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Squirrel Doggin' 23-24

OO2 said:
Any good squirrel recipes? Never had it before
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lots of them. There is hardly anything better than canned squirrel gravy, but there is also one dish squirrel casserole, buffalo woodland "wings", squirrel tacos, braised squirrel, squirrel croquettes. and of course, pan fried squirrel.

I have really come to enjoy deer heart. In that spirit, I'm not feeding squirrel hearts to the dogs this year, just lungs and livers. I'm saving up the squirrel hearts for the end of the season. I hear they are pretty good. I'm going to find out for myself in a month or so. Hillbilly delicacy. :D
 
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J said:
@finelyshedded
@Hedgelj
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Jamie’s got a lot more of a menu than me and I’d love to try all of them for sure. I loved mine pan fried in butter in a cast iron skillet for over 45+ years I’ve never thought to try it any other way. Lol
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it kinda thing I guess! Deep fried/pan fried and tossed in Hooters hot sauce sounds pretty dang good but I’m afraid I’d miss my gravy and sweet taters. 😆👍🏻
 
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J said:
@finelyshedded
@Hedgelj
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Hmmm
Squirrel pot pie is a favorite but the meat can fall apart and get "stringy" in the dish which can be off-putting to my kids.

My kids favorite is Squirrel nuggets. Parboil until they are almost ready to come off the bone. De-bone and then toss in seasoned bread crumbs or flour, then quickly pan fry to golden brown.
 
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Had ourselves a nice short hunt this morning. Slick showed us 6, but the last one got away on a missed shot, and we did see one other that Slick was not aware of. Saw 7, killed 5. Road trip tomorrow to see Brock and Co.

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Slick 45
 
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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. :LOL: 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

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Slick likes to make sure they are cleaned up before going to the game bag.

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The day's take.

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Slick lucky 67
 
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That sounded like an amazing hunt! Hearing a rutting male grunt and acting sex crazed is quite the scene. Almost like they’re in a daze. I’ve seen as many as 11 squirrels give chase before. I’ve finally gotten the numbers down around the house but I need to take out another limit worth before seasons end.

What is your total kill record for the year Jamie? Hoping you break it this year.👍🏻
 
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finelyshedded said:
That sounded like an amazing hunt! Hearing a rutting male grunt and acting sex crazed is quite the scene. Almost like they’re in a daze. I’ve seen as many as 11 squirrels give chase before. I’ve finally gotten the numbers down around the house but I need to take out another limit worth before seasons end.

What is your total kill record for the year Jamie? Hoping you break it this year.👍🏻
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I'm not exactly sure, but probably around 40 or so. I only keep track of how many squirrels the dog legitimately trees, and we don't ever kill all of those. I'll count the tails when the season is over to find out how many we actually killed.

I cannot eat or give away enough squirrels to warrant killing more than 75-100 in a season anymore, so I start saving ammo when I get in that range unless I can give them away.
 
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