When the statewide hunting season on squirrels opened on Oct. 13, many young hunters were sitting in a classroom wishing that they could have been out there in the woods waiting for a squirrel to show themselves. They shouldn’t have worried. Their hunting days began on the following Saturday and, as long as they have the free time in the future, the season will remain open until February 28, 2015. With weekends and holidays, they should have plenty of time to pursue these animals.

Most of the squirrels that hunters will take here in North Carolina will be gray or (in the mountains) red squirrels. If they’re very lucky, they might have a chance to kill one of our scarce fox squirrels. If their hunting skills are elite, they might even take a limit of gray squirrels, which is 8 per day with no possession or season limits. The daily limit on the larger fox squirrels is one with a possession limit of two and seasonal of 10.

Hunters under the age of 16 are not required by law to have a hunting license, but they may purchase a lifetime license and hunt with this license as long as they have successfully completed the hunter education course or they are accompanied by an adult who is at least 18 years of age and is licensed to hunt in North Carolina. The older hunter must remain in close proximity to the younger hunter at all times they are in the woods. Enforcement officers tell me that they interpret this as “being within arms reach” of the younger hunter.

Unless young hunters are experienced enough to shoot a squirrel with a 22 rifle, they usually start hunting with a small gauge shotgun, such as a 410 or 20. Really accomplished hunters will use a 22 and consider it “unsportsmanlike” to shoot the squirrel in any place other than the head. Using solid (not hollow point) bullets doesn’t ruin much of the edible meat.

Curiously, I know of several very experienced squirrel hunters, who only hunt the larger fox squirrels. Although the fox squirrels are edible, these specialized squirrel hunters want to shoot very uniquely colored fox squirrels that don’t match any of the mounted fox squirrels that they’ve previously shot. They use shotguns instead of a rifle because the smaller shot from a shotgun tears up less of the animal’s skin making it better for the taxidermist to work with.

Although some hunters will use trained dogs to help locate the squirrels, most hunters will choose to hunt alone and just sit quietly in a feeding area and wait for the squirrels to come to them.

Once you’ve shot a squirrel and it falls to the ground dead, hunters often just resume the still-hunting and sit quietly with as little movement as possible to wait for other animals to come within range. Often you can take several squirrels from one sitting session before moving to another productive looking spot.

Still hunting for squirrels during the early season is a great way to kill them, but it’s a hunting method without its drawbacks. The leaves on the trees make spotting the animals hard. On the other hand, the insects and other varmints are very likely to be searching for a sedate hunter. Ticks, mosquitoes, sheep flies, horse flies and chiggers (red bugs) are also hunting hunters.

I was once sitting very still under a big hickory tree waiting for squirrels to show when I caught a slow bit of movement on the ground a couple of feet to my right. I continued to sit very still as a four-foot long black snake crawled slowly across my legs and went on his way. I don’t thing the snake even knew that I was there.

Since this early squirrel hunting season is still in the times of warmer weather, the leaves will still be on the trees. This makes it difficult to see the squirrels as they move about in search of food. Experience will teach the novice hunters to look for leaves moving to give them some idea as to where the squirrels are located.

I know several hunters that refer to squirrels as “rats with bushy tails,” but this doesn’t keep many hunters from eating squirrels. Properly gutted, skinned and prepared for the table squirrels are good eating. Wild game cookbooks offer a variety of good recipes for squirrel and some recipes actually call for the use of squirrel meat. Southern style Brunswick Stew is a good example for this.