Since I haven’t been seeing any good deer lately, I decided to use reverse psychology on them and go squirrel hunting instead...figured the best way to see a good buck is not to be hunting them...carried a .54cal smoothbore Flintlock with a few loads of #5’s in my pocket and sat in a small strip of oaks this afternoon.
Woods were deathly quiet, the kind of quiet where you can actually hear a leaf float down and hit the other leaves. I’m half dozing off and all of a sudden about 3:15 a squirrel jumps off the side of a tree 10-15 yards away sounding like a load of bricks had hit the leaves and I must have jumped a half foot coming out of that nap. He proceeds to burrow along under 6” of leaf litter looking for an acorn, popping up every now and then and there’s a big poplar tree in the direction he’s headed, about 25 yards away. I got myself ready and when he came up for air again I made a loud (poor) impression of a hawk but he leaped out of the leaves and flattened against that big poplar tree anyway...dropped like a stone from the load of #5’s.
Fetched the squirrel, got the smoothbore all cleaned up and reloaded, sat back down and shortly after 4:00 I hear that unmistakable load of bricks hitting the leaves again. This is the big boar in the photo, took him a good 15-20 minutes of burrowing around to get within gun range and when he came along side a stump about 25yds away, he made the mistake of hopping up on it”¦the load of #5’s took him right off the stump. By the time I picked him up and completely cleaned the Flintlock it’s approaching 4:45 so I didn’t bother to reload.
The little strip of oaks and hardwoods is between the edge of a field and the “bottom” that’s about 10 feet down below me...leaves are off the trees and I can see my deer blind about 50 yards away that overlooks a ditch/trail crossing in front of it so I decided to just sit until black dark to see if there was ANY deer traffic coming across that bottom. Well, the huge buck I saw on opening day with the top half of his tines all glowing white came through right in front of that blind not 45 minutes after I’d shot that last squirrel...so the terrific news is he’s still alive and still in the area...I know where I’ll be next Saturday !!!
Anyhow, popping these squirrels was a nice change of pace.
Woods were deathly quiet, the kind of quiet where you can actually hear a leaf float down and hit the other leaves. I’m half dozing off and all of a sudden about 3:15 a squirrel jumps off the side of a tree 10-15 yards away sounding like a load of bricks had hit the leaves and I must have jumped a half foot coming out of that nap. He proceeds to burrow along under 6” of leaf litter looking for an acorn, popping up every now and then and there’s a big poplar tree in the direction he’s headed, about 25 yards away. I got myself ready and when he came up for air again I made a loud (poor) impression of a hawk but he leaped out of the leaves and flattened against that big poplar tree anyway...dropped like a stone from the load of #5’s.
Fetched the squirrel, got the smoothbore all cleaned up and reloaded, sat back down and shortly after 4:00 I hear that unmistakable load of bricks hitting the leaves again. This is the big boar in the photo, took him a good 15-20 minutes of burrowing around to get within gun range and when he came along side a stump about 25yds away, he made the mistake of hopping up on it”¦the load of #5’s took him right off the stump. By the time I picked him up and completely cleaned the Flintlock it’s approaching 4:45 so I didn’t bother to reload.
The little strip of oaks and hardwoods is between the edge of a field and the “bottom” that’s about 10 feet down below me...leaves are off the trees and I can see my deer blind about 50 yards away that overlooks a ditch/trail crossing in front of it so I decided to just sit until black dark to see if there was ANY deer traffic coming across that bottom. Well, the huge buck I saw on opening day with the top half of his tines all glowing white came through right in front of that blind not 45 minutes after I’d shot that last squirrel...so the terrific news is he’s still alive and still in the area...I know where I’ll be next Saturday !!!
Anyhow, popping these squirrels was a nice change of pace.
