How many out there hunt squirrel? How many eat them?

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Brains

ALLRIGHT!aLLRIGHT!i WON'T EAT ANY BRAINS.Couldn't work up the nerve anyway.Gunsafe,you bring up a good point.It's been bothering me for years how the outdoor stores have tons of gear for deer hunting.They don't seem to care to cater to the small game hunter.When I was a kid in the 60's rabbit was the thing.Jumping a covey of quail was a bonus.In Fla. there's no season on rabbits.Considered a pest.Hunting quail just about anywhere costs $500-$750 /day + higher.Can't get permission to hunt rabbits or quail cause landowner has deer leases or their hand out.I can remember listening to those beagles voices running a rabbit!Sweetest sound I ever heard.Right up there with standing outside on a moonlit night and hearing geese honking,passing across a full moon.I wax nostalgic.Maybe more of us should.
 
I think the squirrels in my area have all migrated into city limits. Tons of them overrunning the city, probably giving people squirrel-brain-black-death, but nary a one whenever I look for them hunting.
 
Squirrel is my favorite thing to hunt, and probably my favorite wild game to eat. A friend once said "I'll eat squirrel when there are no more cows", he doesn't know what he's missing. I'll smoke em, grill em, fry em, and bake em with cream of mushroom soup. Anyone have a good way to keep the hair off the meat?
 
I live in Arizona and so far my only chance at squirrel have been at desert ground squirrel:barf: I have taken and eaten plenty of desert cottontails, they are good eating, even jackrabbits are good if you just take the tenderloin and make it into stew.
 
I and my wife both hunt bushy tails. Love to cook and eat them too. We skin them same as a coon, lightly scrape the hides and strech them on mink boards. Usually get from $.50-$2.00 for the hides. Hides pay for the ammo.
 
Yes and yes. Squirrel hunting is my favorite kind of hunting, although it's been awhile since I've been out in the woods. Love fying them up in a pan too.:)
 
Skinning/Hides

I'm going to try out squirrel hunting for the first time and was wondering if anyone could give some some good advice about how to clean the animal for eating, or even point me towards a website/forum post that would help? I"ve also seen people talk about preserving the hides in this thread, how is that done?
 
Although there may be more than one way to skin a cat, in my opinion there is only one way to skin a squirrel:

1. pull the tail along the back towards the head. just before the point where the tail joins the body there may be a part in the hair. this is the place to make the first cut. you cut straight down through the tailbone towards the back. some folks leave 1/4" or so of the bone on the body when finished. this won't hurt anything. when you get this part right, you should never be cutting into meat at all.

2. after the tail bone is severed, you want to skin a flap of skin big enough to get the edge of your foot onto solidly. that's what this is all about. it's the flap of skin you stand on and not the tail. the tail is weak and will break. when you skin this flap back with your knife, as you get further back and wider, start to angle the cuts on both side toward the underbelly. i skin to about where the back legs join the body. at that point i will have the cuts angled toward the underbelly. on fox squirrels, i may make a longer flap for more surface contact. their hide is considerably tougher than the grays.

3. when you step down on the flap of skin, use the edge of your shoe and get it as close to the meat as possible. it helps to do the skinning on a flat hard surface. this is to keep the skin from slipping out from under your foot.

4. if the skin starts slipping from under your foot as you are skinning, it is best to stop and reposition it. breaking the tail makes it more difficult to get your foot into the correct postion. i have broken tails and still manage to skin them this way but it is a little more difficult.

5. if you get a big fox squirrel and the skin does not want to seperate at the belly on its own, you may have to use your knife to seperate it. this is not usual but with the tougher fox squirrels, it does happen.

6. i skin the squirrel all the way to where its head and front legs are showing and then stop. i wipe the hair on my right hand onto my britches(this keeps most of it off the squirrel) and grab the varmint with that hand around the skinned out ribs. do not take the pressure off the tail! now wipe the hair off your left hand onto your britches for the same reason. the hide is very tender on the belly. you can push your finger under it there and pinch it between them and your thumb. then with a quick jerk rearward the skin will come right off. see video. wipe off any hair on your left hand. with that hand, pull the front legs out of the skin.

7. you can now do one of two things. you can either grab the body with both hands and pull the head loose or you can just cut the head off while still attached to the skin. i usually just pull the head out of the skin. i normally never touch a knife once i have made the first cut through the tailbone. see video!

for you folks who have never tried this, you find it clumsy at first. remember, i have been skinning squirrels for over 40 years and have skinned a few thousand. it will take you a few to get the hang of it. when you do get good at it, you will enjoy squirrel hunting a little more!
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I pulled that from another forum and it works. I had been using a similar method, but the one above is foolproof. Once you've done it a few times, you can skin a squirrel in 20-30 seconds. There is also a video of this method floating around the interweb somewhere. If I find it, I will post it.
 
