By Jim Dickson, | Contributing Writer
There is far more small game hunting than big game hunting in the South, and much of it happens during the winter months.
When the pioneers depleted the deer and other big game populations in their settlement areas they turned to squirrel hunting. In those days the forests were covered with oak and chestnut trees which gave a bountiful supply of nuts for man and beast. You could reach down among the leaf litter and come up with a handful of chestnuts anywhere there was a chestnut tree. The American chestnut was a giant tree termed “The redwood of the East” and it produced more nuts than any other tree. Everything ate them; people, bears, hogs, deer, turkey, squirrels, rabbits, all loved the flavor of the delicious chestnut.
This abundance of chestnut trees gave rise to such a population of squirrels that a man could feed his family just with a smallbore Kentucky squirrel rifle. At one time the owner of Stone Mountain in Georgia wanted to trade the mountain for a good squirrel rifle. I don’t know if he ever made that trade, but I have seen two of the rifles whose owners turned down his offer.
This plentitude of game continued right up until the chestnut blight struck late in the 19th Century and early 20th Century. The loss of the American chestnut was devastating to this country. The wildlife populations took a huge decline as a result of the loss of this great food provider.
Squirrel hunting continued on a much smaller scale. A staple food source in the Great Smokey Mountains of the South it never waned in popularity. This was often a young hunter’s first quarry. Some of them were quite young when they started. When he was 8 years old, Harold Houck used to take the family shotgun and go out squirrel hunting. He would not let any of his siblings accompany
him and he would not return until he had enough squirrels for his mother to make squirrels and dumplings.
Squirrels are masters at keeping on the opposite side of a tree from the hunter. Their alarm calls ring out from multiple locations so slipping up on them can be difficult to say the least. They will not stay hid forever if you sit and wait them out and the use of a squirrel call can lure them out to check out the strange new squirrel that just showed up. At a very young age I was taught to imitate them without a squirrel call.
For squirrel hunting and all small game I use a 12-gauge side by side double with 1 ounce of #6 shot over 3 drams of powder, the same as I use for all bird hunting. This kills instantly and is the surest and most humane way to bag your dinner.
For rifles I prefer the .32-20 with the old Winchester high velocity loading or a .30 M1 carbine. They kill quicker than the .22LR and don’t require as precise a shot placement. A lot of people cannot make the precision hits required for instant kills with a .22 and experienced shooters tend to forget that when discussing the .22 for small game. As some states mandate only .22 rifles for small game both the Browning and the Ruger .22 semi-auto rifles are very popular.
Being out in the woods just before sunrise and waiting and listening for the sounds of the first squirrels stirring is most enjoyable. It also will stand you in good stead for deer season as you will get to see them as they start moving from their bedding areas to their feeding areas. Mark those places well for deer season when it comes.
Crack shots with a pistol can have a lot of fun with squirrels also. I remember one time in the 1950’s when a group of men couldn’t hit a squirrel very high in a tree with their .22 rifles. The head of the fisheries division of the Georgia Game and Fish Commission was there and finally said “Let me show you how to do it!” With that he pulled out his issue sidearm, a 6-inch barrel S&W M&P .38 Special and let fly with one shot that neatly drilled said squirrel and brought him down much to the chagrin of the riflemen.
Another time a young man had presented his new bride with a pistol and was going to show her how to shoot it blissfully unaware of how thoroughly her parents had schooled all of their children in marksmanship. As he was setting up a tin can for a target a few feet away she spied a squirrel high in a tree that she wanted to add to that night’s dinner and brought it down with one shot. Her husband just looked at the squirrel and said “Forget it. There’s nothing I can teach you about shooting.”
Rabbits are another favorite small game target and they are the prime ingredient in many European and American gourmet dishes. They can be walked up and flushed from wherever they are feeding or taking cover as in brush piles. A lot of people have beagles to flush them and start them running for the shooter. If you plant clover you will have a lot of rabbits. While a rabbit may sit still and hope that you don’t see him they make fast moving bounding targets when running. At such times a shotgun is good insurance for a quick, clean kill. There is a lot more meat on a rabbit than there is on a squirrel and it all tastes good.
The first instinct of a rabbit confronted with danger is to sit still and hope that nothing sees it. They are quite well camouflaged in their natural surroundings and can be very difficult to see. As a child I learned that if you act like you don’t see them and are just walking by you sometimes can get close enough to catch them by hand. This natural inclination to hide makes it very easy to overlook them when rabbit hunting and a lot of folks will come back empty handed convinced that there were no rabbits there when the place was full of them. Just ask anyone there who has a garden of fresh vegetables.
The rabbit’s well-deserved reputation as a garden gourmet eating everything in sight results in a fair number bagged by farmers and people with a vegetable garden. Many of these have been had by pistol shooters as a handgun is the easiest gun to carry around. While we don’t think of them as hunting pistols today the old .32 and .38 S&W top break Iver Johnson Owl Head pocket pistols and the others of that type accounted for a lot of rabbits as well as foxes running off with a farmer’s chicken in their mouth in days gone by. I well remember hunting small game as a kid with a .38 S&W single action, spur trigger, top break, Baby Russian revolver. These guns were accurate, and adequately powerful for small game.
Raccoons are more of a medium-sized game animal but hunting with dogs is a big sport in the Smokey Mountains. Following the baying dogs as they try to locate, chase, and tree a ringtail at night is a sport widely enjoyed by dedicated dog men. The raccoon is by no means defenseless and may drown a dog if it can get it in the water.
Small game hunting is an important way to keep fresh meat on your table as you can hunt throughout long seasons and you aren’t faced with a small bag limit per year like you sometimes can be with deer and other big game. It is great fun and a first class reason to be out in the woods. A reason that brings home the bacon both figuratively and literally.
