SQUIRREL HUNTERS.....THE TREE KIND!

[SQUACKS]

HOWDY ALL!

 several years ago, i started this same topic on the old marlintalk forum. it was a place where squirrels were discussed in great detail. i met in person and on the forum many great folks who happen to hunt squirrels.

 an invitational squirrel hunt was started on that forum and has had 3 very successful seasons. last sept. there were 28 souls came from all over the country and great britain to hunt squirrels for 5 days. it was a great time and we got squirrels too!

 my intent under this topic has always been to meet other squirrel hunters from all over the country and to share the knowlege of what it takes to be a good squirrel hunter. i invite folks to join in with their own observations and anybody who has questions on squirrel hunting to bring them up.

 years ago in the state of illinois there was no deer or turkey hunting. if you hunted, it was small game only. there were a great many really serious squirrel hunters. i grew up among some of them. just a little of it may have rubbed off on me!

                                                             luck!

[SQUACKS]

the squirrels i grew up hunting were the gray and fox squirrels. fox squirrels in illinois are the orange variety and are usually much larger than the gray.

some folks have gotten to calling the fox squirrel a "red" squirrel. this has lead to some confusion amongst folks from differant parts of the country about what a fox squirrel looks like. the true red squirrel is smaller than the common gray. the red squirrel is common in the northern part of our country. i have never seen one in illinois. i have reports that they do exist in other states than the northern most states. i suspect that they may prefer to inhabit mixed conifer and deciduous forest. it may be that any such large expanse of such mixed forest may hold some red squirrels.

both the fox and the gray are decent size varmints and hunters, in most states where they exist, persue them. red squirrels are not hunted to the same extent. they may not even be legal targets in some areas so it would pay to be sure before hunting them.

there are other types of tree squirrels as well. in illinois we have 2 color phases of the gray. one is pure white and the other is pure black. these color phases seem to be found in limited areas and localised. on the lake michigan shoreline of illinois, the black phase can be found. the white phase can be found around the town of olney, which is in the southern part of the state.

in the south part of the country, there are other types of tree squirrels as well as differant color phases of fox squirrels.

as tree squirrels have pretty much the same kind of habits where ever they are found, hunting techniques should be very similar wherever you get to hunt.

we are about to discuss squirrel hunting in minute detail. these few paragraphs are to leave no doubt about which kind of squirrels we be talking about!

SQUIRREL HUNTERS...THE TREE KIND!

LUCK

[SQUACKS]

howdy all!

lots of folks have asked if it is neccesary to wear camoflage clothing while squirrel hunting.

the answer is, no.

what squirrels notice most is movement and noise.

i like wearing camo. i feel a person can move more freely wearing it or woodsy colors. one of my favorite colors to wear in the woods is med. to dark gray. flat black is another.

clothes that are not camo can still blend into the landscape quite well. blue does not blend in and i would avoid wearing blue jeans, as outer wear ,if possible.

for hunting i like old soft cloth type clothes. the sticker attracting kind. you want something that is as noiseless as possible when things like branches and stickers are dragged across the material. i hate anything covered in nylon for hunting.

for squirrel hunting, i like dark colored sneaker type shoes. the high top tennis shoes work well in the warmer months. you can "slip" through the woods more quietly in them, if you are still hunting. you can feel those sticks under foot before they snap and reposition your steps to avoid them.

a hat with a bill on it is also helpful to shade the sun off your eyes. it also serves the purpose of something to spray skeeter dope on. i usally spray it under the bill of the cap to keep the rascals out of my eyes.

for folks who just like to sit and wait for squirrels, all this is not near as important. i say again, movement and noise will likely be what tips squirrels off to your position. if you are sitting around most of the time while hunting and moving very little, you can wear most anything.

early season hunters(may-sept) will want to wear light cooler clothes while late season hunters(oct-feb) are going to need really warm clothes and better footwear on some occasions. the warmer gear will be a must in jan. when most squirrel hunting is done by sitting or moving really slowly through an area.

