doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Favorite Game/Gun Picture - 2019 Hunting Season

Skeeterbd, good to see you back. Great story about your gun. Beautiful birds.
Gil

I was planning on ending the woodcock season yesterday, but couldn't stand sitting home on the last day despite rain prediction.� Obsession beat weather forecast and just as I finished crating the dogs after the hunt, the rain started.� I started the day hot with two relatively quick birds and paid dearly as I sought the third.� I had more than a handful of opportunities, but fell short for one reason or another including but not limited to lousy shooting.� It was a fine year for us and I look forward to next year.� We left plenty of birds in the woods for their northern trip which will begin soon.� That's Willa with her chin on her older sister Abby's back.

This may not be a bird or a shotgun, but it is a favorite gun, favorite game, and the last 2 hours of the season. I got three.

Haven�t seen a fox squirrel in years.

Best,
Ted

Ted, I assume you have lots of greys, but I don't know exactly where you are at. Somehow I associate you with Anoka, but I don't know where I dreamed that up from.

Brent, I have foxes and grays on my farm in middle, GA. Our fox squirrels come a a variety of colors from black with a white nose to gray, to red like the ones you shoot. Do you have the other color phases where you are?...Geo

Geo, is the term "Fox Squirrel" regional meaning different types of squirrels from state to state? Yesterday I saw a solid black one. Gil

Geo,
We have melanistic fox squirrels here, but they are rarely completely black as they can be in some other areas. They generally get some black on their bellies and different amounts of the normally orange portions are black.

We do not have the black masks that is most common on the coastal plain below the fall line in your part of the world.

Gil there are other "fox" squirrel including the Chiricahua Fox Squirrel and Apache Fox Squirrel, but the common fox Squirrel from the midgrass to the barrier islands is Sciurus niger (translating to black squirrel), because the first one described was a pure black one. I forget who was the author of this description but his second squirrel of the morning he wrote up as Sciurus carolinensus - and it was a grey version. He thought they were different species. Later, when it was confirmed that the two were the same species, the S. niger name had precedence.

They all taste great however.

As a boy I killed fox squirrels in every color phase from cream white all over to jet black all over. Most common, and largest in body size, in this area are the grey ones with the black face. They are solitary creatures. I often see them scavenging in the edges of my harvested peanut fields.

I go out of my way not to kill one, now.

SRH

I don't shoot my Fox squirrels on my place either although I enjoy eating the grays. One of my boys came across and ad somewhere that a northern guy wanted to shoot a southern fox squirrel and would pay $1,000 for the privilege.

Little George asked me and I told him Heck Yeah! Partiality is one thing but a thousand bucks of greenback northern money will trump it every day...Geo