Photo by William Vaznis

At the close of deer season, we at Virginia Game & Fish hope you were able to fill your tags this season. You may be thinking about hanging up your hunting gear for the year, but there are three good reasons to keep the coat and shotgun handy: squirrel, rabbit and late-season dove hunting. All three seasons offer a faster-paced hunting trip that can often be done a short distance from home. The success rate of hunters venturing afield for small game in January is quite good.

SQUIRRELS
Squirrel hunting is reportedly the most popular small-game pursuit in Virginia. However, a survey in 2004 showed that only 32 percent of licensed hunters in Virginia hunted squirrels.

Pat Cook, small-game biologist with VDGIF, spoke with me and reported that squirrel hunter numbers have remained constant for 10 years. What does this mean for prospective squirrel hunters? Squirrel hunting is quite good and the pressure is very light on this agile small-game animal. In fact, according to Cook, squirrel populations have tripled since 1988.

Squirrel hunters will find that the hunting is good statewide. Squirrels are very adaptive and will live anywhere from downtown at the city hall to the deep woods. The last survey that VDGIF conducted reflected the greatest numbers of squirrels were in northern Virginia. Most WMAs have good populations of squirrels, which gives hunters without permission to hunt on private land a great place to go. Every corner of the state has some public land within a short drive.

Cook suggested that hunters go to the “Find Game” page on the VDGIF Web site. It can be found at http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/hunting/findgame.asp. The link allows users to locate areas near their home where they can hunt and the site lists which game animals can be found in each location. Once a location is selected, directions, facilities and a description can be brought up. This is a great tool for hunters to use when doing some research or scouting.

Late-Season Tips
Squirrel hunting in September and squirrel hunting in January requires two very different approaches. When hunting bushytails in September, you can get quite close to your meal of Brunswick stew. Shotguns loaded with light loads are preferred in the early fall when the squirrels are busy bouncing around in the tops of trees feeding on hickory nuts and acorn mast. Ranges are quite short at this time.

However, once the trees have shed their foliage and just about all of the mast has fallen to the ground, squirrels are more often found on the ground scrounging for cached meals instead of running from limb to limb in a tree. Because there is much less foliage, squirrels are also seen at a greater distance and they are more apt to spook and hide as a result. For this reason, many hunters will switch over to a .22 rifle to take squirrels in the late winter.

Squirrels will still be found in and around hardwood lots, just as they were in the early season. The difference is that hunters should approach the area very quietly and move very slowly. While a casual walk through a hardwood lot in early fall was productive, more time sitting and waiting is in the works for a late-season hunt. If there are beech trees in the area, they are a great place to spend some time hunting. Beech trees often retain their smaller nuts a little longer and offer squirrels a more abundant supply of winter food during years of poor acorn mast.