i have worn a vest while squirrel hunting since the beginning. serious hunters can get one made of heavy canvas that will last you most of your life! they are usually a brown or green color to blend with the woods. the pockets hold ammo and neccesaries and there is usually a bag on the back for carrying your squirrels. some folks get by by cutting a green stick and carrying squirrels on it. the squirrel is usually stabbed though the back foot or the achilles tendon and the stick is run through the cut. the stick is cut long enough to stick each end through a belt loop and the squirrels are carried hanging down your leg. you will get bloody...no maybe's about it! but it works.

luck

[SQUACKS]

c130e:

 thanks for the greetings. i always enjoy talking about squirrel hunting with folks and it's great to get input from folks in our own state. i would be interested in knowing what part of illinois you are in. i grew up on the southern end and now have to live in the northern end.

 the nut seasons are a little differant from one end of the state to the other by a couple of weeks. the northern timber is also much less diverse than the southern. there are a lot fewer types of mast trees.

 hope to hear from you often. this topic is just getting started!

                                                            luck!

[SQUACKS]

howdy all!

i want to mention weaponry a little before we get into the grit of actual squirrel hunting. this may not be what you are expecting.

i have used pellet guns, slingshots, bows, pistols, shotguns and rifles in pursuit of the squacks. i enjoy hunting with them all.

i suggest you use whatever you feel the most proficient with.

squirrels are a tough customer for it's size. accurate projectile placement is important.

lots of people like to hunt squirrels with a rimfire rifle. i am amongst that crowd. it is important to realise that not all places are acceptable to use them in. if it is not safe to fire a rifle in the woodlots you have to hunt, then , by all means, use a shotgun. if there are houses on all horizons, a shotgun or some other kind of short range weapon should be the gun of choice. never use a rifle unless it is perfectly safe to do so.

#4, #5, and #6 shot is suitable for squirrels. in small guage shotguns (.410 or .28) you may want to go to #7 1/2 shot to fill the pattern some and reduce the amount of cripples.

in any case , it helps to be proficient with the weapon you use.


c130e:

 i have never hunted central ill. for squirrels and that is corn and bean country for sure! i always imagined that the majority of squirrels there are going to be fox squirrels except in the river bottoms. they may be more evenly mixed there. is that a correct assumption?

                                         luck!

[BUGEYE]

Hey Squacks, I too grew up in southern Ill.  Johnson county just south of Vienna.  If it hadn't been for squirrels I would have gone hungry as a kid.

[SQUACKS]

bugeye:

 i know what you mean. in 1952, i cost my parents a whole $75 to be born in a hospital. my dad said they ate so much squirrel trying to save up the cash that he was afraid i would be born with a tail! lol!

 i was born in murpheysboro, il.

                                                            luck!

[SQUACKS]

howdy all!

in its daily travels, a squirrels leaves sign of its presence.

these signs are a good thing to be able to recognize as they will help you a great deal when scouting or hunting a new piece of timber.

fresh sign is the only kind of real interest. at times, in large expanses of timber, squirrels travel around a lot. why they do is still a mystery to me...they just do. when squirrels are present in large numbers they leave a lot of sign of them being there. i have found them a couple of times in my life where they were so thick that i swear i could smell them.

there are basically two kinds of places a squirrel spends the dark hours. the first is in a hole in a tree which is normally called a den tree. in old growth forest with lots of old trees, there will be an abundance of den trees. the thing to look for when scouting is holes than are worn slick around it. these are usually year round dens where young are raised. i have seen a lot of squirrels come out of one hole in the dead of winter. they seem to take up community living when it's neccesary in the cold months. they fuss around a lot in there but must get used to it after a bit.

the second type of squirrel abode is the nest, which is woven mysteriously out of any leaves available. fellow shawnee hunter TAFF ,who hails from great britain, calls these dreys. squirrels build these even when there are plenty of den trees around. in younger timber where den trees are scarce, the nest is the common abode of squirrels. these nests can be smallish to huge. both fox and grey squirrels use both kinds of abode.

