The more i read this. The more it makes me want a squirrel dog. My wife would have my a$$ though.
Squirrel Doggin' 2016
- Thread starter Jamie
- Start date
I got news for you, if you've been married longer then ten years, she already owns it lmao...
What's another dog..... Or two lmao....
Gordo
Senior Member
Ha.
I was going to say if you've been married for longer then ten years, you've surely had to do worse then bringing a squirrel dog home, and your still married right?
Better get two!
I was going to say if you've been married for longer then ten years, you've surely had to do worse then bringing a squirrel dog home, and your still married right?
Better get two!
Gordo
Senior Member
Original Mountain Cur.
I took both dogs out today, and saw zero rats. Slick did make a tree on his own today, which made me very happy, and Lefty even joined him (which was good because it helped me to believe there was something up that leaf nest), but it was just one of at least a dozen dens or leaf nests. squirrels not moving at all today. no fresh tracks anywhere, but plenty of old ones. try again on Monday. I sure like the way Slick is hunting. he's getting a little more ambitious and confident every time out, and he's not too interested in what Lefty is doing most of the time. they do run together a little, and that is ok, but they go their separate ways for the most part. they join each other on trees if they aren't hot on something themselves, and that is ok, too. Slicks' gonna have a much bigger motor than Lefty. hope I can keep up next year!
I took both dogs out today, and saw zero rats. Slick did make a tree on his own today, which made me very happy, and Lefty even joined him (which was good because it helped me to believe there was something up that leaf nest), but it was just one of at least a dozen dens or leaf nests. squirrels not moving at all today. no fresh tracks anywhere, but plenty of old ones. try again on Monday. I sure like the way Slick is hunting. he's getting a little more ambitious and confident every time out, and he's not too interested in what Lefty is doing most of the time. they do run together a little, and that is ok, but they go their separate ways for the most part. they join each other on trees if they aren't hot on something themselves, and that is ok, too. Slicks' gonna have a much bigger motor than Lefty. hope I can keep up next year!
Nancy out of school now for winter break, so now I have a shooter. despite her natural ability shooting a .22 rifle, she is still a "woman", lol. hasn't touched her rifle since June, so I make her shoot some before we head out. good thing I did. scope required some tweaking, but I have no idea why it would. so I have to spend an hour on that. finally get her gun ready, dogs loaded, etc. I'm walking out the door, and oh, wait, I don't have my hunting license yet. well, WTF Nancy??? delays, delays, nothing but delays. I'm out of patience and haven't even gotten into the truck...
we went north yesterday, and that was a bad call on my part. our snow and ice is 99% gone here, but just 20 miles north, we found very crusty snow/ice. squirrels not down yesterday, and this can be quite hard on the dogs feet. decided to roll with it. Lefty did manage to find three squirrels and Nancy made three nice head shots, but there wasn't much action yesterday. as we ended our big loop around this particular woods, Slick is barking a little and Lefty decided he wasn't quite done hunting and beats feet outta there, in the exact opposite direction of the truck. at 300 yards he starts barking, settles on a tree at about 350. clearly, he thinks he has something, so I send Nancy to go shoot it, I stay with Slick as he is still trying to figure something out, which he never did. after a solid 15 minutes, Lefty is still barking on the tree, and I haven't heard a shot, so I steer Slick in that direction so we can go help out. we close the gap to about 200 yards and Slick decides he needs to hurry and takes off on sprint toward Lefty barking. a few seconds later I hear a shot, then another, then Nancy screaming at Lefty to drop the squirrel. I'm still 100 yards away, but it is a never ending problem to keep Lefty from tearing a perfectly dead squirrel to pieces after it hits the ground. only way I can do it is beat him to it or electrocute him off of it until I get there, which when I'm hunting alone with him, I'm always within 30 yards or so of the tree when I shoot, but he is only a few feet away from falling squirrel when it hits the ground. If I didn't eat them, this would not be a problem, but he can turn a squirrel to mush in the time it takes me to sprint 30 yards with a loaded firearm. anyway, as soon as I hear Nancy shouting, I lit him up and hollered at him to "drop" so Nancy can get to the squirrel even though I still cannot see them. Nancy found herself in the predicament of squirrel playing hide-and-seek with her in the tree and could not get a shot for that entire time until Slick stormed in and caused squirrel to move just enough that she got a clear shot. now she knows what I do all day everyday when I'm hunting alone. to her credit, she was patient and stuck with it until help arrived. shooting a treed squirrel is harder than you would think. just finding them in great big trees is hard enough by yourself, but getting good shots does require patience and some maneuvering most of the time. Squirrel hunting with two or three people makes this much easier. try again today. heading south to avoid crusty snow cover.
