Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Squirrel Dog action

we been Squirrel hunting since Feb 1st - end of deer season

this was Tuesday hunted 3pm till dark, action started about 4:30, killed 10, 2 stayed stuck in the tree so made it out with 8


this was yesterday morning, it was warm, we killed 20, 4 stayed stuck in the tree, so made it out with 16
the dogs name is Dolly

That's great! Good looking dog.

Good stuff. Looks like Dolly knows what she's doing!

RS

😎👍👍👍

Looks like fun!

I'm thinking Dolly had the most fun.......

Dang. I love squirrel hunting and squirrel eating.

My dad's and grandads dogs never saw such travel accommodations.

Hard to beat a good skirrel dog

I'm a product of the 50's. My paternal grampa was born 1893. My dad was born 1920. I was born 1950.
As a kid, my grampa and dad took great pleasure in taking me (only son, grandson) squirrel hunting.
Grampa grew up poor. Squirrel was often the difference between hungry and fed.
Due to the "Great Depression", dad was also well aware that squirrel was quite often the difference in protein and boiled pine bark! LOL!

I started with an AH Fox .410 (wish THAT was still around!) and following dad and grandpa through the hardwood forests of East Texas, chasing "tree rats"!
A lot of the kids in my little backwoods school (Class A) also hunted squirrel with dad, grampa, brother, uncle or family friend.
Today's kids are too interested in video games etc to even be interested in a squirrel, much less hunting them.

I'd also venture that there are few mothers left in this world that can produce an edible batch of "squirrel and dumplings"!

I haven't hunted or eaten squirrel in over a decade.

It feels really good to see folks that can still take advantage of a little utilized game animal that has taught so many kids to hunt....and probably kept hundreds of thousands of Americans fed over the ages.
....and to do it with dogs? Even more amazing!

The cycle of human, companion, food and family continues!

Great job folks!
Keep tradition alive!

OH!
BTW!

Don't know how you like you squirrel, but here's something I worked up and enjoy.

1 - big red squirrel, cleaned and cut up
Onion
Garlic
Potato - 1 large
Milk
Flour
Black pepper

Dredge the squirrel in flour and fry until lightly browned.
I use those little aluminum, single use, loaf pans.
Place fried squirrel pieces in bottom of pan.
Peel potato and put in pan along with onion and chopped up garlic.
With the milk, make a thin gravy with the grease used to fry the squirrel.
Pour the gravy over the squirrel, potatoes, onion and garlic in the pan*. Pepper liberally. * - if the gravy doesn't cover the contents of the pan, add milk until everything is covered.
Cover with foil and place in a 325° oven for 1 hour.
Whether you prefer canned or homemade biscuits is up to you, but start your biscuits about 20 minutes before the hour is up!
Tasty smothered squirrel and biscuits!
A meal fit for a king!

Sounds mighty fine Martin.

Skirrel gravy mmmmm

Thank ya'll for the replies, Martin - thank you for that recipe - I will try it.

I made a squirrel gumbo last week, boiled the trinity with some Tony's and Garlic powder and 7 squirrels for 1 hour - deboned the SQ and saved the stock for the gumbo. made Chicken, sausage, pork tasso and deboned SQ Gumbo, with potato salad

normally it's browned and made into Meat Rice and Gravy over white rice - a brown onion gravy - a cajun staple

we will hunt several more times till Feb 28 ... 29th this year

Looks like a blast and good looking dog!

Neat pics. Love the dog! Keep hunting and having fun. Getting ready to make a squirrel chowder for a wild game feed we are having in a couple weeks.

I knew a guy who had a dog he used to hunt squirrels, but around this area, it’s almost unheard of to use a dog.
I quit shotgunning squirrels over 30 years ago.
I find head shooting them with a .22 or .22 Magnum much more fun.
I once told our Pastor that “using a shotgun on squirrel is almost like using a spotlight on deer”!
Reon

Thanks for sharing!

I haven’t squirrel hunted since i was a kid.


Getting harder to find big hard wood flats anymore.

About the only thing timber companies leave is what can’t be cut near creeks.

I like a yellow Cur...

Awesome!! I'm pretty sure I'd get a kick out of having a squirrel dog...

We hunted tonight with some training dogs killed 3 they young dogs

and we got a Cancer benefit raffle hunt in the morning with 2 dogs and maybe 6 hunters. I’ll post pics and story tomorrow of both hunts

Not sure about now, but at one time, the "Black Mouth Cur" was everybody's "go to" squirrel dog!
....but then again....squirrel hunting ain't as popular as it "usta be"! 😉

That’s gettin it done!! We have been getting after the squirrels around here as well. We’ve got two more weeks of season.

