New tricks available for squirrel hunters

Everybody Adventures | Bob Frye
Saturday, Oct. 18, 2014 8:48 p.m. | Saturday, Oct. 18, 2014 8:48 p.m.

Bob Frye | TRIB TOTAL MEDIA

Squirrel calls, like those made by Primos, Hunter’s Specialties, Lohman’s and others, mimic the sound of gray and fox squirrels and can be effective in getting those animals to reveal themselves in the woods.

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Squirrels, deer and a whole lot more

The first phase of squirrel season is open through Nov. 29. The limit is six per day.

It closes to allow deer hunters to have the woods, but comes back in Dec. 15-24 and Dec. 26-Feb. 21.

It's not just squirrels that hunters can pursue this week, though.

Grouse are fair game through Nov. 29, Dec. 15-24 and Dec. 26-Jan. 24, too. The limit is two birds per day.

Then there's deer.

The statewide muzzleloader season continues through Saturday. Junior and senior hunters, meanwhile, can hunt deer with rifles from Thursday to Saturday.

All muzzleloader, junior and senior hunters are limited to shooting antlerless deer, using either a doe tag or a deer management assistance program permit.

Squirrel, grouse and deer hunters must wear 250 square inches of fluorescent orange on their head, chest, and back combined at all times.

Archery season continues as well, but how much orange an archer has to wear varies.

Archers armed only with a bow must wear the same amount of orange as a muzzleloader hunter while moving. You can remove it when in or on stand, so long as you post 100 square inches of orange visible from 360 degrees within 15 feet of you.

If you plan to carry both a bow and a muzzleloader into the woods — that's legal — you have to wear 250 inches of orange at all times.

— Bob Frye

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You settle down under an oak tree, your back comfortably leaning against the trunk, with your shotgun across your lap and the warm fall sun in your face, and wait.

That's squirrel hunting, right?

Not necessarily.

It can be. Hunters take a lot of squirrels just that way each fall. But there are ways to ramp up the game and make things a little more exciting, too.

Hunting bushytails armed with a squirrel call is one.

“If you're a real serious squirrel hunter, you're going to have one of those kinds of calls with you,” said Jimmy Primos, chief operating officer for Primos Hunting Calls.

“Squirrels are very vocal animals, and using a call is a very effective way to hunt them.”

Calls — they're made by a variety of manufacturers — are intended to mimic a number of squirrel sounds. Gray and fox squirrels have chatter, alarm and distress calls, squeals and barks. The sounds made by both are similar, if not exactly the same, with fox squirrel sounds deeper, among other things, he said.

Calling doesn't so much bring squirrels to you, like what happens when calling turkey gobblers, as it gets them to reveal themselves.

You can use them in an oak or hickory woods before you have seen your first squirrel, to get the animals to sound off.

That's a good tactic, Primos said. His favorite trick, though, is to settle into an area with a .22 rifle, then wait. Only after he has seen a couple of squirrels around him, and even shot one, does he break out his call.

“If I shoot the first one I see, the others that might be around stay hidden, and I never even know they're there. If I wait until I see a several, I can shoot one and then after a few minutes, I can work the call and the rest come right back out,” Primos said.

“The report of a .22 isn't very loud, so they maybe decide that shot wasn't anything to worry about.”

Primos gets his best results in those cases by using his call to create chatter sounds with a “wheeze” at the end.

“I've seen and heard a lot of squirrels kind of rise up and make that wheeze,” he said. “I don't know what it says to a squirrel, but I've really had some luck with it.”

Chances are, if you try hunting squirrels, you won't have too much competition.

The number of squirrel hunters has plummeted over time. There were almost 370,000 squirrel hunters in Pennsylvania in 1990. Last fall there were only about 140,000.

“I don't see a lot of squirrel hunters anymore,” said Rich Joyce, the commission's wildlife conservation officer in southern Washington County.

“I think there are just so many other seasons open at the same time, and so many opportunities, that squirrels get overlooked. Maybe all of the old squirrel hunters are just sitting in a treestand waiting for deer.”

Matt Lucas, conservation officer in southern Westmoreland County agrees. He sees some fathers hunting squirrels with sons, and even entire families.

But adults hunting squirrels for their own sake are more scarce, he said.

If you decide to spend some time hunting squirrels this fall, though, armed with a .22 and call or otherwise, the outlook is good.

Unlike some other small game species, squirrels are abundant across the state.

Their populations are at least steady everywhere, if not outright good in many places, said Matt Lovallo, supervisor of the Pennsylvania Game Commission's game mammals section.

And while the number harvested overall has declined as hunters have disappeared, the number taken for every 100 days spent in the woods has remained stable.

That, Lovallo said, means the squirrels are there, if only hunters choose to pursue them.

“I don't think we have any shortage of squirrels, that's for sure,” Lovallo said.

Some reports indicate fox squirrels — which can reach weights of 2 pounds, double that of their gray cousins — are even expanding their territory, he said.

In addition, acorns — a primary food source for squirrels — are plentiful in a lot of places.

“The areas where I'm finding oaks, it's like a marble fest out there,” Lucas said. “There's plenty of food out there.”

Nate Kimmel, the commission's conservation officer in northern Somerset County, said the acorn crop is good in his area, too, as did Chris Reidmiller, the commission's office in southern Indiana County.

Hickory nuts, another squirrel favorite, are especially plentiful, Reidmiller said.

All that remains is to get out there. Joyce will be hunting squirrels with his son for pot pies and other favorite meals.

“We do have a ton of squirrels here,” Joyce said. “You could pick pretty much any woodlot or any game lands in southwestern Pennsylvania, and especially here in Washington County, and you're going to find squirrels.”

Bob Frye is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via Twitter @bobfryeoutdoors.

Article by Bob Frye,
Everybody Adventures, http://www.everybodyadventures.com