Has anyone else here had the experience of setting up in a spot that they think might have potential in black timber and then having a squirrel make a racket overhead that would raise the dead?
I can't count the number of times that has happened to me.
I'm not fluent in squirrel chatter but I don't think it is necessary to be. The message seems pretty clear that he's angry, I'm intruding, and he'll do whatever he can to blow my cover.
If I REALLY want to hunt a spot I'll wait it out, but that could be 15 minutes of annoying chatter, and who knows how much longer after that for the surrounding atmosphere to ease off and return to normal. More often than not I move on and find another spot.
Alamosa,
Yes.
Resident small animals and birds are the junkyard dogs which often give larger critters a clue that there is an intruder-predator in their little world.
I have often observed that learning how to move and hunt and hide so the small critters don't know you are there is a huge plus when we still hunt, spot & stalk etc.
Squirrels have about a 15 minute 'memory' ..IF you are still.
Chipmunks are far worse..:(..
The larger critters use the birds and small game as a help in their security...Ya want to be undetected? Hunt and move so slow and unobtrusively that even the banana slugs feel like you belong there..:0 Jim
Then they take to dropping pine cones on you.
I've sat on a game trail deer hunting and had squirrels start up their chatter and could hear something coming down the trail in heavy timber and heard whatever it was turn around and go back up the trail.
They kinda irritate me, but usually stop soon enough. I've also used them when setup, they chatter at a lot of stuff... They have announced game showing up.
Jeff
VERY TRUE. A few years back my buddy and I were doing a evening hunt. About 20 min into it I had seen a few doe It was looking good. Then I heard 10 shots coming from his way. I went over there to find him standing there Beretta 92 in hand 10 round and the critter was still going to town.
Carry a pellet pistol with you
A squirrel screwed up my best chance at an elk last season... little fugger. I went back to try and waste his rodent butt with a 200-gn 8mm TSX but of course, he was long gone.
They bark at everything that moves, so they are as informative to me as they are to game. Magpies are another good informer. I've spotted bedded deer and elk by watching magpies as they cross a valley headed to another mountain. They wheel in and look for parasites etc on bedded critters.
Ravens, eagles, jays, and coyotes are good messengers too if one is predator hunting. The will point out the location of gut piles, dead critters, and hunting predators.
100% know the woods sounds like the game you hunt. use it to YOUR advantage. 15 miles back a chipmunk has probably never seen a human in it's life but will still blow. wonder what it did/does
when it first sees a deer/elk/bear/mink ect. just act natural like you belong there. i,ve been 20-25 ft. away from wild deer that knew i was there from 50-60 yds. SLOW DOWN and RELAX, pic some leaves, stir the ground, take a step or 2, look around, pay it no mind. just act natural, he'll shut up sooner than you think, time and time again.
I had a red squrrel follow me through a tamarack swamp in Michigan's UP. I eventually quieted him down with a 200 grain round nose from my 35 Remmy. Got a complete pass through.
Why'd he follow ya? Did he think you was a big nut? Stalker type?
You want to hear squirrels freak out let a hawk or a owl land any where within sight of one squirrel. They will go nuts! Having seen this on several occations, and still seeing deer move later on, I don't let it discourage me too much.
Blue Jays have told me game was around before, in the thicket. As for squirrels, nothing a bit of shot from the scatter gun wont take care of!
I love the little bastards...they are entertaining. I like it when they creep down a tree or along a deadfall and don't know you are there til you go "boo" and they come out of ther skin! I'll take them over pine martins in camp any day
Has anyone else here had the experience of setting up in a spot that they think might have potential in black timber and then having a squirrel make a racket overhead that would raise the dead?
