I got the squirrel and the squirrel got me.
Got a squirrel at 75 yards Sunday. Not a bad shot, but about 1/4 of an inch to the left would have been better. As it happened, the round passed through it’s neck just aft of the skull and just above the spine, apparently just disabling it’s shoulders. So, it fell out of the tree and stayed where it fell. Took me a while to find it. And then I wasn’t sure what to do. Wish I’d had a mentor along or that I’d been taught hunting as a boy.
This was my first hunting kill, and I’ll admit – when it came time to finish the killing, I wavered in my conviction. It seemed the animal wasn’t mortally wounded and at first, I contemplated taking it home and healing it. My wife helped me see reason and I realised it would be best to finish the poor thing. But how to do it? Well, first, take my gloves off to get a better grip. (Now, anyone that’s handled a wounded animal just winced hard.) And knows what’s coming next….
As I tried to turn the squirrel in my hands and figure out the most humane method to finish it off, it wriggled around and clamped itself to my now bare hands. WOW! About twenty good, deep scratches into untangling it’s claws from my skin, I just gave up and broke it’s neck. Would have been better for us both if I’d just done that from the start. So now I know.
Anyway. That’s my first game animal. Does that make me a hunter? Well, I intend hunting more squirrel, so I think so. I skinned it and dressed it according to directions I found in, believe it or not, The Joy of Cooking. I’ve got the hide curing and I’ve salted the tail stump so I can save it for the Meps people. I got a surprising amount of meat off it and I’ll be cooking it tonight I think. I’ll post about how it tastes, etc.
Seems that serving squirrel was all the rage to serve squirrel at dinner parties in England last summer. The folks in NYC were at it, too apparently.