How to Hunt Squirrels: Tactics Most Hunters Never Learn

Okay.

So tactics wise, you know, everything at face value, I think in hunting overall looks simple, like even dove hunting, you know, like when I got into dove hunting, you know, I just thought, man, it's super simple.

You go sit on the edge of some trees or, you know, in a tree in the middle of a field or, You know, you, you, you just know there's a lot of doves flying there and you show up and you just shoot them.

And I was very fortunate that the place I learned how to dove hunt was in Arizona, which, you know, just north of Mexico and just a really big super highway of doves.

i mean just i mean we would limit out let's say i think the limit was 10 maybe and we would shoot almost 10 shots and kill 10 doves i mean it was just constant and they and they ran the same path every single time and so where i was you know learning was very fortunate and then i got back here in alabama and went to these dove shoots and you know They're not there or they're flying all over the place and everybody's shooting at them and they dance in the air and you know, it's all this craziness.

And then I listened to a portion of a podcast with Michael Waddell and this older gentleman who's talking about how he sets up a field for a dove hunt.

how to specifically get them coming from like their midday snack time or their afternoon prep you know like kind of like a deer like staging up like their staging area and then where they stage and where they go to for their afternoon like all this man this is it's a lot more complicated than i thought it was so when it comes to squirrel hunting where does that lie And, and how do you learn all of that strategy when it comes to, you know, the, this kind of the sit and wait and wait for movement or like, you know, you and Shane both talked about the moving and going, like what is the actual strategy to squirrel hunting?

First off, if you went dove hunting and you killed 10 doves for 10 shots, you're a whole lot better dove hunter than I am.

I average about a dove a box.

I did a little trap shooting competition when I was a kid growing up.

I was on a trap team, so it helped a little bit.

That was never my experience dove hunting.

I was always a whole lot more shooting and very little killing.

Yeah.

The, the, again, the doves were on a very similar path.

And so by the third Saturday, you've kind of dialed in like where they're coming from, where to shoot.

And then we actually got so consistent on their flight pattern is we would try to shoot them and catch them.

In our hands.

And, uh, it was just really fun.

Like competition we would all do is like, okay, let's see if we can shoot it and then catch it midair.

And, uh, we were able to even do that, but you're not the chances of that happening in Alabama with pressure and the way the doves are here.

It's like hunting a deer here in the South versus hunting one in the Midwest.

It's, it's just a completely different animal.

Yeah, doves around here seem like they have on flak jackets most of the time when they're going through

the field.