a fresh green nest is a good sign of recent squirrel activity. sometimes there can be a LOT of them.

the next kind of sign to look for would be diggings. squirrels spend time on the ground poking around any time of the year. they are always digging. when they dig, they usually leave a small pile of dirt in front of a small hole. if the dirt looks fresh, it will have been done recently. if there are a lot of diggings on the forest floor, it is a good sign of a good population of squirrels.

the last kind of sign i look for is cuttings. when a squirrel eats a nut, he first must remove the outer husk. he then CUTS through the nut to get at the meat. he keeps cutting the nutshell away to get at the insides. these cuttings should be green and wet to be really fresh. fresh cuttings is what is important. last years cuttings are not fresh squirrel sign.

an interesting obeservation i have made in all these years of hunting squirrels is that gray squirrels almost always cut the nut completely into small pieces. fox squirrels , a lot of times, will just cut one end off the nut and are somehow able to get the meat out that way. so, if you find a lot of whole nutshells under a tree with just one end bitten off...you can bet that fox squirrels are present.

it pays to know what fresh squirrel sign looks like when hunting large forests. when hunting small woodlots, it is not as important.

luck!

[SQUACKS]

c130e:

 my grandmother owned a farm between ava and oraville on rt.4.  i hunted there a lot as a kid. i was in ava back at christmas. the farm was sold a few years ago. what a shame it was.

                                                        luck!

[SQUACKS]

howdy all!

i am of the opinion that no squirrel hunter can really get good at his craft until he can identify the foods squirrels use and the trees that the food comes from.

of course there are other food sources that squirrels use that do not come from trees. they will eat most grains from farm fields and probably some fruits, drupes and berries from plants.

at this point in this discussion, we will focus on the trees that produce mast or a source of food that squirrels use.

these types of trees and their existance will vary from state to state. each hunter has to learn the ones that are in his specific area.

it also is of use to know when each specie of tree has its mast ripen to the extent that squirrels start to use them. knowing where to find a single kind of tree is also of use. that means you must study the kind of habitat that you find such a tree in so you will know what kind of habitat to look in to find others of its kind.

when you find several squirrels in one tree at one time, you can bet it is probably a food source that they are fond of and that at that point in time, if you are able to find other trees of its kind, you will probably find more squirrels! knowing how to identify the tree and the habitat it prefers, you will be able to find other trees like it and therefore more squirrels.

it is my intention to go through a list of tree types and the approximate time that these trees ripen mast to the extent that it is ready for squirrels. in actuallity, these times will vary from ,mostly, north to south as the seasons are differant. the times i will refer to relate to most of illinois. remember that as you go south from illinois, that mast may become ready earlier and just the opposite will occur going in the opposite direction.

as the illinois season starts on the 1st day of aug. i will start with that date and then continue on for what i know about one cycle of growth. (a whole year)

of course, if any of you have differant specie to add to this timetable, please do so. remember to give a location for the timetable so we can get an idea of the differance in availability from one region to the next.

this topic of trees may take a few installments and will also not be a definitive list. i am just relating my observations and experiences in my state over the period of 44 years of squirrel hunting.

trees to follow! stay tuned and join in.

luck!

[SQUACKS]

howdy all!

aug 1 has been the squirrel opener in southern ill. for the 44 years i have been hunting them. one thing you can rely on is that it will be HOT!

there will be lots of skeeters, chiggars and ticks as well. a lot of sweating will be in order to get any hunting in.

in aug. the first 2 hours of daylight and the last hour before dark are going to be best for hunting. squirrels will move more in the coolest daylight hours at that time. this means getting into the woods before light and sitting in a spot where you expect them to be or to come to in order to feed.

the knowlege of what kinds of food is ripe and ready will help put you in a better spot at daylight, if you know where the food soources are.

one of the things that squirrels (especially young squirrels) eat in aug. is black(wild) cherries. these are easy for young squirrels to eat as they have no hard shell to cut through. they are usually plentiful as well.

