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Fox Squirrel

Started by WV Sawmiller, February 16, 2022, 08:10:40 PM

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WV Sawmiller

 

 

A guy wanted a couple of fox squirrels to mount and today is the first time I have gotten a shot a one. Kind of nostalgic as I was using my little 870 Remington 20 ga pump I got about 61 years ago. Of course that also makes me feel old. I was using low brass #6 shot at about 35 yards. It was a big female and you can see the bright red on her tail. I vacuum sealed her and put her in the freezer till I can get another and ship to the guy in Michigan. I have till the end of the month when our small game season ends.


 

 

 

 

About 15 minutes after I sat in my deer blind/shooting house, I had this bunch of turkeys come out. There may have been a jake or two or they could have all been hens. There was at least 16 and maybe more. It is good to see this many made it through the winter this far.


 

About sunset/6:00 pm they must have come back and started roosting 40-50 yards from me all the way over to where my ATV was parked. They had walked right out the gate beside it. They are funny (and loud) going to roost and change limbs and bobble up and down trying to find a steady perch. Of course these left when I walked out and it would be a perfect opportunity to hunt them if it were legal in the morning as they scattered and will be calling all over creation getting back together. I think they were getting in the hay where I feed my horse on a big bench/flat area about 150 yards from the gate where I parked. They turn the hay and get seeds and worms under it.
 
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

WV Sawmiller

   Well, I went out today, fed the horse, threw a bale of hay on the back of my roadwarrior ATV, slung my 870 on my back and told Sampson to hop on. I rode about 150 yards or so up in the pasture through a stand of overaged Norway Spruce planted for Christmas trees and lo and behold a big fox squirrel jumped up 10' away and ran up a big poplar tree. I stopped and jumped off and Sampson sat there trying to figure out what was going on. I walked about 20' to the other side of the tree and the squirrel ran to the top and got ready to jump and I tossed a load of high brass 7.5 shot his way and down he came into the waiting jaws of Sampson. Just like that my squirrel hunting for the season is over.


 

A big male fox squirrel. For scale that is a regular size newspaper he is laying on. I guess he is about 1/3 the size of Sampson so Sampson is a little leery around them.

   I had mentioned in another thread a way to tell a juvenile fox squirrel from a big grey squirrel when they are seen against the sky and you can't tell the color is to pay close attention to the tail length. Note that the tails of the two squirrels posted here are as long or longer than the body. If these were gray squirrels the tails would be slightly shorter than the squirrel's body length.

   This is good to know as in many states/counties fox squirrels are illegal to shoot or have a much smaller bag limit so you do not want to kill one illegally or exceed the legal limit by accident by shooting a juvenile fox squirrel of similar size to a mature grey squirrel. While fox squirrels are much larger than a grey squirrel the size may be hard to tell at a distance or against a skyline.

   Anyway, these two are in the freezer and hopefully we can coordinate shipping next week to the guy in Michigan. I'll include a couple of walnuts, half eaten if I can find them, for the guy to mount as if they were eating them.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

K-Guy


Big squirrels. In Maine the have a season for gray squirrels but not red. They are real good at cleaning out bird feeders, so whether in season or not when they start hitting my feeders too much, I start shooting them with a break barrel pellet gun. After a week or so the offenders are dead or too scared to approach them. Generally this will last 2-3 years. I know from a friend who hunts deer on my place in the fall that I have a very large population of them.
Nyle Service Dept.
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
- D. Adams

WV Sawmiller

K-Guy,

  Is what you are calling a red squirrel what we call a Pine Squirrel? The ones I have seen are about half the size of a grey squirrel while these fox squirrels are 3-4 times the size of a grey squirrel. Also, these two were large mature fox squirrels.

  I've corresponded with  the guy who wants them and I will wait till next week or later to ship them so they don't sit in a warehouse somewhere over the weekend and since Monday is a holiday.

  When I was kid in N. Fla we had a limit of 10 grey and 2 fox squirrels. As I understand now Fox squirrels are totally protected down there now. Here in WV the limit is 6 per day with no restriction on type. In NC and Ga when I was there I think Fox squirrels were protected.

  I'll include in the package with these squirrels a certification of when and where they were killed and my Hunting license # in case there are restrictions in Michigan or any place he may take them.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

SawyerTed

In NC we actually have a fox squirrel season.  It ended in January.  

We have some variation in fox squirrel coloring here.  There are ones similar to the ones Howard harvested with the gray and red body and red tails.  Then there are ones that are mostly gray/black/white.  The colors seem to be in pockets of the red ones in an area and the gray/black/white ones in an area.  The ones on our farm are colored very much like Howard has.  

We also have two types of other squirrels, gray squirrels and red squirrels (pine squirrels).  As best I can tell we only have the gray squirrels on our farm of these two varieties.  The red squirrels are mostly in the far west mountains of NC.  Some say it is declining.    

