Chris Maroldy
There’s a lot of hunting social media hate for almost any media—social or otherwise— that promotes hunting.
Go figure. You’re on an internet forum, or on Faceplant or wherever, bitching to other hunters about how internet connectedness has ruined your life.
“Everybody’s hunting my public land because of those damn youtube guys!”
“Everybody’s using a kayak! I used to be the only one! Curse you, Instagram!”
“The Outdoor Channel is the devil!”
Blogs and e-zines don’t seem to draw the same degree of negative attention, but I guess if I just lower the bar to my level, I could be accused of promoting hunting and fishing (and kayaks!). Woo-hoo!
So all that makes me hesitate what I’m about to say:
Let’s make squirrel hunting great again!
I’m afraid by putting that in print and following with a couple hundred words, squirrel hunting will be ruined forever, at least in the mid-South.
It could happen. A bunch of years ago, I wrote about squirrel hunting as a low-pressure pastime, and wondered wistfully whatever happened to squirrel dogs, which used to be quite common in the woods.
Lo and behold, a short time afterwards I was zeroing in on a bushytail, still-hunting a big pin oak flat near Jordan Lake, when my classic hunt was busted by another’s—two buddies, their 870s and their squirrel dog. They come ambling up from behind me and treed in the very oak I had reconned with my rifle from 40 yards away.
They offered me the shot, but I declined, and they tumbled a fat gray standing right underneath him.
Those woods and everything nearby that team walked through was like a moonscape for the rest of the season, if you were trying to find a squirrel on your own.
So be careful what you wish for, I guess. Squirrel dogs seem to have made a bit of a comeback since I first started wondering about them in print, and I am no longer nostalgic about them, you could say.
Still, with the proposed expansion of NC’s relatively new spring squirrel season to
public lands, and the likely enhanced management of the Sandhills’ fabled fox squirrels, things are looking decidedly good for area squirrel hunters. I hope I don’t jinx things by saying that on the internet.
But it would be kinda cool to see if a spike in new .410 and 28-gauge shotgun sales could be traced back to this column.
I kid … I kid.