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Author Topic: Using squirrils as aides while hunting  (Read 5015 times)

Offline Okanagan

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Re: Using squirrils as aides while hunting
« Reply #15 on: October 07, 2017, 07:31:35 PM »
The squirrel theory is a "wives tale." 

I have spent 15-20 days/ year in a tree stand for the last 15 years. I can't remember a day when squirrels weren't present!

I have not found squirrels to be predictors of anything. I have seen them get out of the way of bears but as far as being a decent alarm...no. I watch them chatter at each other like crazy...all day long and it doesn't mean a damn thing as far as big game animals go.

Sometimes they chatter like cray when deer, elk, moose, bears are around...sometimes they don't.

Count me a “wive”.   :)

I killed a 4x4 whitetail buck that squirrels called my attention to.  Last week I watched squirrels scold a black bear while neither bear nor squirrels were aware of me.  I've had birds and or squirrels tell me about cougars, bobcats, lynx, elk, moose, a wolf and likely other critters I don’t recall.  Birds HATE cats and sometimes will show you exactly where the cat is and where he moves.  And to expand the old wives tale, I wish I knew more but am convinced that a person can tell to some extent what kind of critter the squirrel is scolding, whether a deer or a big eater like a wolf or cougar.  They get more frantic/aggressive sometimes when it is a big one.

  I cheerfully encourage folks to disbelieve the squirrels all they want. 

Edited to add:  There is a difference in the sound when a squirrel is chattering routinely and when it is chattering at something or scolding it. I.e. Not all squirrel chattering is equal nor is all of it tattling on a big game animal.   But some of the chattering is a tell...


Offline cryder

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Re: Using squirrils as aides while hunting
« Reply #16 on: October 07, 2017, 09:00:51 PM »
EEEYYYYUUUPPPP. !!!
loction location location ! perzackly !

Offline Seahawk12

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Re: Using squirrils as aides while hunting
« Reply #17 on: October 07, 2017, 09:36:03 PM »
EEEYYYYUUUPPPP. !!!
Are you agreeing? Or imitating a squirrel bark?  :chuckle:
"I make up my opinions from facts and reasoning, and not to suit any body but myself. If people don't like my opinions, it makes little difference as I don't solicit their opinions or votes."
William Tecumseh Sherman

Offline fishnfur

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Re: Using squirrils as aides while hunting
« Reply #18 on: October 07, 2017, 10:47:25 PM »
But the weird thing is that they don't always go off at you when they see you.  I encountered two different Townsend squirrels today and on both occasions, I'm thinking, "Oh crap, here it comes...".  They just watch me walk by.  Both were on the ground though.  I wonder if they are just aggressive when they are in trees.  :dunno:
“When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.”  - Will Rogers

Offline runamuk

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Re: Using squirrils as aides while hunting
« Reply #19 on: October 08, 2017, 06:12:53 AM »
I work with squirrels daily they shoot their machine guns at everything including other squirrels.  The woods I frequent the squirrels are pretty useless.

Offline PolarBear

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Re: Using squirrils as aides while hunting
« Reply #20 on: October 08, 2017, 06:31:29 AM »
The squirrels let me know when I have fallen asleep in my tree stand and have started snoring. :chuckle:

Offline fowl smacker

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Re: Using squirrils as aides while hunting
« Reply #21 on: October 08, 2017, 07:32:15 AM »
Very interesting.  I had Squirrels all over the place all day when I shot my bear from a stand this year.  But looking back on it, they had gotten quiet just before the bear came into the area busting brush.
when it gets quiet on a bear stand, a bear is around!  The birds will go quiet!
I have found that to be COMPLETELY opposite.  Down at the coast house when a bear is near, the crows and ravens go absolutely nuts!  You will hear them sometimes up to 40 min before the bear comes out of the brush into the yard.

Offline cbond3318

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Re: Using squirrils as aides while hunting
« Reply #22 on: October 08, 2017, 07:39:25 AM »
I haven't been able to put any kind of method to their madness. Crazy, dramatic, whiny little tree pirates.
Just tend your own and live.

Offline Okanagan

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Re: Using squirrils as aides while hunting
« Reply #23 on: October 08, 2017, 08:28:38 AM »
I haven't been able to put any kind of method to their madness...

Translating squirrel is OK for starters but if you really want to know what's going on with the big game in an area, you gotta pay attention to slugs and get to understand what they reveal.  ;)  One time when I was hunting elk on the West End I noticed this slug with its hind end kinked over pointing toward a thicket...

Offline Pegasus

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Re: Using squirrils as aides while hunting
« Reply #24 on: October 08, 2017, 08:38:03 AM »
I haven't been able to put any kind of method to their madness...

Translating squirrel is OK for starters but if you really want to know what's going on with the big game in an area, you gotta pay attention to slugs and get to understand what they reveal.  ;)  One time when I was hunting elk on the West End I noticed this slug with its hind end kinked over pointing toward a thicket...

Ssshhhh. Pleez do not disclose Pacific Northwest hunting secrets.

 


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