In Brevard, NC we also have a white variety of eastern gray squirrel.  There are stories about how the first white squirrels got to Brevard - traveling circus, exotic gifts to a fair maiden and such.  Regardless about a third of all squirrels in Brevard are white and Brevard is a squirrel sanctuary.  :o :D
Woodmizer LT50, WM BMS 250, WM BMT 250, Kubota MX5100, IH McCormick Farmall 140, Husqvarna 372XP, Husqvarna 455 Rancher

WV Sawmiller

Ted,

  I know we talked about this in a sister thread but there are definite variations in regions. In some areas almost all the fox squirrels are pure black. Around Albany Ga they were very light grey and almost white with the black mask on their face. Ours here are the greyish red with bright red tails like shown. Where I grew up in N Fla that was the variation we had.

  The best squirrel dog I ever saw, Bertha, was about the color and half again the size of Sampson above. She treed behind my house in a broken off RO snag. It was about broken off about 10' high and 12-14 inches in diameter. It had a hole about 3' above ground and I tried to twist it out and could get hair but could not pull him out. The hair was red so I was excited it was a fox squirrel which I had never seen in that area. I finally stepped in the hole and looked over the top and found it was a big sleeping coon. I pulled a slab of the side and poked him and he jumped out and Bertha jumped on him and he got on top so I pulled him off and he jumped on me. She jumped on him and got him off. My yellow and white beagle ran up and got slapped and remembered something he had left on the stove at home and left - poste haste and permanently! The coon finally decided he could not whip me and Bertha together so he ran and got in a hole in a hollow bay tree. I went home and got an ax, burlap bag and my .357 magnum pistol. We got him out of the first and second hollow bay and finally I reversed the barrel on that big Ruger and fired up in the hole and the masked one suddenly expired and fell out. Bertha dragged him around shaking him viciously and after that I also had a top notch coon dog. I'd take her out on a nice winter day and we'd kill 20-25 squirrels in a couple of hours. I'd take her out at night and kill a couple of coons and maybe a possum. One night we killed an armadillo with my K-Bar. I wounded a bobcat while frog gigging and brought her back and she bayed and I killed it. If you never had a top notch squirrel dog you can never know what you've missed.

   BTW - our small game season used to end 31 January too but I noticed this year they extended it till 28 February which was lucky  for the taxidermist in Michigan as he just notified me 2 weeks ago.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

K-Guy

Quote from: WV Sawmiller on February 18, 2022, 12:59:45 PMIs what you are calling a red squirrel what we call a Pine Squirrel?


I don't know, a quick search on the Maine red squirrel got this:
The American Red Squirrel is widespread across Maine and easy to identify when compared to other squirrel species. As the name suggests, they have a reddish color and white belly that makes them easy to distinguish. Size-wise, they are both MUCH smaller than both gray and fox squirrels but larger than chipmunks.
Scientific Name: Tamiasciurus hudsonicus
Nyle Service Dept.
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
- D. Adams

WV Sawmiller

K-Guy,

   Thanks for the clarification. I was just wanting to be sure we were not talking about the same squirrels and we are not. Our southern fox squirrels are often a red variation but they are not the same as your much smaller red squirrels which are what we call pine squirrels or Fairy Diddles. 

   I have seen a similar squirrel in Norway to our pine squirrel. As I remember he hung out in Conifers and ate pine cones. Seems like he had tufted ears and was very fast - which is true with our pine squirrels too.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

WV Sawmiller

  I mailed the two fox squirrels to the guy in Michigan today. Weighed 9 lbs for the 2 squirrels, 2 small packs of reusable ice, Styrofoam box in a cardboard box. Cost $16.90. Poor lady at the drug store who does our UPS could not spell "Squirrel" so I told her just list as "furs". :D

   The last time I was there I shipped a couple of 5' basswood carving boards shrink wrapped together. She may not want to see me coming. I told her when I needed to ship some firewood or more road kill, I'd be back. ;D
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

barbender

😂😂 WV, that reminds me of that recording of the 911 call of the guy that had an emergency, his wife was unconscious. "What is your location?" "Eucalyptus Street." "Can you spell that for me?" "I'll just drag her on over to Oak Street."😂

Oh, BTW- if any of you are running short on "fairy diddles" we in northern MN should be able to resupply the rest of the country. I know from my memory of one busting me and alerting a herd of elk to my presence up in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, that they are doing fine out there, too😊
Too many irons in the fire

WV Sawmiller

Barbender,

  The way I heard it was two UA honor grad highway patrolmen arrested an Auburn Student (Ardent in state college rivals of course) speeding near Andalusia, Ala. One started writing the ticket and it asked "Nearest town or city" and he wrote Andy, stopped and started over Andi, stopped and started over and wrote Ande, and stopped and told his partner "The heck with this. Turn him loose and we'll catch him again when he gets to Opp."

  Same idea. :D

  I don't know if the lady here knew how many R's there are in squirrel or maybe she was a UA alumni too. :D

   You can keep the Fairy Diddles. Our chipmunks, gray and fox squirrels do a fine job of warning off the game in the area. ;)
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

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