Kentucky Spring's squirrels harder for the hunter to get in his sights

[Lou_C]

Spring's squirrels harder for the hunter to get in his sights

STEVE VANTREESE

Associated Press


FRANKFORT, Ky. - Living is pretty easy for squirrels nowadays and that makes the pursuit of the tree-dwelling rodents more difficult during Kentucky's statewide spring squirrel season which runs June 5-18.

"There's lots of different foods available for squirrels at this time of year - from buds to seeds to insects to baby birds," said John Morgan, small game biologist for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. "They eat a wide range of foods.

"But there's no one thing that's enough to concentrate them in a place," Morgan said. "That's one of the challenges of the spring hunting season. It's not like in the fall when hunters can look for squirrels around crops of hard mast (nuts). In the spring, they can be almost anywhere."
Atop the seemingly random spread of squirrels in the spring, the hunting of June squirrels is further complicated by the full foliage of the season.

"With all the leaves on the trees, it's hard to see the squirrels if you do get where they're at," Morgan said. "It makes the hunting tougher."
On the other hand, the timing of the spring season allows hunters out there when squirrel numbers are at their peak. There are two breeding periods each year, two nesting periods and two population surges when litters of recently born squirrels mature enough to hit the woods on their own - early autumn and right about now.
Squirrels can have three to six youngsters in a litter, and if most of the females that represent perhaps half of the population produce litters that average three to four new squirrels, it's not surprising that the overall population can bulge significantly.

"There are lots of squirrels out there for the spring season," Morgan said. "The season was set to take advantage of the high population. Some of the squirrels that are take by hunters might not make it anyway, so the season really has no real impact on the population.
"Squirrels are typically one of the most under-harvested population anyway," he said. "And because of the difficulties and the temperatures, there's not a whole lot of people who hunt in the spring anyway - not like there is in the fall when there's a tradition of hot weather squirrel hunting as the first step toward all fall hunting seasons."

Morgan said the mysteries of spring squirrel hunting might be somewhat offset by going to areas of hardwood forest or woodlots where hunters observed plenty of squirrels last fall and winter. Even though the food sources are different, most squirrels can probably find plenty of spring food where they were living and feeding months earlier.
"In most cases, they'll be about in the same places as they were back in the fall," Morgan said. "They normally won't change den trees. They'll stay where they are because they can find enough food there."
While hunting with small caliber rimfire rifles is a standard squirrel hunting tactic for many people during the traditional season, spring hunters might be well advised to stick with shotguns that can be used to work more rapidly on moving squirrels or to operate in and around the heavy leaf cover that can partially shield squirrels if not totally hide them.

The daily bag limit and possession limits on squirrels are the same during the spring hunt as they area during the traditional late summer-through-winter season: six squirrels per day and 12 in possession after two or more days of hunting. Shotguns no larger than 10 gauge, rifles, muzzleloaders and handguns of any size, archery or crossbow gear - all are legal squirrel hunt implements. Slingshots are illegal.

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Squirrel Stew anyone? Yumm

[depakid]

1. Squirrel's revenge-

AP- Frankfort, Ky Sept 8, 1997.

Squirrel brains are a lip-smacking memory for Janet Norris Gates. They were the choicest morsels of the game her father once hunted in Tennessee. ``In our family, we saw it as a prized piece of meat, and if he shared it with you, you were pretty happy. Not that he was stingy,'' said Mrs. Gates, an oral historian in Frankfort, ``but there's just not much of a squirrel brain.''

Now, some people might want to think twice about eating squirrel brains, a backwoods Southern delicacy. Two Kentucky doctors last month reported a possible link between eating squirrel brains and the rare and deadly human variety of mad-cow disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

<snip>

Dr. Eric Weisman, a behavioral neurologist who practices in rural western Kentucky, reported in the distinguished British medical journal The Lancet that he has treated 11 people for Creutzfeldt-Jakob in four years, and all had eaten squirrel brains at some time. Six of the victims, ranging in age from 56 to 78, have died.

kinda gives a new meaning to "squirrel brained. " eh?

Link.

[ConcernedCanuk]

2. Gotta keep ur eyes out for dem pesky squirrels

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Theys a sneaky lot

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And Nasty Too!

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:silly: