The squirrels started hitting the hickory’s hard a few days ago. Killed a limit the last two mornings. Took a friends boy this morning. He didn’t want to shoot yet. Just tag along and see what it was all about. He had a ball. He asked me several times if we could go again before school starts. I told him absolutely. Great kid. Quiet, polite, and incredibly patient. He is really into trapping and fishing, but his dad doesn’t hunt a lot.
I’m hoping the grandson doesn’t get jealous lol.

Good deal Clay…. Did you let him tote a shotgun? Lol

He ain’t disabled, a girl, or a homosexual……….so no lol

All kidding aside, I’m going to start him off with a.410 or .20 gauge. They need to have success to get them hooked in my opinion. He can always be a man and.22 them later lol

…. lol good one

… I still bust them flighty cat squirrels with a 20 around here …. Never outgrew that or other things lol

Well done, Clay. Every kid should start by hunting squirrels.

lol
They are dang sure flighty!
When they first start cutting hickory’s they lose a little of that. I can make them pay rent for a couple weeks when they are cutting hard.

All grey squirrels.....

Where are those orange squirrels? Lol

I'm a bit envious. We don't have the high quality squirrel hunting that you folks farther south do. I cut my teeth on fox squirrels, hunting hickory, walnut, and oak ridges in Iowa. I miss it. Thank you for the picture.

Nice mess there. That boy learned more this morning with you and he'll learn in a year at school. Now teach his mom how to make some squirrel gravy. Some of my best squirrel hunts were floating the Cuivre river around Old Monroe... I would float down the river in my Jon boat and shoot them out of the trees.. had a little female black lab that would retrieve them..

Swamp, the red's always get a pass. Seems like every one that I ever shoot is old enough to vote.

Ol dad

I killed 1 fox squirrel yesterday morning. Only one I’ve seen the last 2 mornings.
Slowly over time the greys are taking over.
There’ll always be fox squirrels, but the percentage in the bag around here has dropped a bunch over the years.

Fox squirrels don’t get a pass from me lol.
My wife can take one as big as a young coon with balls big as walnuts and it’ll be as tender as a half grown grey.
My mom taught her. Thanks mom lol.

I love hunting squirrels when they are cutting hickory nuts. You can hear them gnawing 100 yards away. They don’t seem nearly as wild when they are cutting them either.

Boone and Crockett should score them off that criteria.

… my partner I run mountain curs with says if squirrels had racks on their head you’d have to give your first born to hunt them lol

… and that’s another reason why we run 20’s clay …. Seen many a hand sportin a 22 come up empty once those vines were shaked above a treein cur or fiest!

… so you can kiss my East Texas … lol

Any warvils? I usually wait till the last week of August to go on squirrel safari because the warvils are almost completely gone by then in my favorite bug woods “down south”, which would be up north for you.

I’m with you on the .22. Gotta make an important decision in the next few weeks… 541T, 452 American, or 52… hard to pick a favorite when all the ladies in the harem are so well endowed.

It's funny, where I live now, never seen a red squirrel, but 20 minutes south, it's all you see.

Cool figured they be starting. Have not been out yet. Get the 541t out of case and see how I handle heat that’s coming. Have fun Clay and family missed the mulberry hunts due to issues beyond my control.

that is great love squirrel hunting, he will become a good hunter with your help,

I’ve never seen a warvil.
If you wait until late August around here, you miss the best hunting of the year.
Any good shooting bolt action.22 meets my criteria lol.

Yea I can see scattergunning when dog hunting.
I had a couple coonhounds back in the day that were pretty good at treeing squirrels. I never shot any out to them.

what is a warvil. ??I look it up and came up with nothing ,what do they do,

Great pic!

Bot fly larvae = warble = warvle = warvil = (and in my location) a wolf. A really nasty looking "worm" about an inch long that lives under the hosts skin.

Nice job Clay. Squirrel hunting is by far my favorite. I noticed they were just starting to cut the hickory’s in my yard when I mowed grass Sunday.

Oh...the ugly nastiness!!!

Used a shotgun just a few times and never a dog to hunt squirrels in East Texas.
Sounds like you need a girl to show you how to hunt them, lol.

Thanks, been wondering. They haven't cut the yard yet but there are plenty of them. Are they hit and miss in the woods or do we have good crop?? Havent been out too much work here lately.

Seem to be a pretty widespread good hickory crop this year. Creek bottoms and in the hills.
Early on they just cut the ones ripe enough. Find those trees and they are stacked up in them.
Killed another limit this morning.
Gonna jack around and get hot again.

