The squirrel rut is in definitely in full swing in Highland and Fayette counties right now. Brock, Steve and I saw plenty of rats yesterday. Slick showed us 22 and we saw a total of 24. We saw one Grey that tried to run down Brock that Slick never did see and a Fox that evaded Slick before beating feet across a large cut bean field into another woods after Slick ran by him. That is a bunch of rats for the time we actually spent hunting. I cannot recall any squirrel hunt in Ohio where we encountered so many multi-squirrel trees. I think we only went to one or two trees that only had one squirrel in it yesterday. Steve got initiated into the world of squirrel dog hunting in pretty grandiose fashion on the very first tree which ended up producing not two, not three, not four, but six squirrels! The fracas that ensues when the shooting starts and the rats scatter is hard to imagine unless you've seen it personally. We ended up getting 3 of them and three got away. Most of the trees with squirrels had two or three yesterday. Slick taking a page from lucky Lefty's playbook to pad his numbers.
12 rats met the skinning boy.
Slick did what Slick does. He hunted hard, scoured the woods, stayed with the timbering squirrels really well, and cleaned up our less than perfect shooting by dispatching every rat that was not dead when it hit the ground. Did me proud again.
By every metric this was another phenomenal day in the squirrel woods for me with good men, a good dog, cooperative squirrels, and with a nice bonus of two clusters of fresh Oyster mushrooms. Thanks for another great hunt, fellas.
First 8
Slick likes to make sure they are cleaned up before going to the game bag.
The day's take.
Slick lucky 67