Hypothetically speaking, "perhaps." Y' know something? At 6-8 feet, "I think"
a patched .58 cal round ball "might" go clean through a squirrel. Just a feeling. (TM)
Tom
Kind of a twist on this thread, but a friendly squirrel let me know something was not right. About four years ago I was fishing the Kenai in Alaska during the late Red run. I was the only one on the bank at the time and this squirrel starts making some real noise. I didn't pay it much mind, but after about five minutes of this I decided to try and spot it in the trees to see what was setting it off. I spotted it about 60 yds back in the trees and glanced to the base of the tree to see a huge brown bear sitting on its haunches watching me fish. I can only guess what may have happened had I hooked and fought a salmon. I slipped out of sight along the bank and made a beeline to the car.
One time a little red squirrel was blowing my cover, he came down to just about eye level on me about 10 feet away. The only thing I could think of beside smearing him across the tree was to show my teeth as big as I could to him. He beat feet so quick I laughed out loud and blew my own cover. It was worth it, never forget that.
But yes, they can be to your adavantage as well if you're still hunting and something else is tripping his whistle.
I've had squirrels warn me of approaching game a few times. Once I was bowhunting for elk and had one run down the trail towards me. He was in full charge except he didn't know I was there. He stopped for a seconds on top of my right foot and then ran another few feet and stopped. He turned around and looked at my foot and then up at me and took off in full...but silent...warp speed retreat.
100% know the woods sounds like the game you hunt. use it to YOUR advantage
+1
I hate more than anything,the peskie Whitetails stomp'in there feet at 'ya when your after Elk.Everything has a noise out there to warn others..Slow and easy,it works both ways.
Jayco
Last season had a pine squirrel blow my cover as I was getting in close to some bedded elk. I put the crosshairs on him from 25 yds away and politely informed him that he was gonna quit this life if he continued his chatter. Call it cosmic or whatever, but he got the message and actually shut up as I closed in the last 50 yds on the elk. I didn't get the elk, as I blew it by not noticing a cow bedded apart from the others, but I went back and offered some of my trail mix to the little fella as a peace offering. He came down and ate it while I stood there a few feet away. Vittles of that quality are hard to come by in the high country.
If this is the same squirrel thread that's been around a couple months that I apologize for saying this twice...
I am not a varmint hunter. Don't kill squirrels. But there's one that I tried VERY HARD to waste his hairy little rodent butt last year after he blew my stalk on an elk that was well within smelling range. Tried to go back and blow him up with my .325 but couldn't find him. Aaargh. Makes me mad just to think of that little... do-gooder miscreant.
100% know the woods sounds like the game you hunt. use it to YOUR advantage
+1
I hate more than anything,the peskie Whitetails stomp'in there feet at 'ya when your after Elk.Everything has a noise out there to warn others..Slow and easy,it works both ways.
Jayco
I had a good stalk on a big bull blown by a mule deer doe. She nailed me and wouldn't forget about me. I didn't have the patience I needed to wait her out and I moved one time too many. I only needed another 20 yards to make my shot but that was the end of that.
I learned though. Stalks take nothing but patience and slower is always better.
Then they take to dropping pine cones on you.
I had forgotten about that part.
The pinecone throwing thing often seems too well aimed to be just be considered dropped or coincidence.
That's why I squirrel hunt when I'm scouting before the hunt opens. If they have been hunted, they will run up the tree and sit there silently in most cases. That and squirrel stew is good.
some times they're amusing. wile getting ready to leave my hidey hole and taking one last look around; i was standing on the stump i sit on and this chip munk starts to scurry up the hill about 20yds below me. he makes his way to the stump i'm on then jumps up and sit's on my boot just munchin' on some thing. wile i thought that was kinda' neet, he starts crallin' up my leg. he was about to the portion of my body that he was searching for, when i start to feel violated, then i flinched thinkin' "HE'S COMIN' RIGHT FOR US". his little eyes looked as big as dimes like i was about to violate him and he'll never be the same again, maybey he will have to try to drink his sorrows away, how will he tell his family. he bailed down the hill like he was on a kamakazi mission, to be violated another day. one of the most memorable woods experiences i can remember. yet it still helps to talk about it.
In one area I hunt I carry a 12" blow gun and a few darts with me- shuts them up every time!