we went north yesterday, and that was a bad call on my part. our snow and ice is 99% gone here, but just 20 miles north, we found very crusty snow/ice. squirrels not down yesterday, and this can be quite hard on the dogs feet. decided to roll with it. Lefty did manage to find three squirrels and Nancy made three nice head shots, but there wasn't much action yesterday. as we ended our big loop around this particular woods, Slick is barking a little and Lefty decided he wasn't quite done hunting and beats feet outta there, in the exact opposite direction of the truck. at 300 yards he starts barking, settles on a tree at about 350. clearly, he thinks he has something, so I send Nancy to go shoot it, I stay with Slick as he is still trying to figure something out, which he never did. after a solid 15 minutes, Lefty is still barking on the tree, and I haven't heard a shot, so I steer Slick in that direction so we can go help out. we close the gap to about 200 yards and Slick decides he needs to hurry and takes off on sprint toward Lefty barking. a few seconds later I hear a shot, then another, then Nancy screaming at Lefty to drop the squirrel. I'm still 100 yards away, but it is a never ending problem to keep Lefty from tearing a perfectly dead squirrel to pieces after it hits the ground. only way I can do it is beat him to it or electrocute him off of it until I get there, which when I'm hunting alone with him, I'm always within 30 yards or so of the tree when I shoot, but he is only a few feet away from falling squirrel when it hits the ground. If I didn't eat them, this would not be a problem, but he can turn a squirrel to mush in the time it takes me to sprint 30 yards with a loaded firearm. anyway, as soon as I hear Nancy shouting, I lit him up and hollered at him to "drop" so Nancy can get to the squirrel even though I still cannot see them. Nancy found herself in the predicament of squirrel playing hide-and-seek with her in the tree and could not get a shot for that entire time until Slick stormed in and caused squirrel to move just enough that she got a clear shot. now she knows what I do all day everyday when I'm hunting alone. to her credit, she was patient and stuck with it until help arrived. shooting a treed squirrel is harder than you would think. just finding them in great big trees is hard enough by yourself, but getting good shots does require patience and some maneuvering most of the time. Squirrel hunting with two or three people makes this much easier. try again today. heading south to avoid crusty snow cover.
we had another pretty slow day yesterday. squirrels just not out much, although conditions on the ground were much better. we walked a good 3-4 miles yesterday and only saw 5 squirrels all day. one ran to a hole before we could shoot, Nancy missed the last one somehow and it ran to a hole. the other three came home with us. Lefty did his usual phenomenal job of finding the handful of active squirrels. he probably ran 10 miles yesterday, which is really covering some ground for a squirrel hunt. only made a handful of den trees, too. Lefty gets the day off today. I need to work with Slick and get him on to some active squirrels. he has not had very many good opportunities so far as I've been out with Lefty on the best days, and the really good days have been few in number this season. I don't know why we haven't taken any pics the last couple of time out. oh well, we've all seen dead rats on the tailgate enough already.
we don't have anything left of our snow and ice in northwest Licking county, nor is there any to the south of here, but 20 miles north of here we got into some crusty shit that I thought was going to be a problem for the dogs feet on Wednesday. it may all be gone now as it has gotten above freezing for the last three days. heading back up there this afternoon with Slick momentarily, so I'm gonna find out. it wasn't a problem for the dogs anyway, and I'm sure there will be even less of it now.
still a little frozen mess on the ground, but not much.
our first two stops netted some barking on tracks and one solid den tree, which Slick hit hard. I'm sure there was a squirrel in there someplace. My plan today was to put the dog in smaller woods and move around to different places; several short hunts because for some reason it seems like unloading from the truck and starting over fresh in a new place makes the dogs refocus or something. Slick has been painfully close to really putting it all together many times, but today he finally nailed one for real. his very first solid, verifiable tree. young dogs tend to not wander too far from us in the beginning, but will get out further and further over the course of time. Slick got out a little bit over 100 yards away from me a few times today, and on one of those jaunts he tracked one down and treed it solid, stayed on it until I got there. my heart leapt when I spotted the squirrel. I really wanted to shoot this one out to him. young dogs tend to wander off of trees until they learn they are supposed to stay until you move them on. Slick tried to wander off, so I tied him with the short 24" braided nylon lead I had with me. I'm trying to get into position for a shot, but this squirrel was hidden really well on a limb that was nearly parallel to the ground. all I can see is feet and tail after several minutes of being patient, I try to move into a better position, hoping squirrel did not move away from me as I moved, but we played hide and seek for a couple of minutes when I see Slick running off. I herd him back on the tree and get him fired up barking again when I see that he chewed the lead I had him tied with in two! he won't stay on the tree without me standing right next to him. every time I try to move away to find a place to shoot he tries to come with me. so I take the 12" of lead I have left and tie him again. it's very important that he learns now that he cannot leave the tree once committed. I continue my game of peek-a-boo with a very stubborn squirrel, even shooting several times near the squirrel to try and get it to move. never would budge. in the meantime Slick chewed the lead in half again and was trying to wander off! now I'm starting to get a little aggravated :smile: so I order him back on the tree about 10 more times while this circus continues, and he would go every time, but would not stay. I managed another hasty shot to move the squirrel, and it finally worked, however squirrel timbered out, ran down another tree to the ground, 30 yards to another tree and disappeared. Slick stayed on him the whole way, which is very good for him. that was quite a bit of action for both of us, and quite enough for me. I had to call it a day after all of that as I thought my head was going to explode. the fact that I was not able to shoot this squirrel out to him is more of a disappointment to me than anything else. He made a tree while hunting 100% on his own at 7 months old. Lefty was 8 months before he managed that. this was a major step forward in Slicks development, but we still have much work to do, and some shopping to do for a new lead...
