Squirrels not doing much today but we had some fun, anyway. Less than a minute after I let them go, both dogs cut loose together only about 100 yards from me. As I approached them, I saw the squirrel was already pretty antsy. I hurried to get a shot, but I was not fast enough. The squirrel timbered to another tree and went straight to a leaf nest. Unfortunately for the squirrel, there were long vines going clear up to the nest. I figured it would be slow today, so decided to create some action for the dogs. They were already on the second tree with the nest when I jiggled the vines a little. They know what happens next, and they were both ready. Squirrel came out, timbered out two or three trees and into another nest, dogs hot on it's heels. More vines, so I gave them a shake, out came the squirrel, which ran all the way to the top of the tree and was dancing around. I loaded the gun and took a rest thinking I would get at least a marginal shot at a dancing rat. Squirrel proceeded to run all the way down the tree to the ground and made a run for it. Slick was watching and ready to pounce. The chase was on, and Slick closed that 20 foot gap between them in two seconds while poor old Lefty got left in the dust, literally. I thought for a moment that Slick had the squirrel, but the rat got up another tree and into another leaf nest. I thought Lefty's head was going to explode,
. He was standing there looking at me like "WTF!!!, they aren't supposed to do that!!!" Slick wasn't too disappointed with his effort, and neither was I. There were vines on that tree, too, but I figured we had terrorized that squirrel enough already and the dogs were hyped up enough. That was a good team effort by the dogs and one of those times when I wished I had a GoPro strapped to my forehead.
On we went, Slick treed about 300 yards out and by the time I got there, he was not interested in staying on the tree, and I did not see a squirrel or hole or a nest. We had light dusting of snow come down right before we started hunting and there were plenty of squirrel tracks around. After a couple more dens Lefty found a live one in a huge Cottonwood. I had to move around a lot to get into position for a shot, but the squirrel stayed still long enough for me to blow his brains out. Slick got the next one and it was in the middle of godawful thick patch of Japanese honeysuckle in a smallish tree. Lots of limbs and crap, so I centered the reticle and squeezed. I heard the bullet hit the squirrel, but it was not in the head. Squirrel dancing around, I cannot hardly move for all the damn honeysuckle. I managed to get off a couple more shots hitting nothing but twigs. The squirrel finally stopped long enough for me to shoot it in the body and it just went limp, hung up on small limbs 30 feet up. I made my way over to the tree and pumped a couple rounds into the head, but did not move the squirrel. Last resort, try to shoot the small branches holding the squirrel. Only took one shot and down he came after I shot a twig a little smaller in diameter than a dime that was helping hold him up there. We hunted on for another couple of hours and the dogs barely made a peep. The wind picked up considerably about 10:30 and I did not see a squirrel after 10. They were out early as indicated by lots of fresh tracks in the new snow, but they were not active very long. Pretty good hunt. Lefty even got another one.
No pics again today. One each and they both get credit for the first one.
Slick 6
Lefty 4
