Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Small Game Your favorite way to squirrel hunt

I grew up hunting with dogs, but now prefer still hunting. My favorite tactic, whenever possible, is to drop down inside a semi-dry creek bed and still hunt up/down the creek. Generally, in the soft creek bottom, you can move along very quietly, and if the creek bottom is deep enough, the creek banks help conceal you and reduce the chances of the bushytails seeing you coming.

What is your favorite method of bagging the bushytails?

firstshot
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Make your first shot count!

still hunting or slow stalking. which is practicing for deer and becomeing familiar with turf I'm hunting.

+1 on the still hunting and slipping along. My dad calls it "ghosting the timber" and it is excellent practice for all hunting. I deer hunt the same way. Slip along and take them as they come, stalk to ones you spot working a mast bearing tree, if I get to a really good looking place I may take a seat on a log or with my back against a big hickory or oak. When the mood strikes, pick up and slide along...

2

Sit and shoot in a stand of oak. Having some apples nearby, or sitting beside a corn field works as well. Around here our creekbeds are never dry. Still hunting is also a blast, but currently where I hunt isn't large enough for much moving, but carries a lot of squirrel.

In winter my tactic is to sittin near known food sources, same for rabbit hunting. I also stalk hunt in the summer and spring when food is more than plentiful.

I guess hunting style may be dependant upon location. Here in the forest I hunt, the forest itself consist of mainly oak/hickory hardwoods. Long steep sided timbered ridges and brushy timbered spring and creek bottoms. Food for squirrels grows on nearly every tree. I hunt large tracts of public land, some as large as 250,000 acres. Usually there are plenty of squirrels, lots of mast, no competition, and all the ground you care to walk over. Our daily limit is six squirrels and I usually kill around 100 per season until I give it up and start deer hunting and predator calling.

I used to live in the MO Ozarks, had never hunted squirrels until I got there. While there, I got my English Springer, and taught her to respond to whistle/hand signals. Found I could stay up on high ground and have the dog work thick stuff, flushing squirrels up trees. It's a .22 game, for me. Don't know if it's the "right" way to hunt with a dog, but we sure had fun.
Now, we hunt western cottontails in brushy washes, the same way.

When I was in high school, I would hit the woods as soon as I got home. I usually shot the first one within a step or two in to the woods. I would go to that one and work it up with my pocket knife and wire cutters and most often shoot a second one before I was done working the first one. I'd wait to shoot the 3rd one until I got to the second. I guess that was still hunting. I killed many a limit of 6 hunting this way. Years later, I figured I'd practice for small bore pistol silhouette by shooting some squirrels. I'd sit in my tree stand and have a blast picking them off. This past season I took my son, who doesn't know how to sneak thru the woods yet, and sat in a buddy stand. He had a fun time shooting them and saw a lot more action from about. This brought back some good memories for me, some not too long ago, thanks, R.D.

I guess the way you hunt squirrels depends on where you live.Here in Ohio in the early part of the season I prefer to stalk slowly and listen for squirrel noises (vocalizations or nut hulls hitting the ground).Later in the season when leaves are coming off trees I prefer to sit in an area with mast bearing trees or corn and wait for them.

You guys stalking know you are moving past them if you don't pick up a stick and throw it somewhere to the other side to make the critter move around so you can find them. Try it if you arn't already. When hunting with a buddy only one moves at a time and the still guy gets the shot.

I love to still hunt very early in the morning with a 22. We hunt Tassel Ears mostly and some Chickarees. Tassel Ears are by far my favorite. I have several very accurate bolt action 22s. Fooling one with a cow elk call is also great fun.

don't know if i got ADD but i CAN NOT SIT STILL for more than 30mins. so i still hunt. mostly with my 17hmr or if i'm havin a mixed bag day 20ga ithaca. i found a honeyhole this year in the local state forest. best part is you gotta walk about up a steep incline for about a mile and a half so not many folks go up there, then it's all oak and hickory with a few streams tricklin down.

I have always favored the morning hunt for Squrrels. The areas around North Florida that I have found the most productive are hardwood hammocks out in a swamp.
I usually take an old 5 gallon pickle bucket. It stores all my gear, and I can sit on the lid. The bucket is spray painted with various earthtone colors, greys, browns and greens.
At first light, I will be sitting up under an oak, glassing the tree branches. After shooting, I mark the fall of the Squirrel, and let things settle down. Usually I can score two or three times before the rest dissappear.
After collecting the tree rats, I will still hunt for a bit, slowly walking through the hammock. Most of the time, I can find one or two more.
When back at the truck, I field dress, and skin the Squirrels, and pack them on ice in a cooler.

I'm amazed at how few people put their dressed squirrels on ice on warm weather hunts. It will help the table fare noticably.

I haven't hunted squirrel since I moved to Alaska 36 years ago, One of the things I miss about Ohio. I used to float the rivers and larger creeks and did quite well, somtimes did a combo on squirrel and ducks. Wouldn't mind doing it again someday.

