Using squirrils as aides while hunting

[Okanagan]

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...

[cryder]

EEEYYYYUUUPPPP. !!!

[Seahawk12]

EEEYYYYUUUPPPP. !!!

Are you agreeing? Or imitating a squirrel bark? 

[fishnfur]

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. 

[runamuk]

I work with squirrels daily they shoot their machine guns at everything including other squirrels.  The woods I frequent the squirrels are pretty useless.

[PolarBear]

The squirrels let me know when I have fallen asleep in my tree stand and have started snoring.

[fowl smacker]

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.

[cbond3318]

I haven't been able to put any kind of method to their madness. Crazy, dramatic, whiny little tree pirates.

[Okanagan]

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...

[Pegasus]

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.