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Fox squirrels

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don hepler

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Been seeing some nice Fox squirrels, lately.

I grew up in the mountains of West Va. and loved to squirrel hunt.

My grandmother, would have to boil them old Fox squirrels, before frying, because they were tougher, than gray squirrels.

Haven't hunted them for many years, now.

Just wondered how many people see this type of squirrel.
 
All my squirrel hunting has been done on my farm in western Kentucky for the last 30+ years. It's typical of the area, a mix of small woods lots and cultivated fields, with a lot of old grown up fence rows. There has always been a mix of fox and gray squirrels on the place, pretty evenly divided. The grays tend to concentrate on the lots, especially if there are large trees, the fox are frequently found in the fence rows or smaller patches of woods, and are seen on the ground in the edges of the fields quite often.

I really like fox squirrels, they have a different attitude which is fun. They are a lot less spooky, will come very close to you from curiosity, are much less twitchy, in my experience. I've turned down shots at them more than once simply because of their antics.

The old wife's tale about fox squirrels chasing grays out of territory they claim is just that, old wife's tale. I have brought home mixed bags of gray and fox from my farm a high percentage of hunts.

Spence
 
George said:
The old wife's tale about fox squirrels chasing grays out of territory they claim is just that, old wife's tale. I have brought home mixed bags of gray and fox from my farm a high percentage of hunts.

Spence
You're right about that...Both red and greys come to my feeder and eat at the same time....Oh sure, they are territorial and will chase each other away from a food source...
I once saw 12 squirrels in a lone oak tree in winter, sunning themselves....Reds and Greys both....
Reds (Fox) are my favorite to....both to hunt and to watch.
 
I watched an old white faced Fox squirrel, sunning on a limb. It looked to half as big as my cat and he's pretty good size.

I've always heard that Fox squirrels can crack walnuts and grays can not. Don't know if that's true, but I often see Fox squirrels along fence lines near walnut trees.
 
They are common in my area. Grays and Fox are right in the same woods together.

We have some BIG ones!

37099281080_b8e7b52caf_c.jpg


I skin them immediately rather than carrying them around all day and doing it at the end. Those big old Fox squirrels are tough to skin once they cool off, but not bad at all when still hot. I pressure cook them and that makes them just as tender as a young gray.

Mike
 
hadden west said:
I've always heard that Fox squirrels can crack walnuts and grays can not.
Both can eat walnuts. I have a couple dozen walnut trees in my yard and the grays tear them up. Never saw a fox squirrel at the house.

About that fox squirrel attitude... here's an entry from my hunting log, Nov. 25, 2008.

Sneaking along quietly right by the feeder stream I heard the unmistakable scrabble of squirrel toenails on bark right close by. It was a large fox squirrel, one of the most beautiful orange ones I’ve ever seen, 2 feet above the ground and climbing up the side of a tree not 15 feet away. The sun was behind him shining through his hair and he had a bright orange halo all around him. He was casual to a fault, ran up the tree only about 10 feet and sat down on a flat stub of a limb pointing straight at me, not more than 12 feet from my gun barrel, on my side of the tree and in plain view. At the first sound I had shouldered the smoothbore and come to full cock, but he was far too close to shoot. I decided to wait until he climbed up the tree. He wasn’t playing that game. He began grooming himself as calmly as ever you please. He worked over the entire length of his tail, scratched or nibbled every hair on his body over the next 5 minutes, working rapidly and intently. I lowered my gun and stared, bemused. After a while I made a kissing sound. He stopped grooming, looked at me intently and resumed his primping. Fox squirrels just have a different attitude. I just watched, mesmerized by the beauty and behavior of the little creature. What an invention is the squirrel. After many minutes i started talking to him aloud, asking what he thought he was about and such. He finally seemed to pay me some attention, stopped grooming, ran part-way down the tree and stopped for another look, then bounced to the ground and made his way casually 50 yards up the stream, hopped onto a tree and disappeared. I had long since decided not to kill him. I have a real soft spot for fox squirrels, I have never had so much pleasure from a squirrel I didn’t kill.

Spence
 
Colorado Clyde said:
Remember yodels ? :haha:
Hey! :wink: :haha:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/12/22/article-0-0C8F4907000005DC-914_634x805.jpg
 
Spence, I had a similar run in with a duck I thought I was going to shoot off my pond. I knew he was there, spent 15 min. coming up through the creek to pop over the dam to jump shoot him. Instead of flushing he swam towards me and started quacking like we were old friends. So, he and I had a nice little conversation for a few minutes and I wished him a safe life and gave him permission to use my pond for as long as he wanted.

Fleener
 
Out here in the "wilds" of NE Kansass I only see the fox squirrels. When they are not poaching from my bird feeders :cursing: ,you'll see them eating the seeds out of hedge balls. Down in the city of Lawrence is where you see lots of the gray squirrels.
(Course, being a college town there's just plenty of "squirrels" in general...) :wink:
 
Here in Southern Michigan we only have fox squirrels and I love to hunt em

Squirrel_Hunter.JPG


To me there's nothin better than fried squirrel

Squirrel_fried.JPG


Right next to the mashed taters

Squirrel_meat2.JPG
 
Now your confusing me calling fox squirrels "reds."
We have red squirrels here, they are not fox squirrels. They are much smaller than grey squirrels, but bigger than chipmunks. And, are anything but enjoyable or entertaining when one is hunting. If they see you, they find a perch where they can see you and start barking incessantly for unbelievably long periods of time. Not worth shooting for the meat but you'll want to just to cease the noise after a half hour or more.
They're mostly found in areas with a lot of pines. I'm considering carrying a slingshot when I hunt areas with lots of them.
 
Brokennock said:
Now your confusing me calling fox squirrels "reds."
We have red squirrels here, they are not fox squirrels. They are much smaller than grey squirrels, but bigger than chipmunks. And, are anything but enjoyable or entertaining when one is hunting. If they see you, they find a perch where they can see you and start barking incessantly for unbelievably long periods of time. Not worth shooting for the meat but you'll want to just to cease the noise after a half hour or more.
They're mostly found in areas with a lot of pines. I'm considering carrying a slingshot when I hunt areas with lots of them.

Dad used to bring several home each deer hunt for that very reason!
 
When I lived in Georgia I hunted both fox and grays. I saw about every color variation they exhibit. White ones, standard reddish ones, black ones and a color that can only be described as "silver. I took quite a few along with the grays. I wanted one mounted so sent a large one to the taxidermist. They certainly are less skittish than the grays.
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Brokennock said:
Now your confusing me calling fox squirrels "reds."
We have red squirrels here, they are not fox squirrels. They are much smaller than grey squirrels, but bigger than chipmunks. And, are anything but enjoyable or entertaining when one is hunting. If they see you, they find a perch where they can see you and start barking incessantly for unbelievably long periods of time. Not worth shooting for the meat but you'll want to just to cease the noise after a half hour or more.
They're mostly found in areas with a lot of pines. I'm considering carrying a slingshot when I hunt areas with lots of them.
We call those little ones pine squirrels.
 
I have them here in Tn. There are about 10 as many grays in my area as there are fox squirrels.

Where I was raised in Al. fox squirrels were few and far between. Only certain areas had a few.
 
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