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Squirrel Doggin' 22-23

Jamie

Senior Member
5,690
177
Ohio
I cannot do anything else besides shake and scratch my head at squirrel behavior. In all fairness to the rats, there did not seem to be any game moving at all for the entire day. Tweety birds not even singing. Light wind, mild temps, cloud cover, and no precipitation always seem like pretty good conditions for hunting anything, anywhere, anytime to me. We tromped and drove the buggy all over squirrel infested grounds all day yesterday. The dogs tried their best, and they did find us some squirrels. I was very pleased with their showing yesterday. They both stuck with it pretty good. When things are slow and squirrels are not out, they get bored and don't hunt with much gusto, especially Lefty. They kept trying as good as I could want all day, and I mean ALL day.

So much for honoring Dr. King with headshots. I'm not mentioning any names, but only one shooter in the group was on his game yesterday. The rest kind of just wasted ammo, lol. I didn't take a single picture all day. Seems like there may be a video added to Mason's catalogue, so we can all keep our hopes up for that. It was raining and dark by the time we got to cleaning the last of the squirrels, so we didn't even get a hero pic. As best as I can recall, we had 3 get away on missed shots. We killed 7 total, and I think we only saw those 10. Dogs went to an absurd number of dens and nests, besides. I skinned four fox and three greys. I'm sure if the squirrels had been just a little more active, we would have killed four limits of squirrels, or at least missed that many:ROFLMAO:

Fun day as always, Brock & Co. Thanks for having me again. I'm very sure that circumstances will be better all-around for our next squirrel hunt.

I definitely have to give the dogs equal credit for their efforts yesterday.

Slick 50
Lefty 26
 

brock ratcliff

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
24,834
247
Thanks for coming down, Jamie.
By my calculations, Lefty should be way ahead in the tally at this point. The old boy always does a great job when he’s with us. Slick is ok too, but Lefty is the king in my eye. 😁.
You’ll recall me blowing the horn at Doc as we drove by. I was correct that he’d give me a lil cussin about scaring the h&@) outta him. I told him where we went for the afternoon hunt. He told me a story about being on that farm 30 years ago. Seems after dinner at the old stone house, he and three others took a jeep to the top of the hill where our hunt started. There may have been a few beers along on that ride. 😁. Doc has stories…
 

Jamie

Senior Member
5,690
177
Ohio
Thanks for coming down, Jamie.
By my calculations, Lefty should be way ahead in the tally at this point. The old boy always does a great job when he’s with us. Slick is ok too, but Lefty is the king in my eye. 😁.
You’ll recall me blowing the horn at Doc as we drove by. I was correct that he’d give me a lil cussin about scaring the h&@) outta him. I told him where we went for the afternoon hunt. He told me a story about being on that farm 30 years ago. Seems after dinner at the old stone house, he and three others took a jeep to the top of the hill where our hunt started. There may have been a few beers along on that ride. 😁. Doc has stories…
I'll bet he does. :D
 
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Left field

Active Member
I cannot do anything else besides shake and scratch my head at squirrel behavior. In all fairness to the rats, there did not seem to be any game moving at all for the entire day. Tweety birds not even singing. Light wind, mild temps, cloud cover, and no precipitation always seem like pretty good conditions for hunting anything, anywhere, anytime to me. We tromped and drove the buggy all over squirrel infested grounds all day yesterday. The dogs tried their best, and they did find us some squirrels. I was very pleased with their showing yesterday. They both stuck with it pretty good. When things are slow and squirrels are not out, they get bored and don't hunt with much gusto, especially Lefty. They kept trying as good as I could want all day, and I mean ALL day.

So much for honoring Dr. King with headshots. I'm not mentioning any names, but only one shooter in the group was on his game yesterday. The rest kind of just wasted ammo, lol. I didn't take a single picture all day. Seems like there may be a video added to Mason's catalogue, so we can all keep our hopes up for that. It was raining and dark by the time we got to cleaning the last of the squirrels, so we didn't even get a hero pic. As best as I can recall, we had 3 get away on missed shots. We killed 7 total, and I think we only saw those 10. Dogs went to an absurd number of dens and nests, besides. I skinned four fox and three greys. I'm sure if the squirrels had been just a little more active, we would have killed four limits of squirrels, or at least missed that many:ROFLMAO:

Fun day as always, Brock & Co. Thanks for having me again. I'm very sure that circumstances will be better all-around for our next squirrel hunt.

I definitely have to give the dogs equal credit for their efforts yesterday.

Slick 50
Lefty 26
The hell? Lefty was almost caught up, oh common core math :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
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Jamie

Senior Member
5,690
177
Ohio
Almost caught up? Not sure what thread you've been following, but Slick in the lead for the entire season for the last several seasons. Lefty cannot keep up with Slick 99% of the time. the fastest dog pretty much always finds the most squirrels. Time on Slicks side now, too as Lefty is getting pretty long in the tooth. That was not the case a few years ago, and Slick still beat him to the squirrels most of the time. Lefty is entitled to come along for the ride and a walk in the woods now. He earned it. Slick does the heavy lifting.
 

