Oddball Methods for Bushwhacking Bushytails
Day 4: You Can Fiddle, Drum and Whip for Squirrels
Editor’s Note: Everybody knows about the tried and true techniques for squirrel hunting – stalking, sitting and using a dog, but, chances are you haven’t tried these wrinkles that will put more game into your bag by day’s end.
 There is another tactic – fiddling for squirrels – that works when hunting “the rut,” which usually occurs in the late part of the season in much of the South.  This technique is most effective when hunting with a dog. However, a dog isn’t absolutely essential, if you know where the squirrels are. When our dog trees in a hollow tree, we aren’t disappointed – far from it. As a matter of fact, my family and I usually are tickled to death. We reason that if the dog trees, the squirrel is in the hole. And, because the rut’s on, we assume that more than one squirrel is in that hole. Now, all we have to do is to get the squirrels to come-out of that hole, one at a time, so we can take them.
 The easiest way to do that is take an arm-sized log and run it back and forth against the base of the tree much like you’ll draw a bow across a bass fiddle. The racket that is given-off is much like the noise that’s made by an amateur bass fiddle player. When the squirrels hear that tree vibrating, there is just something about this that irritates them.  Generally, one of them will run out of the hole, and you can take it. When the first squirrel is on the ground, we start fiddling again and continue this fiddling technique, until we take all the squirrels in the hole. Most of the time that will be two or three tree rats, but we have taken before as many as five out of one knothole. If fiddling doesn’t produce the desired results, then we take a lighter limb and start beating on the base of the tree like you’ll beat a tom-tom drum. If that tactic doesn’t work, we’ll find a small sapling close to the tree and start whipping the tree like you do a rebellious child.
|
