You pretty much have to slow cook those fox squirrels, otherwise their meat is pretty tough! Since I normally just fry them I've gotten to where I'll pass up red fox squirrels unless they're small yearlings, grey squirrels are much more tender.
Up until maybe 5 or 6 years ago I had never seen a gray squirrel where I hunt...now it's about a 50/50 split. Not sure why they stayed away and/or decided to move in, but they did.
That is odd, where I live it's probably 70/30 in favor of grey squirrels. I think grey squirrels are more hardy, I wouldn't be surprised if you see a larger percentage of them eventually. I've even seen smaller 2lb grey's chase larger 4lb fox's out of nut trees before, they seem to be more aggressive as well when they need to be.
There is only certain areas around here with fox squirrels. Most places it's 100% grey squirrel. I have 130 acres of mixed hardwoods and a small amount of pine in the piedmont and I have zero fox squirrels on my property.
That's how I do it. I thought everyone did it like this? Are yall skinning them like you would a deer? Cut up the legs and pull it off each leg at the time then body? I still remember the time my buddy and I went squirrel hunting while in college on college property (school has 17000 acres and most is hunt able so don't think we were shooting Them on like the square or outside buildings on the lawn or anything like that. We took them back to one of the first buildings we could find open late that afternoon, really right at dark. We cleaned those things in the sink in the building bathroom and put the skin ls in a bag and threw in the dumpster. The few guys That came in the bathroom looked at us funny!! Haha. But heck this was Clemson!!!! South Carolinas "cow college".!!!!
A thread about squirrel hunting! I think I am going to fit in just fine around here. lol The top picture is of my dog Jake on his first solo hunt earlier this year. He just turned 2 in March . We killed 4 in just over an hour. The second picture is of our overall best hunt of the year. 10 in 2.5 hrs. after deer season we run squirrel dogs ever sunday after church and most Saturday too.
Yea they can have fleas, but deer are filled with fleas and ticks as well. But they generally leave the animal when it dies. And you don't eat the skin.
It's amazing how quickly fleas realize their host is dead and start evacuating. I've never noticed fleas on squirrels, probably because their fur is darker and it's harder to see them. But I've shot rabbits, and by the time I've walked the 20 or so yards to pick them up you can already see the fleas jumping off.
I've always skinned them like that, but have never thought to use running water. Thanks for the vid, I'll have to try using water next time.
Yep. And we can use a 338 Lapua if we want to....but we can't use that same gun on deer. We have stupid laws here in Hoosier land.
CurDog correct me if I am wrong but I beleive we can use whatever caliber we want to as well on private land too.