Jamie

Senior Member
5,690
177
Ohio
It is Records day in CPS today, and teachers can "work" remotely. Nancy no longer a classroom teacher, so nothing much to do besides shoot some squirrels. Another slow day in the squirrel woods. Lefty got on to a double pretty quick after turning them loose. I spotted one squirrel pretty easy when we approached and Nancy shot it in the head. After I juiced Lefty off of it he looked straight up in that tree again and barked at me. There was another squirrel up there that we had not seen, but Lefty knew it was up there, lol. Nancy spotted it and missed the first shot, hit it poorly on the second. Squirrel crawled all the way to the ground, jumped right over Lefty's open jaws and took off. Slick caught it before it could get on another tree, Lefty snatched it away from him and made damn sure it was dead, FOREVER! :ROFLMAO: We went to numerous leaf nests and holey den trees before Slick found another one. Nancy hit this one poorly, too and I had to finish it off from my side of the tree. Took a pretty good walk and never saw another squirrel. Saw three, killed three. Maybe go again on Friday.

IMG_3968.jpg


Slick 51
Lefty 28
 

brock ratcliff

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Lefty was 2/3 today. Lefty found 2 of the 3 rats today! That seems about normal from my observation. And the bias towards Slick is evident in the photo. You should have just left Lefty in Highland County.
😁😁😁
 
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Jamie

Senior Member
5,690
177
Ohio
Lefty was 2/3 today. Lefty found 2 of the 3 rats today! That seems about normal from my observation. And the bias towards Slick is evident in the photo. You should have just left Lefty in Highland County.
😁😁😁
Let’s be fair and honest; keep things in perspective. Lefty made one tree that produced. Slick made one tree that produced. Lefty lucked into a double. As far as handler is concerned, that is a tie game. I rarely keep track of who drags me to the most dens, but I am very sure that Slick commits to three times the trees as Lefty today. It isn’t a contest for me, but it may well be between them. Lefty getting old, so it isn’t a fair game any longer. If Lefty is hunting, I’m a happy handler.
 

Jamie

Senior Member
5,690
177
Ohio
We took a pretty long walk in a spot that I have not visited this season to only see two squirrels on the first stop. Lefty found the first one and I ended up shooting that one because this hard-ass rat would not budge when I tried to spook him back around to Nancy's side of the tree. Slick found the second one and Nancy shot him in the melon. Went off to the only other place I visit that I have not hunted this season. Slick should play the lottery. He got on a tree after a pretty long run after I turned them loose. He had lucked into a double. Nancy missed one and they both timbered out immediately to a nearby tree and both ran into different holes. Dogs stayed with them and watched them both disappear into the bark. They were looking at me pissed off and confounded. Was comical. I wish I had a picture of that. I had to work at getting them off of that tree, lol. Only took a couple of minutes before Slick was treed again, and he had himself another double. I brained the one I could see and Nancy brained the one she could see. Saw six, got four. Nice hunt today. Every squirrel we shot today was a male.

IMG_3980.jpg


Slick 56
Lefty 29
 

Jamie

Senior Member
5,690
177
Ohio
I gotta admit all these squirrels came from the Perry County squirrel bash. Instead of letting them go to waste we're going to can them and share with the people who put on the function. The whole thing is usually for a family in need. They have a gun raffle and I donated a dog track.
Wayment. Maybe I don’t have all the facts or am misunderstanding this. Seems to me that the people who organize this event should have made sure all those squirrels were not going to go to waste in the first place. I’m glad you got them, Rick but it is just poor etiquette to kill animals for a contest and then toss them over the bank for the yotes, and a really bad look for hunting in general. I will never understand the concept of “hunting” contests held to raise money, help less fortunate people or any reasons. Plenty of ways to accomplish those goals without wanton killing. Is an abuse of the resource, imo. I wonder what happened to all the squirrels they killed during this event in years past.
 

GoetsTalon

Senior Member
Supporting Member
4,293
128
Walbridge oh
Felt the same way when I read it yesterday. Show the whole deal. How to skin and cook. Seen a event up in Michigan that they ended up having a squirrel game dinner with all kinds of different squirrel recipes. Not the same day but one of the following weekends.
 

xbowguy

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
29,632
234
Licking Co. Ohio
Wayment. Maybe I don’t have all the facts or am misunderstanding this. Seems to me that the people who organize this event should have made sure all those squirrels were not going to go to waste in the first place. I’m glad you got them, Rick but it is just poor etiquette to kill animals for a contest and then toss them over the bank for the yotes, and a really bad look for hunting in general. I will never understand the concept of “hunting” contests held to raise money, help less fortunate people or any reasons. Plenty of ways to accomplish those goals without wanton killing. Is an abuse of the resource, imo. I wonder what happened to all the squirrels they killed during this event in years past.
Years past (3rd year running) there was a guy who froze and canned all the extra squirrels. He is in assisted living now and cannot take them. I gladly took his spot for free squirrels. We have already talked about canned squirrels and noodles for the feast next year. The whole idea (Private event) is for a family in need every year.
Teams were told "If you don't feel like cleaning squirrels, Rick will take them for the canner".
 
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