Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Small Game your choice for Squirrel?

Most of my squirrel hunting is done in hardwood hammocks, in or around creeks and swamps here in North Florida. Early in the season, with the leaves still on the hardwoods, I usually go out with a 20 ga. Mossberg pump, #6 high brass, and a modified choke.
Later, when the leaves on the Hickory, Oak, and Cottonwood trees have fallen, I switch to a .22LR. For many years, I used an old Remington 721t bolt rifle. Its very accurate. For the past couple of years, I have switched to a Ruger Mannlicher stocked 10/22. With a 4X scope, its almost as accurate, and it gives me a quick second shot if I miss a running tree rat on a high limb.

I don't hunt squirrels to get squirrel meat. I know they're tasty critters and have eaten a lot of them, but now that I am old and crazy I can't enjoy eating them because I'm preoccupied with looking for squirrel hairs. That said, I wouldn't consider taking a shotgun on a squirrel hunt. For me, a 22 is part of the game. If it's a competition and I have to produce, I take a Marlin 60 with a scope. If it's just funzies, I take an old Winchester 90 or Marlin 97 or Stevens Favorite or Remington 4. That just feels righteous to me.

Early in the year I use my Marlin M39A with Williams Fool Proof aperture sight and Williams Gold Bead front sight.


Later I may use either my 10/22 DSP, 77/22 stainless, or T/C Classic as here.

This year I'll be using a Ruger 77/22 that I had Clark Custom Guns rebarrel for me. The scope is a 6x36 Leupold with the Wide Duplex that I had the parallax changed to 50 yards by the Leu Custom Shop. It shoots .22LR SK high velocity hollow points into very small groups. The trigger breaks at a crisp two pounds. If I miss a squirrel, it won't be the gun's fault.
RS

That sounds like a sweet rig Ripsnort. I use the Eley HVHP and it is amazingly accurate and consistent.

Once and a while I will use my NEF Pardner .410 single shot with a full choke and 3 inch 4`s or 6`s, more of a challenge than you might think!! Also, some times take my T/C New Englander 12 gauge muzzleloader with 100 gr Goex FFG and the same of copper plated #5`s or 6`s. But my go to gun is my Marlin 881 .22 LR with a Simmons .22 Mag 4x32 scope and CCI Mini Mags. Jack.

Winchester Model 60A Target wearing the original Redfield peep and globe front and fed .22 CB shorts, or a Mossberg 151M wearing an El Paso Weaver K4 60-B and feed CCI SGBs.

rem 541T, or win 94/22 with WW 40 power points is pretty much all I'll use.

I won't hunt squirrels with a shotgun. Personal choice.

Ditto. Marlin 880SQ is my gun of choice.

When i was young, my dad started me with a 20 ga. single shot. Wasn't much of a challenge. I like Squrrel hunting with 22's. Have 2- 10/22's, a Iver Johnson lever, and my grandpas old Winchester Model 63. they all do a good job.

Same here. Every year I intend to hunt squirrel, but I don't know anyone who'll take the meat.

My dad and I used to hunt with a Browning .22 lever and a .410 single shot that has a choke so tight, you have to aim it like a rifle.

If you dip those squirrels in water before skinning, it'll cut down about 99% of the hair problem. I always clean mine at a creek or lake.

Marlin 99 with Weaver Rimfire scope and Remington .22 LR

Browning A-Bolt .22 with 4-12x40 AO target scope and Eley Tenex

Enfield No. 8 training rifle in .22 LR

High Standard .22 LR auto pistol

----- young hunters will carry --------------
Marlin single shot .22
Remington bolt action .22
Browning BL-22 levergun

I used to tell our pastor that hunting squirrel with a shotgun is like using a spotlight to hunt deer! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Very effective, but not entirely sporting. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Mine is a Marlin M25 in .22 magnum. Plenty accurate for headshots on tree rats, and enough pep for the odd turkey, as seasons usually coincide.
7mm

I can't understand anyone hunting squirrels that don't like to eat em. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> Squirrels is the best eatin you'll ever wrap a lip around. Young ones pan fried with gravy from the drippins, mashed taters and hot biscuits. If you ain't likin that, you ain't American. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

My choice is a .32 flintlock and a good squirrel dog to tree em an keep em busy till I get a bead on em.

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

That is one very cool picture. That beagle do the work for you? I love the little beagle hounds!

I have always used my Kodiak 22 mag auto. I have had it since I was 15.

Whelenman you're a better man than me. When I was about 15, I sat on a deer stand where I saw very few deer and lots of squirrels. One morning I brought my Daddy's 22 pistol and a box of shorts to gather some squirrel meat. I got the first one with two or three shots and when I got the second one, the box of shorts was empty, and there were three cartridges left in the pistol. Gave up forthwith on using a pistol for squirrels.

Squirrels and rabbits are good eating.

If you peel the skin down from the middle, you will get very little hair on the meat, and that rinses right off.

You can parboil them for a few minutes in a skillet of salted water, then wet them in milk, salt and pepper, dredge in flour and fry in a skillet with a little oil, like pork chops, turning on both sides and back. You can make gravy, too.

You can also roast over the fire or in the oven, basting with some butter or bacon drippings.

You and those El Paso Weavers!!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Liam

Yep. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Here's my squirrel killer...Ithaca M-66 Super Single

Whoa! you kill em with the shine?

I blind 'em with the well oiled stock and shoot 'em in da head!
That is my first ever firearm, I keep it looking smart <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Oil isn't good for wood stocks, right?

depends on the oil.

I like my 20 gauge flintlock, but my 12 gauge NEF is lighter and doesn't need cleaning until after the season.

T/C Contender Carbine, 20" barrel match chambered for shorts. Millett SP-1 Red dot. would post a pic but Photobucket won't come up this AM. 1/2" shooter at 50 yards with HV or CB ammo(CCI), don't need a second shot. Works on pigs too.

I remember a tale from my uncles about a fellow in our community during the depression who had a pretty unique squirrel hunting method. Twenty-two ammo was prohibatively expensive but he owned a harmonica and a locally famous hound named Sloppy Rock. (The hound's name came off a college diploma from Slippery Rock on the wall of the doctor's office, but it got a little mangled.) If Sloppy Rock treed a squirrel in a hollow tree Ed would shinny up to the squirrel hole and blow madly on his harmonica right into the hole. The terrorized squirrel would shoot out the hole and sail through space to drop into the waiting jaws of Sloppy Rock.

This story made such an impression in my youthful mind that I named my next puppy Sloppy Rock, in hopes of his becoming a squirrel dog. He never amounted to much and my friends soon nicknamed him Ole Slop Jar.

Linseed oil.

Ok...