Squirrel hunting still top draw in East Texas
For a goodly number of hunters whose venatic and cultural roots bore deep in the rich soil of the East Texas’ dark, tangled hardwood bottoms, the first Saturday in November — opening day of whitetailed deer season — is a sideshow, a day of sitting in a box in the woods instead of actively connecting with that world.
For them, the real opening day is Oct. 1, the traditional start of squirrel hunting season in the 51 East Texas counties holding the state’s best squirrel hunting, deepest squirrel hunting culture and, not surprisingly, the largest concentrations of these arboreal game animals.
And those wild squirrels are game animals, as different from the near-domesticated creatures that nibble potato chips offered by human hands in city parks and drain bird feeders in suburban back yards as a collie is from a coyote. Texas law recognizes this. State statutes give official “game animal” status to only seven animals; gray squirrels and fox squirrels are two of those seven. Challenging game
All it would take to enlighten someone who doesn’t understand just how challenging — and, most important, how rewarding — squirrel hunting is would be to take a non-believer to the lip of an expanse of hardwood bottomland along an East Texas waterway on a crisp autumn morning, hand them a scoped .22 rifle and tell them to try collecting a 10-squirrel daily bag limit.
Most would get lost, bloodied by greenbriar thorns, boots sucked off their feet when they stumbled into a “baygall,” and the only squirrels they are likely to see will be gray blurs streaking along a limb and bouncing through the forest canopy until they simply disappear like some wisp of fog.
To consistently take squirrels, a hunter needs to be just that: a hunter. It takes knowing how to read and navigate a wild landscape; move silently and carefully through it, constantly alert and aware of what you are seeing, hearing, smelling; understand the behavior of the quarry and how and when to make your move, take the shot and make it count. Cat country
Squirrel hunting is “the whole package,” my friend Dave Morrison, a life-long squirrel hunter and director of small-game programs for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, says. “It teaches you everything — every skill you need to be a good hunter.”
If you are a skilled squirrel hunter, you’re a skilled hunter. Period. The lessons learned in the squirrel woods translate to every other form of hunting.
East Texas is the heart of squirrel hunting this state, and the only region where it’s popular. Yes, squirrels are found across much of the state. But outside of East Texas, it’s mostly scattered and small populations of fox squirrels, the larger, more solitary and more adaptable of the two species hunted here and a creature of open, upland woods.
Fox squirrels are common in East Texas. But not nearly as common, or as challenging to hunt, as their gray squirrel cousins. Gray squirrels —“cat” squirrels to every East Texas squirrel hunter — account for 90 percent of the squirrels in the region, and that’s reflected in harvest; nine out of 10 squirrels taken in East Texas counties is a cat squirrel.
Cat squirrels are denizens of tangled bottomland and adjacent uplands, places with abundant mature hardwoods — red oak, white oak, hickory, pecan, walnut, beech — to which squirrels’ lives are inexorably tied. When hardwoods, especially oaks, have good years and produce fine crops of fat-rich acorns, squirrels tend to thrive. When they don’t, squirrels suffer.
And, for much of the past decade, East Texas’ squirrels suffered as poor acorn crops and drought that limited spring and summer greenery and berries/fruit —“soft mast” — took tolls. But that changed beginning three years ago with a wet winter and spring and a great mast crop in the autumn. That’s been repeated the past two years, with way-aboveaverage rainfall generally benefitting squirrels by providing great habitat conditions during spring and summer and good-to-- great mast crops getting them through autumn and winter.
This autumn looks like another good year for mast production. Anecdotally, oak acorn crops look at least average in many areas and above average to exceptional in some. Squirrel populations are up after three years of good conditions, although this year’s heavy flooding on some Texas rivers — Trinity, Neches and Sabine — appears to have reduced squirrel reproduction in the affected areas.
“Overall, squirrel numbers look very good in areas with good habitat,” Gary Calkins, Pineywoods district leader for TPWD’s wildlife division said. “And, just what we’re seeing and hearing from folks in the field, the acorn crop looks at least average. It should be a good season for squirrel hunters.”
At least it should for the squirrel hunters left in East Texas.
Ahalf-century ago, squirrel hunting was the top hunting activity in East Texas, drawing well over 100,000 hunters afield, almost all of them in the counties east of Interstate 45. More people hunted squirrels in East Texas than hunted any other game.
That changed as the region’s whitetail deer began booming in the 1960s and exploded in the 1970s and ‘80s. The number of deer hunters boomed, too. And squirrel hunter numbers declined, victim of a combination of changing land use practices that reduced squirrel habitat, increased focus on deer hunting and changes in the region’s culture and demographics.
Still, squirrel hunting has a strong following in the region, with a rough estimate of 50,000-60,000 heading afield each season. Spotty so far
While most squirrel hunting in East Texas occurs on private lands, the region holds a wealth of no-cost or low-cost public hunting opportunities. Good, even great, squirrel hunting can be had on national forests, state wildlife management areas, national wildlife refuges and preserves and on tracts in TPWD’s public hunting program.
Squirrel hunting success over the first couple of weeks of this season has been spotty, as it usually is with warm weather and heavy foliage making for tough hunting. That’ll change as weather cools and trees shed their leaves. Some of the best squirrel hunting of the season typically occurs around Thanksgiving, after a couple of strong cold fronts bring wind and rain that strips leaves and makes it a little easier for hunter to spot their quarry.
Squirrel season in the 51 East Texas counties runs through Feb. 26, with a 10-squirrel daily bag limit.