Dave McCracken
Moderator In Memoriam
I laid the last bit of dumpling dough on the simmering liquid in the skillet and set the lid in place. As I started cleaning up the area, Daughter came in and sniffed.
"Hi, Dad. What's cooking"?
"Squirrels, Sweetie", said I, wiping off the counter. "I went this morning and got some".
"Great" replied she and wandered off.
It had been great. The trees were just starting to turn, the sun has risen glorious as ever, and I had made meat in a ritual that dates back before the caves. Only the tools have changed.
Pop taught me to hunt, and hunting squirrels was a life skill to him. He knew that bigger game and opportunities to hunt them came and went, but we'd have squirrels to eat as long as we had trees. He came from Clearfield County, PA, and was a Depression kid that ate lots of squirrels.
I planned this expedition well. Most of my old hunting places are Yuppie habitat npw, but this one patch of hardwoods in a creek bottom near a corn field was left. A call to the family that had owned it for a century renewed my permission and I was set.
The big decision was what shotgun to use. There's several choices here. I hadn't made much meat with a couple of them, so the choice devolved to Number Six or Jessica.
Jessica is named after the Allman Bros song, possibly the best rock instrumental ever made. It's a 20 gauge 870 YE I bought for the kids, and they've moved on. I swapped the youth stock out for one that was full length and straight grip with a friend who needed a stock for his kids and have shot the results well. Jessica has two barrels, a 21" VR barrel and a 20" RS barrel for slugs and defense. The 21" barrel is in place and I had the Mod tube screwed in.
Ammo was a problem until I recalled a test lot given by a friend whose reloading skills and good sense I regard highly.
He had given me a box of reloads to try out. Imagine a 24 gram(A sparse 7/8 oz), 1300 FPS load of hard, round nickle plated 6 shot. I patterned a few and got very good results.
Intended for live pigeon shooting competitions, loads like this are good for avian rodents also.
Anyway, dawn found me easing through a fence and setting up with my back up against a beech tree and my eyes on the canopy.
Squirreling is waiting. One stays motionless and silent until the quarry forget what startled them and start moving again. Then we move to the point of contact.
A shadow on a limb shifted.My vision focused until I could see the head. Bringing the bead ever so slowly there, I applied 5 lbs of pressure to the trigger. The boom almost drowned out the soft crash thereafter. I retrieved the small grey bundle and moved on.
Another grey came to bag and then a slightly different creature. MD has a growing number of black phase squirrels,centering on Montgomery and Howard Counties. For reasons unknown, the numbers are growing.
Maybe not so fast, though. The black was on the ground when I saw it and moved its organic compounds a notch along the food chain. I find them a little easier to spot than the greys. Natural selection will decide, of course.
Jessica was a delight in the hand. 6 lbs, 2 oz at the curb, and after decades of handling 7 lb plus shotguns, felt like my old Red Ryder carbine. It did the job, also. 4 shots, and four squirrels in the pan.
A few more thousand shots will tell the tale on Jessica. I hope I get to make them.
And now it's suppertime.....
"Hi, Dad. What's cooking"?
"Squirrels, Sweetie", said I, wiping off the counter. "I went this morning and got some".
"Great" replied she and wandered off.
It had been great. The trees were just starting to turn, the sun has risen glorious as ever, and I had made meat in a ritual that dates back before the caves. Only the tools have changed.
Pop taught me to hunt, and hunting squirrels was a life skill to him. He knew that bigger game and opportunities to hunt them came and went, but we'd have squirrels to eat as long as we had trees. He came from Clearfield County, PA, and was a Depression kid that ate lots of squirrels.
I planned this expedition well. Most of my old hunting places are Yuppie habitat npw, but this one patch of hardwoods in a creek bottom near a corn field was left. A call to the family that had owned it for a century renewed my permission and I was set.
The big decision was what shotgun to use. There's several choices here. I hadn't made much meat with a couple of them, so the choice devolved to Number Six or Jessica.
Jessica is named after the Allman Bros song, possibly the best rock instrumental ever made. It's a 20 gauge 870 YE I bought for the kids, and they've moved on. I swapped the youth stock out for one that was full length and straight grip with a friend who needed a stock for his kids and have shot the results well. Jessica has two barrels, a 21" VR barrel and a 20" RS barrel for slugs and defense. The 21" barrel is in place and I had the Mod tube screwed in.
Ammo was a problem until I recalled a test lot given by a friend whose reloading skills and good sense I regard highly.
He had given me a box of reloads to try out. Imagine a 24 gram(A sparse 7/8 oz), 1300 FPS load of hard, round nickle plated 6 shot. I patterned a few and got very good results.
Intended for live pigeon shooting competitions, loads like this are good for avian rodents also.
Anyway, dawn found me easing through a fence and setting up with my back up against a beech tree and my eyes on the canopy.
Squirreling is waiting. One stays motionless and silent until the quarry forget what startled them and start moving again. Then we move to the point of contact.
A shadow on a limb shifted.My vision focused until I could see the head. Bringing the bead ever so slowly there, I applied 5 lbs of pressure to the trigger. The boom almost drowned out the soft crash thereafter. I retrieved the small grey bundle and moved on.
Another grey came to bag and then a slightly different creature. MD has a growing number of black phase squirrels,centering on Montgomery and Howard Counties. For reasons unknown, the numbers are growing.
Maybe not so fast, though. The black was on the ground when I saw it and moved its organic compounds a notch along the food chain. I find them a little easier to spot than the greys. Natural selection will decide, of course.
Jessica was a delight in the hand. 6 lbs, 2 oz at the curb, and after decades of handling 7 lb plus shotguns, felt like my old Red Ryder carbine. It did the job, also. 4 shots, and four squirrels in the pan.
A few more thousand shots will tell the tale on Jessica. I hope I get to make them.
And now it's suppertime.....
