Texas has a list of birds and animals to hunt as long as your arm. The most popular is the white-tailed deer, followed by doves, ducks, quail and last, but not least—squirrels. Over the past 70 years, I’ve hunted them all, and I’m thoroughly convinced that the hardest, most demanding animal to hunt in Texas is the elusive Eastern gray squirrel.
These dominative tree squirrels that inhabit the hardwood bottoms of East Texas and westward up the Guadalupe River to Gonzales County will test the best hunters and bring most to their knees. “Why is grey squirrel hunting so demanding,” you ask. Well, I have chased squirrels over the years since I was 15 years old in Bowie County, and I know gray (cat) squirrels like the back of my hand.
There are two ways to hunt cat squirrels: still hunting and with a dog. Still hunting, when a hunter quietly goes through the woods, stopping for a few minutes where the habitat looks good for squirrels, is the most popular and productive. This is the hunt I’m most familiar with, and in most cases, it requires a shotgun.
Eastern gray squirrel—grendlekhan photo
Hunting grey squirrels with a dog is difficult, compared to fox squirrels, because grey squirrels will not “tree” and stay put for a shot. Grey squirrels will go up a tree, jump to other trees, until they get to a hollow tree with an escape hole. They hardly ever give the hunter a clear, still shot on a tree trunk or limb. Only hunters with a shotgun will fare well hunting with a dog, and they will probably shoot at the squirrel running and jumping.
I mentioned fox squirrels, so let’s look at the difference in fox and gray squirrels, and how they are hunted. The fox squirrel inhabits uplands, while gray squirrels live in creek and river bottoms. The larger fox squirrel is much more docile and can be hunted with a .22 rifle and also with a dog. On a scale of 1 to 10, meaning how hard they are to hunt, the fox would be a 2 and the gray would be a 9.
I grew up hunting squirrels in Bowie County in the Red River bottom and Barton Creek. Most of the squirrels were fox, and the only time I hunted gray squirrels was each October when we went to the Sulphur River bottom and Anderson creek, which flowed into the Sulphur. These two places were full of gray squirrels, and the wise hunter would be carrying a 12- gauge full choke with No. 4 or No. 6 high-velocity shells. Gray squirrels are “hell-to-pay.”
Fox squirrel—Mas3cf photo
Hogs ran wild in the Sulphur River bottom, and when we would leave the truck before daylight, it was a challenge to go into the dark woods and dodge the wild boars, or a sow with piglets. My first hunts on the Sulfur when I was a teenager were rather thrilling when I would scare up a bunch of hogs going to the squirrel woods.
The best guns for gray squirrels are 12-gauge full choke shotguns in double barrel, pump or automatic. I once used a single barreled 12-gauge Harrington & Richardson and I would hold two or three shells between my fingers so I could reload rapidly when the squirrels were running and jumping. I could shoot and reload pretty fast and on one trip, a hunting partner said I could shoot the single shot faster than he could shoot his Winchester pump. I switched to a double barrel Stevens for most of my gray squirrel hunting.
Gray squirrel hunting will bring most good hunters to the “lick log.” They are smart, they are fast, they will jump out the top of a 60-foot oak and hit the ground running. They can hide on bare ground when wounded and they are active at the crack of dawn when a hunter can hardly see. As a challenge, the Eastern gray squirrel is the hardest to hunt of all Texas game species.
