Going for the Squirrel Grand Slam: Get that Black Squirrel First!

I’ve been going after this small game challenge for several years now, and my strategy is get the most difficult one out of the way first!

I’ve written quite a bit About the squirrel grand slam, which I coined to describe taking the four most common types of tree squirrels in the USA: the fox squirrel, the gray squirrel being the most available, the Aberts squirrel of the western mountains, and the black color phase squirrel.

This last squirrel is not a specific species, because all the species mentioned will occasionally throw off the genome for a black color phase. And there are also hybrids of the fox and gray squirrel, which can express this color variation. With all squirrels having a black variation you might think it would be relatively easy to find, but my experience is that it is in fact the most difficult.

This is because it is only occasionally, even rarely, occurring and it is therefore difficult to come across the variation except by luck. However, there are locales where this variation is frequently occurring, and if you can zero in on one of these spots, your odds go way up.

The first spot I found that had a relatively high ratio of the black color phase occurring in fox, gray, and hybrid squirrels was in the upper part of Michigan’s lower peninsula. I’d heard rumors from some guys I know that hunted deer up there that black tree squirrels were a common sight. I didn’t fully believe this, people may see a couple or few black squirrels over years of hunting an area, and say they’ve seen a lot of them. But still, when I was invited to a deer lodge to do an interview for Sports Afield on airgun hunting, I brought along my PCP handgun to slip away for some squirrel hunting.

This is very telling as top how I perceive small game hunting, I was going to a premier deer lodge that costs big bucks, and was more excited about the possibility of a new squirrel than a big buck….. As it turns out, there were a lot of black squirrels running through the woods when we arrived. I took a nice whitetail buck on the first day, then spent the next couple days going after (and bagging a few) black squirrels.

I went back up to this area a couple times over the years, and always had some success. The only problem is that it’s a 12 hour drive from where I live. Still last year I was going to do the drive, when out of the blue one of my readers sent me a message saying he lived in an area with a high population of black squirrels, and it was only a three hour drive.

I went up there to hunt a couple times last year, and in fact did have some luck. The whole trip was fun, I drove into a national forest, set up a camp, and traveled from there to hunt returning to camp nightly. I was roughing it under a small awning and crashing in the back of my Outback. But this year I’ve not wanted to stay in motels due to the pandemic, so I invested in a good tent, camp furniture, etc, and this year will set up a right proper camp and maybe stay out for a week, before heading to Arizona for Abert’s squirrel. By the way, it was Airguns of Arizona resident hunting guru Kip, that pointed me in the right direction for the Aberts squirrel, no beating local knowledge!! And since I’ll be set up for winter camping, will probably bring my gear and stay up there for a week.

As an aside, many of you know that I have a professional life and work in clinical research, but my organization has just change policy about how much vacation we can carry over. I have over 8 weeks to use before the end of the year, so plan on a lot of extended hunting trips this year. I’m considering moving down to Texas for 2-3 weeks…… if my wife will let me.

But I digress, my post was about black color phase squirrels. It takes a bit of work, and a bit of travel, but if you want a really great small game hunting experience, go for the squirrel grandslam. My advice though, try to get that black squirrel in the bag first, then go after the Aberts, then the fox and gray should pose no problem.

If you want to see videos or read more about these hunts, stop by my website and YouTube channel, www.americanairgunhunter.com. I don’t yet know what the plans are for EBR, but I’ll be in Arizona in the fall for squirrels if nothing else!