Re: Have You Ever Caught a Squirrel .......

They can do a lot of damage - to you and to your house. They also like to chew holes in plastic irrigation lines.

A few years ago, I kept hearing the sounds of what I thought might be mice in the attic. It so happened that I was having roof shingles replaced around the same time. There was one fellow who was carrying bundles of shingles up an extension ladder - one bundle on each shoulder. He would get high enough on the ladder to flip the bundles off of his shoulder onto the roof, one bundle at a time. Of course, this makes some noisy thump sounds when the bundles hit the roof. When he got to the garage, climbed the ladder and dropped the bundles, he saw the hole in the soffit at the same time as the squirrel (who had chewed the entrance hole) decided to leave the attic and run for it. The squirrel came flying out and onto the face of the guy, who was about 15' up the ladder above a brick terrace. Watching this, I was afraid the guy would panic and fall off of the ladder, but he was fairly calm and just grabbed the squirrel and threw it onto the ground, where it dusted itself off, recovered its sense of importance and ran away. We immediately repaired that soffit and never had another problem.

Maybe the reason I haven't had any more problems is because I bought a bird feeder that holds squirrel cake mixture of corn and seeds. I placed it directly in front of a large pine tree, so that from my kitchen door to the patio, the feeder was directly in front of the tree. After sighting in the scope for that spot under the feeder and buying some sub-sonic .22 rounds so the neighbors wouldn't know what was happening, I had a perfect killing field with the artillery zeroed exactly on the spot, shooting downhill into sandy soil with the tree as a backstop...... after a while, the squirrels are all gone. They're beginning to repopulate the yard, so it's time to open the shooting range again.

ancientorange

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Jan 21, 2019, 7:01 PM

I've caught a many of live animals by hand but never a wild squirrel. I never trusted my speed vs those teeth. Gators, snakes, possum, doves, great blue heron (injured/rescue), sea skimmer, ducks, geese, feral cats, are all fair game if you play your cards right.

One day I was about 8 and walking back from the deer stand with my dad at night. I lingered behind a bit for some reason and as I was catching up I saw a little screech owl in a branch on the side of the road at about head height. Being a little fella that was scared of no animal I began my stalk as it stared at me. About two steps before I pounced my dad decided it was best to tell me that the owl might not let loose of me if I grab him first. I'm sure he saved me some punishment.

One night at Clemson my roomie and I were going to pick up one of my best buds, Tyler, at Lightsey Bridge apartments to carry him to Fike. We had to pass through a field right before entering the parking lot and caught a glimpse of a poor old possum out in the open. Well I was in a good mood so I jumped out and my buddy followed with his headlights and I ran the possum down, snatched him up by the tail, and jumped in the bed of the truck. If you've never seen a live possum up close they are bigger than you think and have a mouth that is much bigger than any coon, fox, or cat. They aren't aggressive at all but you don't want them to grab you either. Well we pull up next to Tyler, who's standing off the side of the road, and I jump up and toss the possum to him yelling "possum attack". His eyes widen up like an owl but he isn't prepared for such guerrilla warfare and cant dodge. It bounces off his chest and puts the haul ### on and we laugh about it all the way to Fike.

Years earlier I took Tyler on one of his first deer hunts with me. Surprisingly 2 big sow hogs show up in the field with 20 piglets that are about 15 pounds a piece. My family has owned this land for 70 years and never seen hogs on it so it was quite the shock. So I take aim and down the ~250 lb sow and they all scatter. They piglets aren't quite sure where to go in the tall millet and one doubles back to the dead sow. When Tyler and I get closer we see the piglet, I give him my rifle, and I begin the stalk. I jump on that little fella and grab him behind his head. That SOB is STRONGGGGG and just a squealing bloody murder. He's kicking around about as hard as a 4' gator would trying his damnedest to get free. Now I've killed about 30 deer by this age (~16) but only hog hunted once before but have heard plenty of stories about hogs coming to a pig squealing and running hunters up a tree. I decide that Tyler, who knows guns but is new to hunting, might not be the best thing protecting us if that other 250 lb sow comes out the bushes to chew my ###. It's a shame but I had to let that pig go because I didn't have anything to throw him in and didn't want an emergency on my hands. It was quite the experience for two kids though. After that two scrawny kids used every ounce of their strength to get that big hog in the back of the truck.

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Have You Ever Caught a Squirrel .......