- Joined
- Oct 8, 1998
- Messages
- 8,917
Sometimes I get it right! 
I grew up rolling squirrels and cottontails with a little .20 Ga. Spanish Double-Barrel Shotgun and a couple little bolt-action .22s that were nothing to write home about. I got tired of picking pellets out of my food and stopped using shotguns for the most part when I was a teenager. I also used a Sheridan Blue Streak 5mm Air Rifle a lot and wristrockets probably as much as all the rest of them combined.
There are just a few simple tricks to getting squirrels and rabbits consistently. Rabbits, generally speaking, run in a large half circle and usually when you jump them you can cut the circle in half by walking a straight line and you meet them where they are going to be. Unless they are really spooked and go into heavy cover, they will generally do that.
If you find a good squirrel tree and you can find a small shrub or sapling on one side of it, you can tie a piece of cord to that shrub or sapling and then go back on the other side of the tree and sit. If the squirrels are really cagey you can fake them out by pulling the string to shake the sapling and they will run to the opposite side, your side, of the tree and you can kill'em.
Anyone interested in taking small game in a survival situation that wants to make it easier on themselves can buy one call to use that will help them. A Hawk Call. When a hawk screams, rabbits and squirrels tend to freeze in place.
I can call squirrels by making a cutting sound, clicking/clacking the inside of the cheek with tongue and teeth, it's really loud when you learn to do it well and it will bring them in. By the time they figured out the mistake they made, they're dead!
I have an old Squirrel Call that has a tube with a reed in it and a bellows on one end that makes more than cutting sounds and I use that one, too.
I grew up rolling squirrels and cottontails with a little .20 Ga. Spanish Double-Barrel Shotgun and a couple little bolt-action .22s that were nothing to write home about. I got tired of picking pellets out of my food and stopped using shotguns for the most part when I was a teenager. I also used a Sheridan Blue Streak 5mm Air Rifle a lot and wristrockets probably as much as all the rest of them combined.
There are just a few simple tricks to getting squirrels and rabbits consistently. Rabbits, generally speaking, run in a large half circle and usually when you jump them you can cut the circle in half by walking a straight line and you meet them where they are going to be. Unless they are really spooked and go into heavy cover, they will generally do that.
If you find a good squirrel tree and you can find a small shrub or sapling on one side of it, you can tie a piece of cord to that shrub or sapling and then go back on the other side of the tree and sit. If the squirrels are really cagey you can fake them out by pulling the string to shake the sapling and they will run to the opposite side, your side, of the tree and you can kill'em.
Anyone interested in taking small game in a survival situation that wants to make it easier on themselves can buy one call to use that will help them. A Hawk Call. When a hawk screams, rabbits and squirrels tend to freeze in place.
I can call squirrels by making a cutting sound, clicking/clacking the inside of the cheek with tongue and teeth, it's really loud when you learn to do it well and it will bring them in. By the time they figured out the mistake they made, they're dead!
I have an old Squirrel Call that has a tube with a reed in it and a bellows on one end that makes more than cutting sounds and I use that one, too.
