Was over in WV this week with my son to scout deer and snipe a few squirrels with our rimfire rifles. We were walking together quietly discussing deer patterns and trails in the area and my son looked down the hill and said he saw a squirrel sitting on a dead tree. I glassed it with my scope on the Win mod 52 that I was using. Sure enough, it was a big red fox squirrel. I told my son that I would back him up while he took the shot. While I held a steady site picture standing, he dropped to one knee and smoked the squirrel with a well placed shot to the throat from his 22WMR which traveled end to end taking out all the vitals. Well done son! I am justifiably proud of him since this was his first squirrel hunt having spent years recovering from a brain tumor and after being told he might never walk again, to see him hiking the woods successfully hunting is a Godsend. Next week he hopes to bag his first deer. We all wish him well.
We hunted casually for another half mile over to the neighbor's boundary and then turned back SE toward our farm. Soon after, I stopped and was eyeballing the nearby trees and spotted a big grey sitting motionless on a stub of a limb about 30ft up on a large oak. I pointed it out to my son, hoping to give him the shot, but he was fixated on some other trees and could never pick out the squirrel which was well hidden and showing only the tip of his tail. I told him to sit still and I would attempt to slip left to gain a shooting position. Slowly, I crept about 10 yds until I could just make out his right haunches and about 1/3rd of his head including the right eye. I slowly went to a prone position and from prone, I started to shoot him in the eye (something the Mod 52 can readily do out to about 50yds from a solid rest). Then I looked more closely at the dead snag that he was perched upon and decided that the 22lr, 40g solid was quite capable of penetrating thru it, so I aimed for center of the head. Pow, the mod 52 cracked and slowly the squirrel slid off the limb and landed at the base of the oak with a soft thud.
Close examination of my victim showed that the shot hit him in the mouth, passed thru the brain and exited the rear of the skull. Instant rag doll, and hopefully well representative of snipers hide members, lol.
After lunch we rounded out the day by setting up a blind to hunt coyotes on the farm, but the neighbor's black and tan hound dog pup followed us into the hide and could never sit still when the call was going, and thus the noise no doubt busted us to any nearby yodel dogs. Still, it was a good hunt and a good day in the woods. Well worth the effort. We joked about using the pup for bait
Irish
We hunted casually for another half mile over to the neighbor's boundary and then turned back SE toward our farm. Soon after, I stopped and was eyeballing the nearby trees and spotted a big grey sitting motionless on a stub of a limb about 30ft up on a large oak. I pointed it out to my son, hoping to give him the shot, but he was fixated on some other trees and could never pick out the squirrel which was well hidden and showing only the tip of his tail. I told him to sit still and I would attempt to slip left to gain a shooting position. Slowly, I crept about 10 yds until I could just make out his right haunches and about 1/3rd of his head including the right eye. I slowly went to a prone position and from prone, I started to shoot him in the eye (something the Mod 52 can readily do out to about 50yds from a solid rest). Then I looked more closely at the dead snag that he was perched upon and decided that the 22lr, 40g solid was quite capable of penetrating thru it, so I aimed for center of the head. Pow, the mod 52 cracked and slowly the squirrel slid off the limb and landed at the base of the oak with a soft thud.
Close examination of my victim showed that the shot hit him in the mouth, passed thru the brain and exited the rear of the skull. Instant rag doll, and hopefully well representative of snipers hide members, lol.
After lunch we rounded out the day by setting up a blind to hunt coyotes on the farm, but the neighbor's black and tan hound dog pup followed us into the hide and could never sit still when the call was going, and thus the noise no doubt busted us to any nearby yodel dogs. Still, it was a good hunt and a good day in the woods. Well worth the effort. We joked about using the pup for bait
Irish
