Hunting Eastern Gray Squirrels in North Carolina
Whether you're hunting gray squirrels for sport or food, there are plenty of places to do so in North Carolina. Gray squirrels live in wooded areas as well as marshy ones, feeding during dawn and dusk hours. Squirrel hunters can use a number of weapons for hunting the rodents where permitted, including rifles, shotguns, handguns, vintage guns and muzzleloaders, and bows. Gray squirrel hunting season is October 1 to February 13 of every year. The daily limit is eight squirrels, and there is no season limit. You must have a valid North Carolina hunter's license to hunt squirrels.
Instructions
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Check out areas near you in which hunting is allowed and look for signs of the squirrel population. Large, messy nests are a give-away that gray squirrels live in the trees. In North Carolina, you can also hunt squirrels over bait, meaning that you can set up a bird feeder or other lure in your own yard and shoot the squirrels when they come in to feed. However, North Carolina law prohibits shooting at or into a squirrel's nest.
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Head out early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Experienced squirrel hunter David Franklin says that the best time to go squirrel hunting is "when there's a melting frost that, a heavy dew or fog, or after a good rain." Popular areas include hunting-permitted parts of the Appalachian mountains, Bladen Lakes State Forest Game Land, along the French Broad and Cape Fear Rivers, and the Holly Shelter Game Land. North Carolina law states that squirrel hunters must must wear a cap or hat made of hunter-orange material or an outer garment such as a vest or jacket of hunter orange material.
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Locate a place to stake out near trees with squirrel nests or in areas with lots of nuts such as acorns where the squirrels will come feed. Stay alert and have your weapon ready but with the safety on until a squirrel approaches.
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Use an appropriate load of shot or bullet. It doesn't take much to kill a squirrel; Franklin recommends No. 6 lead shot. Sounds of a gun going off don't usually scare squirrels away from an area right away, so you can stay in one place and get a lot of squirrels before moving on to another location.
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Aim for the squirrel's head if you plan to cook the squirrel later. If you are hunting for sport, you can shoot the squirrel anywhere. Collect shot squirrels in a bag for later skinning and other preparations if you will be eating them.
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References
- Photo Credit squirrel image by Kimberly Soper from Fotolia.com
