How do you learn the basic survival skills of marksmanship, stalking, concealment and skinning and processing game animals?
Take up squirrel hunting.
by Leon Pantenburg
Many people don’t know how to get started hunting. But they may be thinking it’s time to learn.
There could be a variety of reasons – to supplement your diet, to harvest clean, organic, non-GMO meat, to practice wilderness survival skills to get outdoors more etc. The reasons are as varied as the participants. (A good point-of-view comes from Lily Raff McCaulou, a city woman who took up hunting when she moved to rural Oregon. Her book “Call of the Mild” is a reasoned look at hunting.)
This .40 caliber flintlock rifle is my favorite squirrel gun
But there are added benefits. You can learn survival skills that might come in really handy if The Shinola Hits the Fan.
Start by taking a hunter safety class, and learning firearms safety.
Then take up squirrel hunting.
Squirrels are the second-most harvested small game in the US, after rabbits. They are in virtually every state, and most places have liberal limits.
A 10-year-old kid with a .410, an old guy with his equally ancient Winchester 97 or the modern longhunter with a flintlock can all be successful and get a lot of enjoyment out of the same activity.
Here are some of the survival skills that go along with squirrel hunting.
Marksmanship: The average adult tree squirrel will weight about one pound. The target size is small. They move quickly, and are masters of concealment. If one spots you, you probably won’t get a shot.
Using a shotgun doesn’t guarantee success. A squirrel running through the trees tops, offering only fleeting glimpses of its bushy tail is a challenging target.
A rifleman has more challenge. If you restrict yourself to heads shots only, your target is the size of a walnut. If you can consistently make a head shot, at a range of between 10 to 30 yards, you’ll have no problem taking a deer at similar ranges.
If you want to get really good with your centerfire rifle, work up some reduced loads and hunt small game with it. (Just about every reloading manual has some suggested low velocity loadings. DO NOT make up your own!)
Up the ante and go hunting with a blackpowder rifle. The epitome of squirrel hunting challenge, to me, is using a flintlock rifle, like the colonial frontiersmen.
Talk about trophy hunting – your success rate will probably go down. But when you do drop one, there is a real feeling of accomplishment.
I gave up bowhunting squirrels after a couple of unsuccessful tries. Not only could I not hit one, but I also usually lost the arrow. If you’re a hardcore bowhunter, though, use small game blunts…