BAND MILL -- Hunting pheasants over bird dogs is fun, but in its way, hunting squirrels over dogs is just as fun.
I was baptized in this unique brand of Ozark hunting Tuesday in Izard County with Circuit Judge Tim Weaver of Melbourne and his mountain cur dogs Roxie and Ella. Weaver and I had planned this trip for weeks, but a series of setbacks forced us to postpone it to Tuesday.
That was a perfect day for squirrel hunting. Rain from the previous night had moistened the woods and created good scent conditions for the dogs. The air was still, which meant that squirrels would likely be out and that we could see them in the trees.
At least Weaver could see them. A gray squirrel when still is nearly invisible against the bark of a hardwood tree. I have good hunting eyes, but I wouldn't have seen any of the squirrels we killed on my own.
"People laugh when I say I can see a squirrel's ear sticking up, but I can," Weaver said. "It's something you develop from years of practice. I can see a squirrel's ear way up in a tree, but I have to wear thick reading glasses to see a book in front of me. Go figure."
We discussed the hunt plan before dawn over breakfast at the American Burger Center in Melbourne. We would hunt some private land near the ghost town of Band Mill. It was once a thriving community with two stores, but only a few people live there now. In fact, a pond occupies the site where the bigger store had stood.
Twenty minutes later we were there. Weaver loosed the dogs from their box in the back of his truck, and they were gone before you could snap your fingers.
Weaver's curs are small dogs, a little larger than rat terriers and with longer legs. They are quiet until they actually tree a squirrel. Their voices are surprisingly deep, and you can hear them from a long distance.
They didn't take long to strike, and we caught up to them in minutes. Weaver was disappointed when we found the dogs circling an old snag. They tried to climb the tree, and when that didn't work they tried to cut it down with their teeth.
"That's one squirrel we're not going to see," Weaver said,. "He's down inside that tree. Roxie, quit chewing on that bark!"
Finally, Weaver had to leash the dogs and lead them away. They didn't want to abandon the squirrel, but they know the drill and were soon on their way to another thrill. They quickly found it, but that squirrel also found refuge inside a snag.
That made Weaver impatient He led the dogs away from that tree as well, but their third strike was a hit. The dogs jumped and barked while Weaver and I scanned the tree. We initially feared the quarry had found refuge in one of the two big squirrel nests in the high branches, but Weaver finally picked out -- you guessed it -- the tips of squirrel ears silhouetted against the gray sky.
My squirreling piece for this trip was a Smith & Wesson M&P 15/22, an AR-15 copy chambered to fire .22 long rifle cartridges. It has a 25-round magazine and a Simmons 22 Mag 3-9x32 scope. I like it for this kind of work because it is light, and because it's immune to the abuse that mars pretty wooden stocks like the one on the little Remington 1100 20-gauge that Weaver carried.
As I steadied my gun to shoot, the squirrel bolted. It scurried across a limb and jumped to another limb. Weaver snapped that short-barreled 20-gauge up and dumped the squirrel with one shot. The dogs pounced on it furiously when it hit the ground. Weaver waded in and pried the squirrel away from them, scolding, "My squirrel!"
The dogs soon struck again, but this time the squirrel held tight. It lay flat against an upswept branch, its tail pressed hard against the wood. Again it took Weaver's trained eyes to find it.
I braced my rifle against a tree, turned the scope to 9x, aimed and fired. The rifle cracked, and the squirrel tumbled. The shot went right through the eye.
"Old timers would get after you about this," Weaver said. "Some of them like to eat the brains, but that doesn't appeal to me."
I shot the next four directly behind the shoulder. They all held still and gave me time to aim.
"Gray squirrels usually don't sit still that long," Weaver said.
In the interim between strikes, Weaver and I enjoyed long conversations about a shared passion, World War II naval history. We stumbled into that during a conversation about current events and how history has always seemed to turn on quirks of fate.
"Take the Battle of Midway, for example," I said. "Admiral Halsey was supposed to command the American task force in that battle. If he had, we would have gotten creamed because he was such a rash and reckless tactician. He got the shingles, of all things, and was hospitalized. The command fell to Admiral Spruance. He was cautious and deliberate, but when he acted, he did so decisively and ruthlessly."
Weaver was delighted, and the talk meandered from one shared interest to another, including the works of classic American writers such as John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway. We'd just get going good when the dogs struck, and we'd have to rush off to shoot another squirrel.
One of those squirrels was in a particularly tight spot, and I didn't get a killing shot. The squirrel was alive when it fell to the ground. The dogs pounced, but some frantic yelping suggested the squirrel got in a few licks of its own.
"That really makes them mad," Weaver said. "What usually happens is that a squirrel chomps down on a dog's nose or its lip and it won't let go. The other dog gets the squirrel by the back legs and pulls, which makes it kind of tough on the other dog."
Weaver waded into the thicket.
"My squirrel!" he barked.
The dogs were reluctant to surrender that squirrel. Weaver finished it off and stuffed it into his bag.
Conversation resumed, and the dogs were off to the next one. We ended the hunt at 10:15 a.m. with eight squirrels in the bag.
I can't remember a hunt I enjoyed more.
Sports on 12/28/2014