the only noise that squirrels make while eating them is the movements from branch to branch as they move about the tree in search of the cherries.

you will also, on occasion, find other varmints up a cherry tree. coons, possoms and every bird in the woods will be up in there after those cherries.

ihave found enough squirrels in black cherry trees in august to make the cherry tree worth mentioning. few "nut" trees are ripe at the start of aug. and a feller has to know about other food sources in order to find many squirrels.

i am going to post a link(hopefully) to a pretty good looking site that has pictures and descriptions of the various types of trees and shrubs we will be dicussing. it will make identifying easier...if it works!

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/cherry_black/cherry_black.html

                                               luck!

[SQUACKS]

howdy again:

on the southernmost quarter of illinois, the tulip tree (yellow poplar) can be found. this tree is enormous as eastern trees go. it is commonly over 200 ft!

i will leave the description go. you can read about the tree itself in the following link.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/tulip_tree/tulip_tree.html

the leaves are large and dense in the crown. a squirrrel in the middle of the tree may as well be under a mountain! he is pretty safe there.

i have found squirrels eating the fruit(seedpod) on the first day of august. they obviously start on them earlier than that. i have found them still eating the pods in november. if you look at the picture of the seedpod in the link, you will notice the pod is sort of christmas tree shaped. each individual blade on the larger end contains a small seed kernal that the squirrels eat. thats the only part they eat in august. they usually just eat around the large end and as they do the individual blades that the seed is attached to get cut loose and flutter to the ground. there is no noise much when they do hit the ground. the only noise is when the squirrrel is out on the end of a limb looking for seedpods and when he gets done with one and drops the core.

the tip that squirrels are up in a tulip tree is the endless amount of the little blades fluttering downward. i know of nothing else that uses the seedpods in the unripened state.

hunting squirrels in tulip trees can be a miserable experience. there can be a lot of them up there and you will be lucky to get ANY of them. the only time you actually see them is when they are out on the end of a limb gettin a fresh pod and they don't stay there but a few seconds. after the leaves come off, it's a bunch easier but at that time there is usually an abundance of other foods that the squirrels seem to prefer.

i reckon the problem with tulip trees is that you have to stand right under one to see up in it much. i don't care how old you are, you are going to endure a lot of pain in the neck to get ANY squirrels out of a tulip tree.



                                                                 luck!

[SQUACKS]

some things that squirrels eat are just not as illustrious as others! almost nobody talks about squirrels in honey locust trees. it seems that it would take a squirrel of great daring to make a jump into a honey locust tree!

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/honeylocust/honeylocust.html

the tree is covered top to bottom in the most wicked looking thorns i ever laid eyes on! they grow all up and down the trunk and are REALLY long and branched even! it's a good idea to wear hard bottom shoes in honey locust timber.

first off, let me say that i have never seen a gray squirrel up in a honey locust tree. they may go up there...i have not seen it. it's those REALLY BIG fox squirrels that i see in them. we are talking 3 pound plus fox squirrels and tough as a boot.

the honey locust aint a bad looking tree. they have a long, flat seed pod that hangs from its branches. these look like a really long green bean!

anyways, those old fox squirrels risk it all for the "beans" in this pod. i am not sure how long they might use this food source or how often but i found them eating them in the first part of august.

i must say that when i did find them in honey locust trees , the woods that contained them was usually not much of a squirrel woods in the first place.

hunting in this type of woods is where i found squirrels eating some of the more uncommon and unsavory types of foods. there was little variety and they ate what was available at the time.

luck!

[SQUACKS]

howdy all!

haws are another type of squirrel food that one does not hear of often. i have found squirrels in hawthorne trees in early august. the haw is another of those trees that is full of nasty looking stickers. big stickers too.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/hawthorne/hawthorne.html

i found the haws growing in the same place as the honey locust. it was a plumb stickery woods!

again, i have only seen fox squirrels up a haw tree, but the woods i found the haws in only had fox squirrels in it. most of the trees i have seen occurred in the understory and were not much more than shrubs.

the haws i have run into in the woods were both black and red.

luck!

