pecan trees in the center of town with no ramifications.  The neighbors didn't even hear them go off.  But, the dogs did. :D They would come runnnig when he got out the 22.

check out this link. I think I found it "CB"

[redpowerd]

anybody have or heard of an M1 scout?
its all stainless with a 410 under a .22 hornet
breaks in half and is very rugged.

[Bro. Noble]

Tom,

I've got a bow of CB caps made by Eley.  

Red,

That gun was copied after an Air Force Survival gun.  The military version was never released to the public and were illegal to own.  They had a parkterized finish and a really crude trigger with a terrible trigger pull.  Still a pretty neat gun ;D

No I don't have one--------anymore :D :D :D

[SwampDonkey]

Can you buy .22 shorts in the US? I used them for squirrel huntin when I was a kid. But, not for eatin. Used to use'm for target practice too.

[DanG]

I have some shorts, but they'll still travel a pretty good way when fired upwards at a 45° angle. (HEY, it worked! ;D)  I may just buy a pellet rifle.

[redpowerd]

they cant be that illegal, local gun shop sells them for two ten
i hope we're talkin about the same gun, did a search and come up with a ww2 military.
yea the trigger is bad news, and when you fire that bottom round, you know it, the stock is non-existant.

got scope rails, and the hornet is the best bullet to send
up and down beats a 7 mil or a 270

[redpowerd]

the seven or the 27 have the lead, but if you have a gun in your hands you better be a good shot anyhow.

[Bro. Noble]

Red,

Your mind must be on something else ;)

If you read my post again ,  concentrating this time,  You will see that I was talking about the military version that the gun you are talking about was patterned after.

That .22 hornet is a nice little shell,  but it's a light varmit,  pot gun--------not in the same league as the 7mm or .270.  It's more like a .22 magnum, but lots more expensive to shoot.

[redpowerd]

yea im gunna need a picture :D

i see that you said "military" but a little search came up with a m1 scout as somethin resembling a rifle, and the m1 scout im talking about is only about 3 foot long.

i forget the diffrence in the mag and hornet. a bit more grain, mabie?
i know them guns arnt that comparible, just in range.


and yes, my mind was on something else, just put up a new chimney in the shop  

[EZ]

22 Hornet, best they ever made, in my book. ;D
Dont know if I want to squirel hunt with it.  ;D
EZ

[Woodcarver]

Read an article recently written by a fellow who handloaded what he described as "mild" 22 hornet rounds to use for squirrels and rabbits.  I don't think I'd want to dress small game shot with any of the commercial loads in that caliber.

[Timber_Framer]

I used to hunt squirrels a lot as a kid. I used to find a big white oak on the side of a hill and sit with my back to it and call in squirrels by striking two rocks together or sucking on the back of my hand. Those old squirrels would come out to see who was invading their territory and I'd pop em and mark where they fell. When things would quite down I'd start all over again, some days bagging five or six before I had to move. Those were great days., but that was in southern Minnesota up here we only have red or pine squirrels and they ain't too tasty. They do make good bait for trapping Fisher and Pine Marten.

[beenthere]

T_F
I heard those little red squirrels were good musky bait too. Put a harness on them and a hook, and cast them out there. Never tried it, but have heard tell of it.  

We're getting more fox squirrels around here now (like we had in Iowa) that hopefully are replacing the smaller grey squirrel. Maybe the walnuts are bringing them in.

[ARKANSAWYER]

  This is how you shuck a tree rat.  Save the tail and salt it for Mepps spinners and feed the rest to Cudjo and LBJ.
ARKANSAWYER

[Buzz-sawyer]

Thanks Arky!
that is the rtght way, and hairless way! Been meaning to post that myself.

[Murf]

Is there a difference in taste between breeds of tree rats.

We are over-run with Red or Pine squirrels up here, I get 3 or 4 a week and it hasn't even put a dent in the population yet.

Of course I have an easier way to skin 'em though, I go after them with a 12ga.

The skin comes off before they even leave the branch that way.  :D

[Buzz-sawyer]

I like fox squirrels best they are mostly white meat ...greys are ALL dark meat.............

[Larry]

I cook and skin them tree rats the same as Arky except for the dumples.  We call em dumplings up this way.

Besides the CB caps there is also a shell called the BB cap.  It is primer only with a short bullet.  Especially useful on those covert urban squirrel missions as they make less noise than a pellet gun.

Been working on a little Sako squirrel gun for a few years.  Keep tweaking it and got it shooting pretty good now.

[ARKANSAWYER]

Larry,
  How come you have so many holes in that target?   Did you miss a bunch?

  I have not noticed much flavor differance between the types other then when they are in different trees.  I love them early in the season when they are cutting hickory nuts.  Late in the year if they are cutting pine cones I can taste a differance and it is not good.  Will not shoot one out of a pine thicket.
  Went last night and got 6 tree rats in 7 shots.   Would have been 6 for 6 but I thought a tip of a leaf was an ear but the tree rat was hanging upside down.  He moved when the bullet went through his tail and I busted it when it jumped to the next tree.   LBJ  treed 5 of the 6 first and Cudjo treed the other.
ARKANSAWYER

[Haytrader]

ARKANSAWYER,

Over here you don't want to eat a squirrel that lived in a hedge row. They are plumb nasty.