I don't hunt much. I hunt during rifle season for deer and might try to call in some coyotes a couple of times per year but other than some rare occasions, that's about all my hunting consists of. However, I recently had an itch to do some squirrel and rabbit hunting (and get out of the house) so on a cold January day, I grabbed a gun, some warm clothes, and Waylon before I set off on a little hunting excursion.
In all honesty, I didn't know if having a bird dog around was going to help my chances at hunting a couple of wary mammals. I didn't know if he would scare them off or help me find them. Regardless, we were going to hunt together. When we got out of the truck, we saw four turkeys wandering through the snow. Shortly after that, we kicked up a couple of deer. I noticed that one of them still had a complete set of antlers on his head so my hopes at finding a few fresh sheds were dashed.
For the next hour and a half after those sightings, we didn't see much and we certainly didn't see the quarry we were after. Part of it was my fault. I noticed that the areas that we were hunting didn't have many oak trees or squirrel nests. After scanning the horizon, I found some oaks that were still holding their leaves and quite a few nests that looked like they could have been built by squirrels. We headed that way but doubt started to enter my mind. Did we start hunting too late in the morning? Was it too cold for our prey to leave their warm, safe confines? Was Waylon scaring everything off? Was I walking around too much?
As I was about to give up hope and head toward the truck, I watch Waylon streaking through the timber. He was moving at a pace that was faster than he had moved at any point of our hunt, and this got my attention! As Waylon approached a large oak tree, I saw a furry critter make its way up the tree in a manner that I can only describe as "motivated". It didn't take much time or effort to identify the animal as a squirrel and I quickly got as excited as Waylon.
No comments:
Post a Comment