[SQUACKS]

once again!

the osage orange(hedge apple or hedge tree as sarge called it) is another of the foods eaten by squirrels. i should say that , again. fox squirrels are the only squirrel i have ever seen eating them.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/osage_orange/osage_orange.html

there are a great many osage orange trees in illinois and especially through the central part of it.

this is the tree famous for the wood that is used to make bows.

i have found the fox squirrels eating the hedge apples in the first part of aug. it was comical to watch a fox squirrel wrestle one of those big ole apples into a fork in a tree and wedge it there so he could work on it in a more serious manner!

there is a catch with squirrels eating hedge apples. after a short time, the squirrel gets a strong smell and taste to them. you can smell it when you skin them. i never relished eating squirrel that had spent any time in the hedge apple trees.

luck

[SQUACKS]

the hackberry tree is another of the foods squirrels use that is little talked about. over the years i have found both kinds of squirrels in hackberry trees in the early part of aug.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/hackberry/hackberry.html

like the black cherry, there are other critters that can be up a hackberry tree in pursuit of its fruits. at least the berry makes a little noise when they are dropped from the tree and you may hear some stray ones hitting the ground.



luck

[SQUACKS]

i have found the hop hornbeam growing in the southern part of illinois. i also found both kind of squirrels eating the little nutlets inside the little capsules in the first part of august and onward.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/hophornbeam_eastern/hophornbeam_eastern.html

i am always amazed when squirrels show interest in something so small. of course, they make no noise at all in the process of eating them but only in searching the tree for them. maybe they taste like hagen das ice cream to them....who knows???

luck

[SQUACKS]

the last non-nut type tree of interest is the cucumbertree. i have stumbled across a few of these in my wanderings through the shawnee forest.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/cucumbertree/cucumbertree.html

it was always in the early parts of aug. when i found squirrels using them. as they were deep in the middle of the forest, all i ever saw using them was gray squirrels.

most of the foods we have learned about so far make little or no noise when the squirrel eats them.

toward the end of aug. there becomes an abundance of hard shelled nuts that ripen. those are what most squirrel hunters LONG for. those are the next topic of interest!

luck!

[JPSaxMan]

Squacks, since you seem to be an authorative source on squirrel hunting, I got a question. In my neck of the woods I have a fairly small squirrel population and only see them when I don't have then gun and aren't hunting them :-D .

However I think this is because of the recent cold weather we are having. It's supposed to get down to -2 degrees tonite then only be around 7 degrees tomorrow. Do the squirrels care about this? And one day when I was out it was warmer (in the upper 20's, maybe pushin 30) but we had rain that day with fresh snow and ice before it, so as the rain came, you had snow bombs falling off the boughs of the pines (I think I even have that lodgepole pine that you find out West :eek: ). Would that have kept them inside as well?  

[SQUACKS]

fishman 029:

 i hunt wisconsin for squirrels until the end of jan.  at this time of year, i usually have better luck finding them on windless afternoons when it is the warmest. at times the squirrels don't move until the last 30 min. of daylight.

 everybody has days like the one you just described. it's murphey's first law. lol! i just figure if it's really cold it is a good day to get skunked and not have to clean any!!!  lol! wet hands in really cold air is no fun atall!

                                                 luck!

[JPSaxMan]

Well, my time window is usually the last 30 minutes of light. No bushytails swingin in the breeze then :? . I guess they're just smarter than we give them credit for. :-D  

[SQUACKS]

howdy all!

the 3rd week of aug. in illinois, it is common to start seeing signs of squirrels sampling hickory nuts. some years, they may be hard at them by then.

some years, the whole crop of hickory nuts fail for some reason. it's enough to make hard nosed squirrel hunters boo-hoo in their cornflakes! to go a whole season without finding squirrels in the hickories is a big disappointment!

there are 5 kinds of hickories in illinois. all five kinds are found in the shawnee forest.