I dried a few hides with salt and fleshing when I was a kid, didn't try tanning, of course. I'd sew elastic on 'em and use 'em for arm guards for bow shooting. LOL They weren't tough enough to last all that long, of course. Was mainly just something for a kid to experiment with. I didn't know it at the time, but I was kind of a little burgeoning mountain man at that age. :D I was all into woods craft, "outdoor life" magazines, that sort of thing.
 
1. Hone your field craft
2. Hone your marksmanship
3. Enjoy more time in the woods
4. All you need is a .22, some spare time, and a little land
5. Pre-season scouting opportunities
6. Introduce someone to firearms and hunting
7. Take a kid hunting
8. Generous season lengths and bag limits
9. Opportunity to plink if hunting is slow, shoot crows, etc.
10. Enjoy yourself
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Well said on the reasons for squirrel hunting. Heck I've killed them out of the maple tree in the backyard with a pellet gun shot to the head and eaten that one. I'll admit I have killed some before without eating them, but that's rare. The meat-to-work ratio is a tad on the low side, but if you get several of them and get better/quicker at butchering and know a good recipe, then it's worth it.
 
Thanks John828, that description and video look really helpful. I think I could get that down if I manage to pop a couple squirrels :) I'm a complete beginner though, so even that isn't given. Speaking of being a complete beginner, does anyone know of any similar sites/videos that would tell me what to do once the skin is off, as in butchering for the pot or skillet? I'm taking up hunting relatively late in life (well 29 isn't THAT late, but a lot of my friends were hunting when we were in grade school) and just don't have the background. My dad never hunted, so I was in turn deprived :( So I figure I had better get the basics down myself before I have kids of my own in a few years :) Thanks again for all the helpful posts.
 
Glad to see all the enthusiasm for squirrel hunting, I thought pretty alone hunting them in MN but loved and thought it made me a better hunter/woodsman. Now in WA there aren't any to speak of so I think back wistfully to spending the day in an oak grove witha 22 warming up in my hands.

If I have anything to contribute it's to add skin them warm! The hides glue on when they cool.
 
I love hunting em, my wifes loves cooking them and we love eating them!

I had to teach her how to fry em in about an inch of bacon grease, she taught me there are other ways of fixing squirrels... and they were good!
 
Squirrels is sort of a southern thing, I guess. I can't really understand why someone wouldn't eat squirrel, but then, I guess it's ignorance. My stomach turns when I watch Bear Grylles pop a grub worm in his mouth on "Man vs Wild". Yet, some places in the world, grubs are normal eating, insects, anyway. Me, I'll bait a hook with a grub and catch dinner, LOL. If I was starving to death, maybe, but I don't know. But, I understand those who have qualms about squirrel or any other animal I have eaten and enjoyed. Squirrel isn't much different from rabbit meat, actually.
 
I wouldn't say eating squirrel is a 'Southern thing'; I grew up in Illinois - which isn't normally considered Southern - and I didn't know anyone who didn't eat squirrel. But I did grow up in the over the tracks part of town so can't say, but maybe the elite didn't eat them.
 
some of my best memories as a kid were going squirrel hunting with my dad.

now my wife and i both hunt them and we like them best baked with onion soup mix over them although we fix them other ways too.

glad to see all the squirrel hunters out there since its really losing popularity around here. as an aside anybody ever hunt them with dogs? i had heard of squirrel dogs but had never seen one hunt until this year. on opening day my wife and i ran into the old amish guy that lives across the street from us out hunting with 2 rat terriers said he was trying to train them. here we are 4 months later and as he was coming back from hunting one of the terriers treed a squirrel on the edge of my property, i told him to go ahead and shoot it to reward the dog (we dont normally shoot any on our own property).

having watched it i have to say im impressed. just wished he had different kind of dog to hunt them with cause i dont like terriers.
 
My beagles tree squirrels in our yard all the time, but I can't shoot up in the air here, neighbors are too close.

I love squirrel hunting and they are good eating, but it sure takes a mess for a good meal!
 
I used to, I think rabbit tastes better but both loose to dove.
 
Mio, my best friends dad has two squirrel dogs. I've yet to go hunting with them since his dad has had some health problems here lately. But from the stories I've been told it's like night and day. It's so much easier to track and hunt them with a couple of dogs. Or so I've been told. Maybe my friend and I can 'borrow' the dogs for a day :)
 
they are more of a pest around here.
They are to small to eat, you would have to get at least 100 to have a descent meal for one Person. Ive thought about eliminating them from my hunting area. They are very annoying while hunting Every step one starts chirping at you!
 
Squirrel dogs

as an aside anybody ever hunt them with dogs? i had heard of squirrel dogs but had never seen one hunt until this year.
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Yep! Terriers and Border Collies seems to be the best, but if you ever get a good squirrel dog, breed him and save the runt.

Seems like the Heinz 57's do good too, but any dog that looks up can be trained.
 
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