our first two stops netted some barking on tracks and one solid den tree, which Slick hit hard. I'm sure there was a squirrel in there someplace. My plan today was to put the dog in smaller woods and move around to different places; several short hunts because for some reason it seems like unloading from the truck and starting over fresh in a new place makes the dogs refocus or something. Slick has been painfully close to really putting it all together many times, but today he finally nailed one for real. his very first solid, verifiable tree. young dogs tend to not wander too far from us in the beginning, but will get out further and further over the course of time. Slick got out a little bit over 100 yards away from me a few times today, and on one of those jaunts he tracked one down and treed it solid, stayed on it until I got there. my heart leapt when I spotted the squirrel. I really wanted to shoot this one out to him. young dogs tend to wander off of trees until they learn they are supposed to stay until you move them on. Slick tried to wander off, so I tied him with the short 24" braided nylon lead I had with me. I'm trying to get into position for a shot, but this squirrel was hidden really well on a limb that was nearly parallel to the ground. all I can see is feet and tail after several minutes of being patient, I try to move into a better position, hoping squirrel did not move away from me as I moved, but we played hide and seek for a couple of minutes when I see Slick running off. I herd him back on the tree and get him fired up barking again when I see that he chewed the lead I had him tied with in two! he won't stay on the tree without me standing right next to him. every time I try to move away to find a place to shoot he tries to come with me. so I take the 12" of lead I have left and tie him again. it's very important that he learns now that he cannot leave the tree once committed. I continue my game of peek-a-boo with a very stubborn squirrel, even shooting several times near the squirrel to try and get it to move. never would budge. in the meantime Slick chewed the lead in half again and was trying to wander off! now I'm starting to get a little aggravated :smile: so I order him back on the tree about 10 more times while this circus continues, and he would go every time, but would not stay. I managed another hasty shot to move the squirrel, and it finally worked, however squirrel timbered out, ran down another tree to the ground, 30 yards to another tree and disappeared. Slick stayed on him the whole way, which is very good for him. that was quite a bit of action for both of us, and quite enough for me. I had to call it a day after all of that as I thought my head was going to explode. the fact that I was not able to shoot this squirrel out to him is more of a disappointment to me than anything else. He made a tree while hunting 100% on his own at 7 months old. Lefty was 8 months before he managed that. this was a major step forward in Slicks development, but we still have much work to do, and some shopping to do for a new lead...
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I have a very heavy duty 60" tree lead with chain, which works really well. little bastard won't chew through that. if he does, it's sturdy enough that I can beat him to death with what is left of it.:smiley_asswhip: that nylon lead was pretty old. I probably could have chewed through it. I use them because they weigh almost nothing and you can wad them up and put them in your pocket. I have enough shit hanging off of my person already when I'm running a dog. I don't like wearing the lead, too.
Gotcha, I'm lucky enough to have been able to get around for the last 15 or so years of not having to carry a lead of any sort.... The guys I've gotten dogs off can't believe I don't carry one, I tell them the 1 mile length of lead is around their neck the whole time they're out with me.... Rarely have issues and when I do it doesn't last long...
sometimes we have a long walk to the woods, and I always keep them on a lead until we get near the woods, but they would both stay with me off of the lead if I made them. never have to use one otherwise, except for training on the tree. shock therapy works. :smiley_bril:
Yeah, I'd have a hard time pinning a dog to a specific spot like you'd have too... They stay close until I release them... they usually know the routine and a tone will get their attention 99% of the time...
good idea. unfortunately, I need all of the shit I'm carrying. trainer, GPS receiver, binos, gun, ammo. can't trust them to carry the dead rats. would interfere with their work too much.
went to southern Ohio today saw three, killed two on the first leg of the property. did not see another squirrel the rest of the day, and Lefty only barked two more times the rest of the day. pretty lousy day of squirrel hunting to only see three on that whole place, and we covered some ground. up and down all day. Lefty ran us to death. just aren't many squirrels or deer or any game on that farm any longer. cannot figure out why, definitively. plenty of habitat, poor mast crops there for several years in a row, and there wasn't even any soft mast there this year. give it another try on a bluebird day and see if we do better.