in my experience, squirrels will start on 4 of them some time in late aug. by mid- september, they are hard into all of them.

the shagbark(scaleybark) is the most recognizable of them all.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/hickory_shagbark/hickory_shagbark.html

the bark makes it easy to spot. the nuts can be quite large and this keeps the squacks busy in one spot for a spell which gives you time to slip up on em! there will be LOT OF NOISE associated with a squirrel cutting hickories. you will hear the "grit...grit(sarge's description) of the teeth on the hard shell. you will also hear the outer husks hitting the ground and the steady pitter patter of the smaller cuttings falling through the leaves. their nails on the loose bark and limbs swishing around as they search the tree are other noises you will hear.

the next three hickories you may or may not have seen or heard of!

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/hickory_bitternut/hickory_bitternut.html


http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/hickory_mockernut/hickory_mockernut.html

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/hickory_shellbark/hickory_shellbark.html

i know i have taken squirrels in the shellbark and mockernut hickories. they make the same noises eating them and really there is no reason to be able to tell one from the other than to be able to find more of the same tree elsewhere. they may prefer differant habitats.

the last hickory is important to me. in years where all of the preceding hickories fail, i have seen pignut hickory produce massive amounts of mast. they rarely fail completely. however, the squirrels don't seem to use them as early as the others. it seems that they wait until about mid-september to go at them in a big way.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/hickory_pignut/hickory_pignut.html

 they like high ridge tops too. there are ridges in shawnee that are just lined in pignut trees. it is also true that it seems that some of those trees are left untouched by squirrels. they will eat one up and let the others rot. could be a taste thing i suppose.

one great thing about finding squirrels eating hickories is that nothing else i know of eats them! not up a tree anyways. if you hear cuttings falling out you can be almost positive ...there be squacks up in there!

for you folks who have no squirrel season when the hickories are ready...i feel for you! you are missing it! a tree with 10 or eleven squirrels in it raining hickory cuttings will get the blood pressure up!

luck!

[SQUACKS]

a lot of years ago(when i was a young buck) i hunted a creek bottom close to home. on the banks of the little creek stood a lone specimen of horse chestnut(buckeye).

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/buckeye_ohio/buckeye_ohio.html

over the few years i hunted there i found fox squirrels eating those buckeyes. in all the hunting i have done since, i cannot tell you that i have ever seen a squirrel eating buckeyes since then.

if my memory serves me correctly, i found them using them around the same time as they were at the hickories. i only mention this for the record.

if any of you have found squirrels eating buckeye, i would like to hear about it.


  luck

[SQUACKS]

gobs and gobs of acorns!

i have read that in the shawnee forest , there are over 30 types of oak trees! i wish i could tell you that i can identify MOST of them. i can't.

the earliest i see squirrels in oak around me is in the first part of august. i find it amazing that the swamp oak in my yard is ready by then as it does not even have leaves on it until the end of may.

oaks vary greatly in size and location. i will only touch on a couple of them and leave the rest for you all to study up on. the only reason i mention these two kinds is because of the great differance between them.

the first is the shingle oak. it is the only oak i know of that does not have the familiar oak leaves. look at them closely. the acorns are really small as well. i have taken squirrels while they were eating them though.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/oak_shingle/oak_shingle.html

this is another nut that would not normally seem worthwhile for a squirrel to mess with. the ones i am familiar with rarely got to a half of an inch(.500) in dia.

the other is just the exact opposite. the burr oak can have some HUGE ACORNS! the variety i am thinking of , we use to call overcup acorns.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/oak_bur/oak_bur.html

those nuts can be around 2 inches in diameter! that's a lot of dinner for a little bushytail!

we are not going to talk about acorns a bunch. they are probably responsible for the biggest mast crops there are most years and assuredly must do a lot towards keeping a large populations of squirrels well fed. they also feed a lot of other critters as well.

you will find them growing in swampy ground(pin oak) and on top of the highest dry ridges. they have lots of holes and are regular den trees.

