Fall Squirrel Hunt in Wisconsin!

I had a free couple days, so loaded up my guns and gear and headed to the woods a few hours north!

I’d been waiting to start my hunting season, and would be departing the following week for the 20 hour drive south to Texas. Work has been busy and I’d barely had a break in weeks. But on short notice I found a couple meetings had been canceled, which would allow my to hit the road after dinner on Thursday night, hunt Friday morning, and get home for a family obligation on Friday night.

I’d been wanting to try the Hatsan Invader, a gun I’d been loaned a few weeks earlier, but had only been able to use for a couple short range sessions. I threw the gun, and air tank, my cook box, and bedroll into the back of my 4-wheeler and after dinner, kissed my wife goodbye and was on the road!

For some of these short trips, I’ve started sleeping in the cargo space on a 4″ thick memory foam pad, with interior window covers blocking the outside world. In this case I got up to the woods about 10pm, parked along the roadside in a state forest with dispersed camping, crawled into the back and installed the window covers, opened a movie I’d downloaded on Hulu, poured a cup of coffee from my thermos still piping hot, and settled in.

The next morning my alarm went off at 6:30, I ate a protean bar, brushed my teeth, and was standing in front of my hunting area a few minutes after 7:00, with pack, camera, and rifles laid out and ready to go.

I dropped a pin on my handheld GPS and stuffed it into a pocket, made sure the gun was aired up magazine loaded, packed a bottle of water, another granola bar, some extra pellets, and threw them into my pack and I was ready. As daylight came up, I was somewhat disappointed to see most of the leaves still on the trees, this would make things difficult.

After about 20 minutes I saw a squirrel moving through the canopy, shaking the branches and every once in awhile coming into view. I brought the rifle up leaning against a tree, but everting I had a clear view and dropped the crosshair on the bushytail, he jumped away…….. until finally he was gone. You never like to have your first action of a hunt fail, but it is what it is and I moved on.

Over an hour had gone by, and I still hadn’t seen anything, so I sat at the base of a tree to wait, A half hour later, nothing, and I was getting ready to leave when I spotted a black squirrel moving over the ground foraging. I slowly line up the shot and tracked the squirrel along his zig zagging course, until he stopped for a minute, and let the pellet fly. It was a clean head shot and the squirrel rolled over DOA. I collected him and slung a noose of my game carrier over its head and got back on my stalk.

But that’s where it ends, I stalked, glasses, sat, and searched but in that whole morning those were the only two squirrels I saw. It was close to noon and I needed to get home and shower before we went out for the evening, so I packed up and commenced the three hour drive home.

I’ve had people ask why I drove so far just to hunt squirrels? Well, there are a few reasons that might only make sense to me. I like the woods in Northern Wisconsin, they seem a bit less tame than the more agricultural areas I hunt near my home base. There is a large population of the black color phase squirrels, and though these are not exceedingly uncommon, are not something I see very often in my locale.

But moreover, I have fun doing these mini expeditions, I like car camping, it makes the small game hunt seem like more of a small scale adventure, and fits into a compact span of time. But another thin I like is that it lets me explore a lot of new hunting areas. I’ve made these short trips through Minnesota, South and North Dakota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Iowa, and continue to build up my knowledge of small game hunting in these different environments.

I’m leaving on another hunt in a few weeks, going to East Texas to hunt hogs then over to a friends ranch in Central Texas to hunt deer and turkey. But before leaving, I think I’l probably fit in a couple more of these quick overnighters in. Soon the snowshoe hares will be turning up North, and I definitely be up for that!