Off to a poor start today. After a long walk to the woods we hunted the dogs ran off and treed fast. I got over to them as fast as I could and found them on two different trees about 30 yards apart. I gave both trees a quick look with binos, and spotted the one in Slicks tree. I looked over Lefty's tree a little better, but still did not see anything, so I went about taking a rest and as soon as pointed the gun up, both dogs ran off of their trees toward me. While I'm yelling them back on the trees I see two squirrels, on in each tree take off. Lefty's disappeared, Slicks timbered about 100 yards before finding a hole. Well, WTF dogs? That ain't how we's supposed to do it. no excuse for that shit from either one of them now. Oh, well. I sent them off, and Slick got on another one pretty fast. Lefty joined him, and I found the squirrel after walking about halfway around the tree looking. One in the noggin, and off they went. We hunted in this big woods for about another hour and only went to leaf nests and dens. Saw three killed one. My hip has been feeling pretty decent for the last few days, and was holding up, so I decided to clean this one, and hit a smaller woods where I wouldn't have to walk a half mile to get started. Again, Slick had one in about 30 seconds after leaving the truck, Lefty with him. Dogs did their damn jobs this time, I found the squirrel without my binos, so I got on a rest and fired. I could see some small twigs in the scope and hit them twice, bullets whirring across the woods. I moved a few feet to another rest and put one in it's head. Slick didn't go 50 yards before he started in with his "I'm on one, give me second to sort this out" barking. I look up in the first tree he barked on and there was a squirrel. I let him go on, and he got on another tree 40 yards away. I'm thinking he was confused about the direction and had backtracked to the wrong tree. Lefty came back in to join him after running off in the other direction. Both of them were pretty hot on the tree, so it occurred to me that there might be another squirrel. Sure enough, there was, and after a brief game of hide-and-seek, I finally had a shot, which I made. Dogs took off and treed again a good ways away. Neither of them sounded too sure, so I waited a couple of minutes thinking they would lose interest and move on. They kept on barking half-heartedly. I didn't want to do it, but I went to them anyway. I found what I was expecting; a small, empty tree. Didn't get any better after that. Slick made another tree on a giant Red Oak, and when I got there it had a big leaf nest in it, but I did see a squirrel in another big Red Oak about 20 yards away. I kept looking in the tree he was on, hoping he would get on the other tree. Neither of them did, so I figure there must have been two squirrels again. That one got to live, too. I saw a total of seven squirrels, killed the three I fired upon. The dogs only found five, the first two getting away because dogs were being shitheads. Lefty didn't do much today, only finding one of his own. Slick did what Slick does. Shooter did good today. Very mediocre day of squirrel hunting. Probably go tomorrow again if I can walk.
Slick 6
Lefty 3
Slick 6
Lefty 3