A Squirrel Tale

Not far from where I live now is a hollow called Sand Lick. This used to be the place we would go hunting the first day of deer season. A couple of years ago, a friend that I grew up with died from cancer. It was with him and his dad that I used to go to this hollow hunting the first day. His dad is the one that I talked about in an earlier post about getting shot in the face with a shotgun. This story happened while hunting with them. I had never shot a deer and both of them had multiple trophies so they were on a mission to help me drop my first deer. On one of those trips I had settled into the bed of a hollow about a half hour walk from camp. I was using a single shot Rossi shotgun with slugs. That old shotgun was probably the best squirrel gun I have ever had the pleasure of hunting with. Anyway, on that morning I was going to try to kill a deer with it. I was sitting beside an old downed tree. The log was aiming down the hill. I was sitting in a V, where the first big branch came off the tree. I had been sitting there all morning and hadn’t seen any sign of a deer. I was just about ready to get up and go back to the camp for lunch when I saw the biggest red squirrel I had ever lay my eyes on. He was on the ground and coming up the hollow towards me and the old tree. I watched this squirrel come all the way to the log. He jumped up on the end about fifteen feet from where I sat. I’m not sure at what point I decided to try and take the squirrel but when I did I had a slug in the gun. The squirrel was on the log and I very slowly took the slug out of the gun and put in a shot shell. I definitely didn’t want to obliterate the squirrel with the slug and even with the shot shell, at fifteen feet, I would do to much damage to the squirrel. Sitting there for just a bit I tried to think of how I could take the squirrel without completely destroying him. I didn’t want to shoot him for the hell of it but instead could only think of the squirrel gravy that my friends wife was so good at making.

After some quick thinking I thought that maybe if I jumped up real fast the squirrel would head up the closest tree. Initiating my plan, I quickly rose up from the ground and the squirrel did exactly what I predicted. He went to the top of a tree that was about ten feet from the base of the old log. Doing that put him at a good distance and I could take him without tearing him to pieces. One shot was all it took to bring the old red squirrel out of the tree. He was a big one and a buck. This squirrel had a pair, if you know what I mean. Back then we would take a small stout rope with us into the woods to help drag any deer out that we may shoot. Since this squirrel was a buck I tied my rope to his hind legs and used it to drag him into camp. “I got my buck,” I told my friends. They got a big kick out of seeing me drag this squirrel into camp as if it were a deer. I wouldn’t get a real deer that year but I did get a very cool memory that I will have forever.

It was just a hunting trip or two later with the old Rossi that I did end up shooting a slug through the gun and ruining it forever. It was a good squirrel gun but couldn’t handle a slug. One shot and the end of the barrel swelled making it useless as a squirrel gun.

After years of hunting with my two friends I finally did get a deer. My friend that was dying of cancer had always wanted to see me take one. In an earlier post I told about shooting the four point with a 22 magnum. I was staying with my friend trying to help him out as his sickness slowly overwhelmed him. He finally got to see me kill a deer. He died from the cancer about three weeks later.

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