By Glen Wunderlich
In Michigan’s hunting digest there are a handful of critters listed together for which there is no bag limit, the season never closes, and all that is needed is a valid Michigan small game license. Pound for pound, none is more destructive than the red squirrel or pine squirrel, as some call it. If you’ve ever had any of them in your attic or garage, you also know how difficult it is to keep them from their incessant, chewing ways. They can get through the smallest of openings, and if their entrances are blocked, they’ll simply chew their way around or through just about any barrier. Their habitual nature of constantly biting and chewing makes them the most destructive of the four Michigan species.
Red squirrels are about half the size of their cousins – the fox, gray, and black squirrels – and have a reddish brown color on their upper parts and cream or white colored under parts with white circles around their eyes. Their favored habitat is mature conifer trees, where they’ll strip conifer cones for the seeds within. Other items on the menu include bird eggs, young rabbits, acorns, berries and mushrooms.
Predators of the red squirrel are raccoons, foxes, weasels, bobcats, coyotes, minks, fishers, owls, hawks, martens – and humans. It’s easy to understand how a hawk or owl is able to snatch them from the heights of the tallest trees, but for any other animal with four legs to run them down in the treetops is simply amazing.
When hunting them in the woods, the best way to find them is to sit still and listen for their chattering sounds. They have a hard time being still for any prolonged time periods, so patience is the key to spotting them. Although they can be nearly impossible to shoot with anything but a shotgun while in motion, they’ll also make the mistake of facing off with humans and chattering for any and all wildlife to hear from a nearby perch; that’s the opportunity I look for with a .22 rimfire rifle
Four Red Squirrels Taken with a Ruger 10/22 and Lapua Sub-Sonic Ammo
I prefer subsonic ammunition, because it’s relatively quiet and accurate – which is extremely important when going after such small targets. One of my favorite firearms is an old Marlin model 81 bolt action produced in 1937 and topped with a 3×9 power Hawke Sport scope with parallax adjustment. I picked up the rifle for a song and found the trigger to be too poor for any good level of accuracy, so I had a qualified gunsmith massage the trigger a bit.
One brand of ammo that’s quite suitable around the home is CCI Quiet .22 ammo. It uses a 40-grain solid-lead bullet traveling at a scant 710 feet-per-second – well below the speed of typical sub-sonic .22 rimfire ammo. If you have a semi-automatic .22 rimfire rifle, this ammo will not cycle the action; single-shot, lever, or bolt guns are in order, if you choose this type of ammo. The parallax adjustment feature allows a shooter to focus as close as 30 feet and really comes in handy for up-close opportunities.
Squirrel season in Michigan closes March 1st, but again, red squirrel season is open year-round.