Miss hunting squirrels in Missouri woods. I've come to love hunting the oak pockets I have in SW Oklahoma, but it's not quite the same.

OH MaN1 I love me some Ozark tree rats!

Clay the real question is how's the seed tick crop?? Only reason I hate hunting this time of year.. I spray seems like that doesn't do much from those tiny things

Immediately started itching .

Are you using DEET or Permethrin. I think ticks actually enjoy a dose of DEET. Permethrin repels and kills the ticks (and I hope they are in extreme pain while dying).

Permethrin

I guess the hickory nuts are getting close to ready everywhere. I was reading this thread earlier and walked outside to throw some scraps over the fence. The squirrels are cutting hickory nuts in the yard.

Illinois limit this morning

Awesomeness

Great Picture

I haven’t had a tick in a few weeks.
Seed ticks are not present in the North Missouri creek bottoms that I hunt 90 percent of the time.
My anecdotal experience is that there is a correlation between seed ticks and white oaks. I’ve never got into bad seed ticks when I wasn’t around white oak timber. No white oaks in these creek bottoms.
I’m a die hard permethrin user in spring and early summer, then ticks kinda disappear up here. My son and I have been running beagles on cool mornings. They aren’t getting ticks either.
What we do have is the most incredible crop of skeeters that I’ve seen in many years. We had a flood that covered all these creek bottoms a couple weeks ago. Low spots and oxbows are full and that sudden influx of water must have been timed right because you don’t dare set foot in the woods without deet and/or a thermacell. I’ve seen them this thick before, but it’s been awhile.

5 is a mighty low limit.
Missouri limit was 6 for many, many, years. We got it bumped to 10 several years back. We could have no limit and it wouldn’t effect the population at all in my opinion.

When I was a kid opening day would find me sitting under the shagbarks. They always came in first and right before opening day and getting cleaned up quick. That and we had very few of them. But for a few days you had the squirrel magnet. Next was the "black" hickory, pignut/red, but we had a ton of those so you were better off slow stalking through stands of them vs sitting.

Well consider yourself lucky... my area doesn't matter where your at it seems, fields, woods,bottoms you will find a mess and I hate those suckers with a passion.

Seed ticks are the second worst for me. Chiggers are my nemesis. They absolutely love me. I get into a batch or two a year. I have permanent scars on my legs from scratching them.

What gets me is nobody hunts squirrels anymore and your right no limit wouldn’t matter but it’s been 5 my whole life 61 years

At 73 6 was fine with me. 10 ok no limit as you say who cares. No one hunt squirrels. When I’m out never see a squirrel hunter and hunt public land most the time. Might see one or two opening day. In 70s my vet friend from west plans Mo saved parts from squirrels for biogist at Columbia research and the following. Occurred. For a few years the season did not open till August 1. I think. Don’t really remember all the details but it sure messed up our annual squirrel hunt in the National park by west plains. We still killed enough young ones to barbecue but swimming the Ozark streams were used to cool off in the heat. It was a cool hunt. 5 college kids from around the state and one from out of state we did it for years till other responsibilities broke it up

Reds in the woods here. Grays in the parks around town. I guess its not like that everywhere? OSU had grays on campus.

Heading out with my cousin in the morning then hit the creeks fishing a bit . I don’t know of one young person that squirrel hunts and the older ones can’t hack it anymore

Squirrel hunting is my sons thing. He loves it.. we had a dog but sold him because my work schedule was all over the place and I wasn't doing him any good sitting in the pen. Cameron was not happy about selling his Squirrel dog. Now I changed jobs alot more free time, looking at getting another dog. I know a guy that had a female and just got a young male. He plans on breeding, I told him let me know I would be interested. I helped the guy get a job, so maybe he can cut me a break lol... we always killed more sneaking through the woods and stalking, but I love to watch a dog work and tree.

Ours are horrible with bot flys now… but soon we will be after them with our smoke poles.

And, our season is one of the longest in the country!

alpha gal is no joke be careful. I had so many chiggers two months ago. It looked like I had the measles.

Completely the opposite here. You see fox squirrels in town or open piney woods. But those cat squirrels have pretty much taken over most places. We do get a few fox squirrels in the hardwood swamps but they don't like thick woods at all.

alpha gal is no joke be careful. I had so many chiggers two months ago. It looked like I had the measles.[/quote]

I’ll be married to an alpha gal 35 years next month lol
Chiggars suck.

LOL