acorns are easy for young squirrels to eat as they have a softer shell. they make the usual noise looking for them in the trees. a hunter can usually hear the caps and cuttings hitting the forest floor. on some occasions, i am able to hear a little of the grit-grit of squirrel teeth on a nutshell, but, not often. it's the other sounds that normally give them away.

as there are other critters that eat acorns and knock them out, one never really knows ,from whole nuts falling ,what is up an acorn tree. you will find chipmunks, coons and all the birds in the woods up in there. that's why hickory nuts are special! there is no doubt what's up there!

as a general rule , you may find squirrels eating acorns anytime from late august onward. they pack a lot of them around after the nuts fall to the ground. a squirrel just can't stand for a bunch of nuts to be laying all over the top of the ground. it's his bound duty to bury them all! that's why in fall, after the leaves and nuts go down, that's where you will find him. rustling the deep leaves under those big old oak trees!

luck!

[SQUACKS]

howdy all!

one of my favorite trees to find squirrels in is the beech! around mid-september they become ready.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/beech/beech.html

the beech is as fine a specimen of squirrel wood as there is in my opinion. the smooth greenish gray bark is the key to quickly identifying it. the trunk of an old specimen is normally full of enough holes for an army of squirrels to live in. the tree can produce an enormous crop of beechnuts too.

a squirrels love of beech is something to see. each little burr contains 2 pyramid shaped seeds. the seeds are fairly soft and pithy. it is another food that is ideal for young squirrels as it is easy for them to get at.

i believe that every bird in the woods just sits around waiting for the beech to ripen. you will find them up there as well.

it can be tough to get squirrels in beech ,at times, with a rifle. the squirrels seldom sit long eating them. they are all over the tree, eating as they go. a beech can be huge. sometimes, you can only see the tree from right beneath it.

the beech usually grows around the bottom of deep draws and up the sides of it. the biggest specimens or usually close to the bottom of the creek. with a rifle, one can sometimes get above the treetop by climbing the sides of a ridge. it seems easier to spot the squirrels from above, if you can get there.

believe me when i say, there can at times be a heap of squacks up a beech tree. years ago while hunting with a shotgun, i sometimes would drop several from one tree. after all the racket died away, i would be amazed that the cuttings would still be raining out of there! i have also had the same experience hunting in the peak of the hickory season. at times the squirrels just would not quit! the beechnuts usually hang on the trees until mid october...if the squirrels don't eat them all!

turkeys ,deer and bear also feed on the beechnuts. some years it can cover the ground under it with nuts.

i have personally seen beech as far north as wisconsin and michigan.

luck!

[SQUACKS]

howdy all!

in some parts of western wisconsin, the make up of a woodlot can be predominately black walnut. this tree can be found all across illinois as well. squirrrels in illinois normally start on walnuts in mid to late september. this can change to drastically earlier in some years.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/walnut_black/walnut_black.html

this is another great nut tree for squirrels! you can hear the grit-grit noise of squirrels cutting walnuts a long ways off! there is a pile of racket associated with squirrels cutting the nuts. both fox and gray squirrels are quite fond of the walnut.

the walnut tree foliage is more open than a lot of the other trees. their leaves are some of the first to fall as well. the nuts will hang on longer than the leaves.
when the leaves are gone or mostly so, the squirrels get nervous sitting in the bare tree. when you hear one cutting and get the walnut tree singled out you think he is in, look first at the junction of the trunk and the limbs. he can usually be found down low with his butt against the trunk. they may feel safer there as they can dodge behind the trunk to avoid predation by hawks.

the squirrel may also be sitting in the brush down low to the ground. late in the fall you can sometimes find a spot in the brush with large piles of walnut cuttings in one spot. this is surely a spot where the squirrel feels safer. it takes a squirrel quite a while to eat a walnut and in the open , he is vulnerable.

if squirrels are hunted much in the walnut season they can become quite "cagey" when cutting them. they can cut so softly that you will have a hard time locating them. when they are doing this, they have usually seen you but have not become alarmed enough to "run for it".

