I head out to an area recently located where the squirrel population looks good. Loaded up my Brocock Bantam and was in the woods shortly after daybreak.
I was out recently in Central Wisconsin hunting a new spot with the Brocock Bantam .22. Many of you know that in recent years I’ve been gravitating towards a .25 for my small game hunts, especially squirrels which are tenacious and live in an environment where you need to anchor them or potentially loose them (into a den or stuck up in the fork of a tree trunk). However, a .22 work very well, and just requires that you be more precise in shot placement.
My Bantam was topped with the ATN X-Sight for this hunt. This is a day/night scope with built in video recording capabilities. The woods I was hunting in were fairly thick still, fall is here, and the leaves are just starting to fall. I packed light on this outing as I only planned to stay out a couple hours then I needed to get home for work. Much of my professional life is working with international colleagues, which leads to some weird working hours, but on the good side it can leave me open in the mornings to go out for a quick hunt. I typically give myself a 2-hour, 2-squirrel limit whichever comes first. In this way I get out a lot, can use a lot of different gear, and manage the squirrel populations in my favorite hunting spots.
As I mentioned, this was a new spot. A few weeks earlier I was up north hunting with a friend that has been showing me the area. On my drive home I went through an area of state forest where I saw a few squirrels (black and gray), which was about an hour closer to home, and made a mental note to go back and give it a closer look. I arrived at about 7:30 and by 8:00 had a couple of squirrels in the bag! Spent the next hour scouting and saw several more squirrels in varying color phases, but didn’t take any more. Even though the Bantam was not used during my scouting exercise, it is light and compact and I didn’t mind carrying it.On the last trip my hunting partner Jonathan, took the only black squirrel, so this one I bagged on this trip is one for my 2020 grand slam. Only thing I have left is the Aberts, and I’ll be going out to visit Airguns of Arizona next month, and will spend a couple days in the mountains afterwards looking for that last species!
I used to prefer my Compatto over the Bantam, because it is so streamlined. And while I still love this little semi-bullpup/carbine I find that I’ve been going more for the Bantam lately. These guns are identical, except the Bantam uses a CF bottle up front rather than a tube, which provides a much higher shot count at full power. Either way, great little hunting guns!