Mel

That's a nice way to hunt, especially when it's warm. One of the best days out I've ever had for any game was taking my 12 year old son on a large lake in the Mark Twain National Forest in September for a combo squirrel and bass fishing trip. The leaves were turning, the morning crisp, squirrels were bouncing around the edges of the lake in the timber cutting hickory and acorns. We paddled along and dropped a fine "mess" of squirrels, me steering and providing propulsion, he handling his little .20 gauge single shot. After we had enough we stopped and cleaned them, putting them on ice in a cooler. After washing up and little lunch and we picked up the rods and caught a limit of smallish bass for the pan. We even took a little nap along a gravel beach in the early afternoon and were wakened by some turkeys scratching and calking along the hillside above us. We saw wood ducks, deer, beavers, an eagle, song birds, and in general had a blast! I think I'll try that again this year, it's been awhile...

MOCG,
I think you found paradise on earth!

Sounds like a nice place and quite a day

Still hunting hardwood ridges with my favorite bolt action .22lr......................547.

Wow....that really brought back memories. Used to float the creeks and bayou's of Louisiana with my golden retreiver up front and my shotgun across my lap. I had "Kaleb" trained to handsignals and would put him out on the bank and signal him to the other side of the tree to turn the squirrels when they tried to hide on the back side. And of course, once they fell Kaleb would bring them back to the boat. I never had to get out of the boat...LOL

firstshot
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Make your first shot count!

That's awesome to have the dog working with you. I've never hunted squirrels with a dog. The old days lot's of hillbillies had curs or fiest of some sort that would work squirrels. I've listened to many tales of such hunts from my Grandpa and Dad over the years. Seems to be a vanishing part of the sport...

I enjoy just slowly sneaking along looking for them on the ground or low on the trunks of trees with a 22LR.

After I went off to college, I came home to a young lab at my parents home. I grabed my 22LR and went out to get a couple of squirrels. The lab went a long and he was very quiet and just stayed behind me. He soon learned what I was after and then I followed him! He was an amazing dog but unfortunately he died 9 years ago. I still have some great memories!

RH

My hunting is mostly sitting or still hunting, depending on the circumstances, probably just like a lot of the other posters.

What I do differently when I can, is to wet wade, or use hip boots up or down a stream. This is especially effective when there are a lot of dry leaves on the ground, because you make no noise at all.You can see and hear a lot of game this way, especially when the squirrels are making a lot of noise, and you are not making any!

I also use sub-sonic hollow point ammo. It's accurate, deadly, and does not alarm the area you are hunting very much.

Glad to see so many other squirrel hunters at the Fire.

Steve

Off my bird feeder.

Steve,
The only thing I dislike about the sub-sonic ammo is the looping trajectory. I like to hold on their little noggin' and not try to dope the drop on longish shots. I will say this, the Eley sub-sonic's are very, very, accurate, quiet, and effective within close to mid-ranges.

I prefer the Eley .22LR high velocity hollowpoints.

MOGC
I agree with you re the loopy nature of the sub-sonics, but I have tried to minimize the problem by test shooting them at various distance from 10 to 50 yards, and then recording where they hit. Like you, I also just use head shots, and it was not very hard to do so when you know how to hold for a particular distance. But, then I got so hung up on knowing the exact distance of a squirrel, that I was using my laser rangefinder. After a couple of trips to the woods with it, I stopped using it because it became a case of complication beyond necessity. It was just more fun doing without it. And I was still making clean kills.

The Rem Sub-sonics have been pretty accurate in my rifles, and I bought a lot of them when they were cheap. More recently I've tried Aguila sub-sonics, which have been even cheaper, and more accurate. I believe that Eley makes the brass and the primer. I value the quiet nature of the sub-sonics quite a lot.

Thanks for your comments.

Steve

still hunting or floating the river

Well said, and that's the way I hunt gray squirrels too.

i am not a very experienced squirrel hunter but i like to listen for them and stalk to where i think they are. then wait for them to move in the tree. has actually worked pretty well!


that or driving the road and waiting for them to cross in front of me :D:D:D (justkidding)

Now that I can hunt in Missouri, I plan to put squirrels on the menu, mostly in the NW part

Back in NC, my favorite method was to walk in a stand of woods my grandmother owned...it was about 50/50 hardwood and pines, and in the years the fields nearby had something besides tobacco in them, it was pretty good hunting. Usually, we used shotguns, though a .22 LR was best for reaching up to the high pine branches they used as a subdivision/ highway system. I miss it very much.

It is a bit funny to me seeing this thread, at work today, I told a hunting coworker that it seems like ages since I took a squirrel with something besides a P225/75R15.

Still huntin em , hands down.

galbrath be sure to give Monkey mountain, and Honey creek a try for squirells this season.

Slipping through the woods in the early morning or evening with a .22lr in my hands moving quietly and taking nothing but head shots. When you get warmed up start calling your shots for the ear or the eye.

Squirell hunting as a kid taught me many skills that I later used as a USMC Scout Sniper.

my dad's family farm has a huge walnut grove interspersed with hickory trees. I fondly remember slow walks through it (it was big enough to keep looping back around). I wish it was easier to get there -- it's been many years now and there aren't many squirrels in UT. Hunted much he same in VA & AL too.

I enjoy wading the rivers in Ohio with my 22 anschutz shooting lapua subsonic. I have also been hunting the tree rats with my compound bow and a G5 small game head the bow kind of tears them up but with the anshults I always have plenty of (squak) slang for squirrel in the refrigerator.

My favorite way is to find a good hardwoods stand and just sit quietly. They'll show!