I recently spoke with a neighbor about his pecan harvest this year; the trees look like they will bear pretty good and I want some pecans. I was told they will if the squirrels don’t eat them all. Well you all know how this goes.
I made my way to the property a little late around 8:30am and as I start heading towards a couple of pecan trees I happen to flush squirrels from a larger tree that I wasn’t aware of.
They saw me (I moved pretty silently) and started taking off into the woods through the trees.. No distress calls, just high-tailed acrobatics. There were at least four that I saw. First I tried to catch them after jumping to take a shot, but there were too many branches in the way. I noticed that once they hit the woods they sat still in the tree tops. When I realized what they were doing I slipped into the woods behind them via a sandy cattle trail. Once I got in there I took one step too many then *CRUNNNCH!!* I stepped on a big dry leaf just before taking a knee to better line-up my sights on one and they were off to the races! This time I was on them, trotting through the woods dodging saplings, vines, and fallen branches. This seems to be the only time of year I can get away with running after them. It sounds careless, but I have loosely developed a strategy here. So I’m tracking this guy and when he paused I shot, *PING* and a miss!! He paused, I rack another pellet, and he takes off again. But this time Captain Obvious makes a fatal mistake. He decides to start barking. Great for me because I was having a helluva time tracking him running and jumping from tree to tree. And if you’ve read my squirrel hunting threads before then you know that sentries catch lead. I stayed on him.
Finally he jumped the bough from one young oak to another. I let off another shot (offhand) when I caught him on a horizontal branch running and led with my reticle. *PING* annnnnd *SHMACK* I connected just after he’d jumped branches, but I hit him in the hind leg (upon cleaning the carcass that pellet shattered his knee and it was floppy, but I didn’t see a pass through hole. I don’t know where it is. It may be in the meat still). He was trying to climb into a crotch, but his inability to climb fast allowed me just enough time to brace against a tree trunk and send a follow up shot. I steadied myself and lined up my reticle for the ear and *
THAWCK!!!* I delivered the headshot. It was lights out from there. He did the hang-on-by-a-toe thing, let go after several seconds of swinging, and tumbled through the branches to the forest floor. I tied him up here to see if I could go back and get more from the pecan tree area then the livestock started to come in, but first in comes Princess and her parents.
Princess is last year’s colt and she had other ideas. I was kneeling in the dirt not far off the trail coming out of the woods southwest of the pecan tree. And she had other ideas about how this was going to go. As long as I remained still while kneeling she would look at me and eventually approach to sniff me. Then she started to tug at my shirt sleeve with her lips. I guess the Real Tree camo pattern I wore looked real enough to a horse to try to eat. When I didn’t react, I saw her lift her head and show her teeth. Next I saw some teeth coming towards my arm so moved my left hand off the forestock, over the breech, and wiggled my fingers on her nose. So Princess thought she might try these plump wiggling branches and tried to put them in her mouth. Now mom and dad saw this and thought Princess was being fed. Horse being horses, they didn’t want to miss out. By this time I went motionless again. And with her parent’s investigating things they soon realized there was no food and began picking grass around me. Princess kinda left me alone for a few minutes preoccupied with mom and dad’s picking.
After 4-7 minutes pass I finally saw a squirrel emerging from an adjacent cedar tree. I raised my rifle to track it with my scope and here comes Princess from behind. This time she’s sniffing my head and breathing down my neck! I tried to maintain my composure, but then she starts trying to bite my hat. I couldn’t contain my laughter. She just about took it off my head. I wasn’t trying to photograph this but I didn’t think many folks unfamiliar with livestock would believe this. Needless to say the squirrel saw the cows hesitating to come out of the woods on their trail because I was partially blocking it and I strongly suspect that the squirrel saw some of my movement and laughter. Being an intelligent rodent it ducked back into the vines between the cedar tree and an adjacent oak. I lost that one.
I did manage to grab the one but I was enjoying Princess’s curiosity and it kind of changed the mood and feel around the pecan trees. I’ve observed that squirrels take cues from livestock, deer, crows and other animals. They aren’t dumb and they knew I was still there. Also the young bull pictured I’ve known his entire life. He inches his way down the trail, but some of the heifers hesitated. Some of the older cattle remember me from past seasons, but this year I tied up Captain Obvious amd hung him right on a tree along side their trail and many sniffed and prodded his carcass with their noses. I hope that they have a better understanding of what I’m doing when they see me dressed and smelling like this (I smell like mosquito repellant).
I ended up just walking the property then hit the woods on an adjacent property to get a feel for how things look this part of the season. While walking in I came across a family of deer. They wheezed and ran. As I entered an old oak stand and braced between two trees to post and observe, the family of deer returned to the treeline. One of the young does (I think it was a doe. It looked anterless) probably didn’t know what I was and she stood there wheezing, turning back and forth, and stomping her front hooves on the ground for close to 10 minutes. She was an estimated 60-100 yards off. I was just observing her. I don’t think she realized I was a bonafide threat until I made more exaggerated movements. Lucky for them I’m not an archer and it isn’t deer season for me yet.