i should also mention the butternut at this time. it looks similar to the walnut but is oblong shaped.

http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/butternut/butternut.html

i have run into a FEW butternut trees here and there. i never saw a bunch of them anywhere! squirrels like them. i mention them only so you will see the differance in the nuts, if you ever run up on them.

squirrel hunting in walnut timber is what the rimfire rifle shines at! the old squack, once he starts on a walnut, is not going to be moving around for a while. you can really take your time and "squeeze down" on em! i have made my "most memorable shots" after the leaves come down in the walnut timber. you can sometimes spot them a long ways off if you know what to look for!

luck!

[SQUACKS]

howdy all!

the pecan is found on the southern most end of illinois and becomes ready about the same time as beech and walnuts. in illinois, these are found in rich bottoms. the nut is much smaller than the ones grown commercially. this tree is not abundant but i have found them in small numbers in illinois.

they still taste the same! both kinds of squirrels like them and use them. they make the same kind of noises looking for the nuts and eating them.

with the ripening of pecans, walnuts and beech all of the nut bearing trees i know of have now ripened for the season. usually by late october, the majority have fallen to the ground.

when the nuts and leaves have fallen, squirrels spend a lot of their time on the ground packing and burying nuts of all kinds.

with the nuts on the ground, we will skip ahead to the spring period and talk of the trees that squirrels find food in at that time. once we cover the entire season, we will get into squirrel hunting proper!

luck

[Vern Humphrey]

Here in the Ozarks, the dominant tree is the red oak.  There are hickory and walnut trees as well, along with persimmon, and many soft mast trees (like redbud, dogwood, and so on.)

We've had several good squirrel seasons in a row.  My favorite squirrel rifle is my M82 Kimber, with a Burris 4X compact scope.

I hunt in about anything I happen to be wearing at the time, and carry a claymore bandolier (an over-the-shoulder bag.)  In this, I carry a tobacco pouch of .22 shells, a pair of side cutters (to clip off the feet), paper to wrap the carcasses (sandwich bags work fine), and either handiwipes or latex gloves.  I also like the Mister Squirrel squirrel call -- it really works.

I make squirrel knives, the Rackensack Squirrel Hunter, a small fixed blade with a choil designed to snap ankle bones -- unfortunately, it works so well, my friends and family keep running off with them as fast as I can make them.

[SQUACKS]

mr. humphrey:

 it's good to hear from you. i am always interested in knowing where squirrel hunters come from. if you don't mind, would you give the state and general direction you hale from?

 ozark squirrel hunters are generally known for their skill. i am glad that you chose to share your information with us.

 i have a friend from kansas that has made a squirrel skinning knife or 2 for me. they have  small thin blades made of carbon steel that resemble a paring knife. i use it exclusively. it is easily sharpened too.

  that trick i learned at last years shawnee squirrel hunt using those game shears for gutting and cutting sure is sweet.  computers sure have made it easy to access good information from real hunters.

                                                           luck!

[Vern Humphrey]

mr. humphrey:

 it's good to hear from you. i am always interested in knowing where squirrel hunters come from. if you don't mind, would you give the state and general direction you hale from?

 ozark squirrel hunters are generally known for their skill. i am glad that you chose to share your information with us.

 i have a friend from kansas that has made a squirrel skinning knife or 2 for me. they have  small thin blades made of carbon steel that resemble a paring knife. i use it exclusively. it is easily sharpened too.

  that trick i learned at last years shawnee squirrel hunt using those game shears for gutting and cutting sure is sweet.  computers sure have made it easy to access good information from real hunters.

                                                           luck!

I live about 10 miles south of Mountain View, Arkansas.  If you have a road map, I live between Highways 9 and 263.

The Rackensack Squirrel Hunter is a small fixed blade knife with a large choil (the notch between the edge of the blade and the ricasso).  Insert an ankle bone in that notch and  twist to break the bone.  If we could post pictures, I'd show one here.