That's awesome. When I was a kid, Dad would take a spoon and crack the back of the skull and eat the brain, said it was the best part. Been rifle/ head shots since the 90's. Currently we both use CZ's. A young gray squirrel fried with gravy over garden fresh potatoes with tomatoes and sweet corn is about as good a summer table fare as you can get. Still hunting bushytails is amazing practice, gotta be stealthy and take shots from improvised rests at small targets.

Never hunted squirrels with dogs.

I can only imagine how much fun it is.

Looks like everyone enjoyed themselves

Truth.

Lots of subsets on the American Cur...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cur

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Cur

We have a yellow "Old Stock Mountain Cur".

To quote Wikipedia... "...used for hunting a variety of game, including squirrels, opossums, raccoons, feral pigs, cougars, FedEx drivers and American black bears... they locate game both by sight and scent."

My dad was born and raised in Eastern Kentucky. I was born there before we moved to central Ohio. Squirrel hunting was a big part of our lives when I was young. We would go to Kentucky to hunt with my uncle first because their season came in before ours. My mom would make squirrel gravy from our harvest. We rabbit hunted with beagles, but didn’t have a squirrel dog although my dad would always talk about hunting with a Feist dog as a younger man. A couple years before my dad passed I took him to a friend’s property that had a big shag bark hickory tree on relatively flat ground. I carried my dad’s Mossberg 500 .410 pump gun and a comfortable folding chair for him to sit in. Although he didn’t kill a squirrel (he fell asleep) I could tell he was in hog heaven. That was the last time we hunted together. Thanks for bringing that memory back Simoneaud!

Ron

Thanks for the comments I can tell squirrel hunting runs Deep for some of you.

I hunted yesterday afternoon with the Catholic Priest -Again hunted last Tuesday with him - from a local parish here in south Louisiana - he has his own squirrel dog or dogs - and really is limited in a place to hunt so I took him on my deer lease here in West baton rouge parish. The little brindle color dog can hunt but she's young and needs more hunting. That big Cur should have been left at the house, absolutely no good - hunts by sight, never puts his nose down - I think he hurt our hunt

we killed 3, 2 got away from us


This morning 6:45am we took a 12 year old boy and his grandpa and 1 friend on the Breast Cancer Raffle hunt, we killed 18, 2 got stuck in the tree, so made it out with 16. we hunted 2 dogs, Dolly from last week and Rose the white colored dog. Rose is the bomb, if she barks you better go to her. they don't work out further than about 120 yards, If they get out further we just Tone them on the collar and they come back. they are broke off deer and rabbits. Today Rose did tree a coon, we gave him a pass. we just tell the dogs " IN THE HOLE" and they move on to the next squirrel

my legs and hips hurt, the dogs covers 13.1 miles and we covered 4.6 miles. I got to get some lighter rubber boots.

I never had the pleasure of being able to hunt them with a good squirrel dog… looks like a good time for all.
Thanks for posting

I started hunting alone when I was 8 or 9. That was the late ‘50s. Back then in Alabama small game reigned. Squirrel, rabbit and bobwhite quail. Deer and turkey were badly shot out in the land I was raised on so if you hunted and didn’t have a dog, squirrel was the prime target. Finally had beagles as a young teenager and had it made. Then doves if there was ammunition to waste. But squirrel was the target of most hunts.

Last squirrel hunt I had was probably 35 years ago in Sumter Co Alabama. Went to a friends lease with him one October. He planned to bow hunt deer and I hunted squirrel with a little 94/22 Mag. Solids with that bring them down right now. Killed 6 or 8 that first day and made gumbo. We ate squirrel gumbo over rice for two more days and he swore to never eat it again.

Yeah, this thread brings back memories of a day gone by. Good memories of good people.

The second round of pics and the stories are great. You could keep posting stories and pics and nobody would get tired of them.

Went this morning with these guys, the oldest man in this pic is 81 and still walks with us we call him a pro squirrel hunter. it was warm and cloudy. killed 17, 3 got away from us - they went in the hole in the tree, none got stuck, this place has high timber, not so much vines. we used Dolly, she is getting much better, she just needed to be hunted. she was pooping out early, but she's building stamina. Rose developed a Limp after Wednesdays Cancer Hunt, so she's on bed rest. Rose actually got caught up in a Barbed wire fence 3 weeks ago, 21 stiches, but we been hunting her and he had been fine. we shall see.