head shots

[George]

When I learned squirrel hunting as a kid part of the mantra was that real hunters used rifles and shot squirrels in the head only. I assumed that had come from good old country boys showing off a bit, and that may have been true, but it may have been a lot earlier than I ever thought.

From William N. Blane’s _An Excursion through the United States and Canada, during the Years 1822-3_.

"Every boy, as soon as he can lift a rifle, is constantly practicing with it, and thus becomes an astonishingly expert marksman. Squirrel shooting is one of the favorite amusements of all the boys, and even of the men themselves. These animals are so numerous in the forests of the West, that it requires no labour or trouble to find them. Indeed they may be shot in the trees almost from the door of every man’s house. It is reckoned very unsportsmanlike, to bring home a squirrel or a turkey, that has been shot any where, except in the head. I have known a boy put aside and hide a squirrel that had been struck in the body; and I have often seen a Backwoodsman send a ball through the head of one which was peeping from between a forked bough at the top of one of the highest trees, and which I myself could hardly distinguish."

Season opens in 7 days.

Spence

 

[Robert Egler]

My daughter is a zoologist and like to acquire skulls for her collection, so she prefers I not shoot them in the head so she can inspect the skull and keep the different or atypical ones.

 

[nchawkeye]

My Dad instilled that in me as well, he would give me 8, .22 bullets as the limit was 8...He expected head shots from our open sighted .22...

I still only take head shots...

 

[Stumpkiller]

I understand some folks eat the brains, but a shoulder shot on a bunny or squirrel wastes a lot of the meat. I try for head with either. Or, as someone once said "I shoot 'em in the eye, but sometimes I miss and hit 'em in the head."

 

[buford87]

:haha: :haha: I like that stumpy..................watch yer top knot.............

 

[longrifle346]

Sounds like the way we were brought up too nchawkeye....there was an elderly couple down the road from us that would give me 2 fresh .22 shells for every headshot squirrel I could bring'em. If they were shot anywhere else they'd still take'em...but I only got one shell!

 

[nchawkeye]

Longrifle...Totally OT but I just noticed you were in Bridgeton...My father in law grew up there...Did you grow up there or move???

 

[tg]

I used to shoot them in the middle as well as I did not eat that part anyway, now a load of# 5s works well for me.

 

[Rhett Griffith]

My smallest rifle at present is a .50 cal., so I either have to make head shots on small game or skip the step of gutting them!

 

[Vaino]

Started squirrel hunting w/ a .50 cal PRB and head shots were mandatory.Built myself a .45cal. LR and continued w/ "headshots only" because the squirrels are very easy to clean and on the average render more meat. Headshot squirrels don't take "nice pictures" but sure do look nice in the freezer. Using shot is OK if the game is picked over for BBs, but I always have anxiety that I'll crunch down on a BB w/ a possible trip to the dentist. This anxiety also causes an appetite loss. But...to each his/her own....Fred

 

[BillinOregon]

TG: Do you get out often for silver grays up your way? We have a fair number here, too, but I haven't hunted them in years. I'd use a smoothie too, but only because my smallest rifle is a .58.

 

[tg]

I try to get out a couple of more times a year, back in the 60's 70's there were scads of them ariund as you could not yhrow a rovck without it landing in a Walnut/Filbert orchard and most woodlots were connected by a maze of fencerows, somewhere along theline the Fox Squirel showed up and many of the orchards were removed, particularly the walnuts, and the fencerows taken out to allow the more efficient farming of the ground, all of these things hit the Greys pretty hard and there are only pockets of high populations now from what I hear, I might only see one Grey for every ten Fox or hybrids, which I have only seen in the last 15 years they have the smaller tail with a redish hue of the Fox but the white belly of the Grey.I hope to get out next month but lost my best area due to an ownership shift so it may not be a gravy run as in the past with all the heavy numbers and close/low shots at the edge of a Filbert orchard, I never thought much about the pellets in the meat any more than with game birds, one just deals with it.

 

[david50]

My Dad instilled that in me as well, he would give me 8, .22 bullets as the limit was 8...He expected head shots from our open sighted .22...

I still only take head shots...

same here,my stepdad expected one shot for one kill,preferably in the noggin. to this day it bugs the hell out of me if i hit one too far back.