I made my way to the property a little late around 8:30am and as I start heading towards a couple of pecan trees I happen to flush squirrels from a larger tree that I wasn’t aware of.
They saw me (I moved pretty silently) and started taking off into the woods through the trees.. No distress calls, just high-tailed acrobatics. There were at least four that I saw. First I tried to catch them after jumping to take a shot, but there were too many branches in the way. I noticed that once they hit the woods they sat still in the tree tops. When I realized what they were doing I slipped into the woods behind them via a sandy cattle trail. Once I got in there I took one step too many then *CRUNNNCH!!* I stepped on a big dry leaf just before taking a knee to better line-up my sights on one and they were off to the races! This time I was on them, trotting through the woods dodging saplings, vines, and fallen branches. This seems to be the only time of year I can get away with running after them. It sounds careless, but I have loosely developed a strategy here. So I’m tracking this guy and when he paused I shot, *PING* and a miss!! He paused, I rack another pellet, and he takes off again. But this time Captain Obvious makes a fatal mistake. He decides to start barking. Great for me because I was having a helluva time tracking him running and jumping from tree to tree. And if you’ve read my squirrel hunting threads before then you know that sentries catch lead. I stayed on him.
Finally he jumped the bough from one young oak to another. I let off another shot (offhand) when I caught him on a horizontal branch running and led with my reticle. *PING* annnnnd *SHMACK* I connected just after he’d jumped branches, but I hit him in the hind leg (upon cleaning the carcass that pellet shattered his knee and it was floppy, but I didn’t see a pass through hole. I don’t know where it is. It may be in the meat still). He was trying to climb into a crotch, but his inability to climb fast allowed me just enough time to brace against a tree trunk and send a follow up shot. I steadied myself and lined up my reticle for the ear and *
THAWCK!!!* I delivered the headshot. It was lights out from there. He did the hang-on-by-a-toe thing, let go after several seconds of swinging, and tumbled through the branches to the forest floor. I tied him up here to see if I could go back and get more from the pecan tree area then the livestock started to come in, but first in comes Princess and her parents.Princess is last year’s colt and she had other ideas. I was kneeling in the dirt not far off the trail coming out of the woods southwest of the pecan tree. And she had other ideas about how this was going to go. As long as I remained still while kneeling she would look at me and eventually approach to sniff me. Then she started to tug at my shirt sleeve with her lips. I guess the Real Tree camo pattern I wore looked real enough to a horse to try to eat. When I didn’t react, I saw her lift her head and show her teeth. Next I saw some teeth coming towards my arm so moved my left hand off the forestock, over the breech, and wiggled my fingers on her nose. So Princess thought she might try these plump wiggling branches and tried to put them in her mouth. Now mom and dad saw this and thought Princess was being fed. Horse being horses, they didn’t want to miss out. By this time I went motionless again. And with her parent’s investigating things they soon realized there was no food and began picking grass around me. Princess kinda left me alone for a few minutes preoccupied with mom and dad’s picking.
After 4-7 minutes pass I finally saw a squirrel emerging from an adjacent cedar tree. I raised my rifle to track it with my scope and here comes Princess from behind. This time she’s sniffing my head and breathing down my neck! I tried to maintain my composure, but then she starts trying to bite my hat. I couldn’t contain my laughter. She just about took it off my head. I wasn’t trying to photograph this but I didn’t think many folks unfamiliar with livestock would believe this. Needless to say the squirrel saw the cows hesitating to come out of the woods on their trail because I was partially blocking it and I strongly suspect that the squirrel saw some of my movement and laughter. Being an intelligent rodent it ducked back into the vines between the cedar tree and an adjacent oak. I lost that one.
I did manage to grab the one but I was enjoying Princess’s curiosity and it kind of changed the mood and feel around the pecan trees. I’ve observed that squirrels take cues from livestock, deer, crows and other animals. They aren’t dumb and they knew I was still there. Also the young bull pictured I’ve known his entire life. He inches his way down the trail, but some of the heifers hesitated. Some of the older cattle remember me from past seasons, but this year I tied up Captain Obvious amd hung him right on a tree along side their trail and many sniffed and prodded his carcass with their noses. I hope that they have a better understanding of what I’m doing when they see me dressed and smelling like this (I smell like mosquito repellant).
I ended up just walking the property then hit the woods on an adjacent property to get a feel for how things look this part of the season. While walking in I came across a family of deer. They wheezed and ran. As I entered an old oak stand and braced between two trees to post and observe, the family of deer returned to the treeline. One of the young does (I think it was a doe. It looked anterless) probably didn’t know what I was and she stood there wheezing, turning back and forth, and stomping her front hooves on the ground for close to 10 minutes. She was an estimated 60-100 yards off. I was just observing her. I don’t think she realized I was a bonafide threat until I made more exaggerated movements. Lucky for them I’m not an archer and it isn’t deer season for me yet.
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