Tree Rats

Many years ago, I had a boyfriend, Roy, who taught me how to shoot various guns, rifles and shotguns. I really had an eye for hitting targets and I excelled in Skeet Shooting. For being a little thing back then, weighing in at one about hundred pounds, I wasn’t afraid to handle the biggest weapons. If the kickback got me, I chalked it up to having a bad stance. Falling on your butt or getting a horrendous bruise, was usually a good indication that you weren’t doing it right.

Anyhow...Roy finally felt comfortable enough with me to take me out on a couple of hunts. These hunts took place in the little town of Phil Campbell, Alabama. A quaint town that was located on one of the mountain tops between Russellville and Haleyville, with the population of about less than two hundred souls. Most of Phil Campbell was wooded or farmland, with loads of places to hunt or fish. And I had done plenty of fishing in and around that area, I had even taken a prize worthy crappy out of Factory Falls. But fishing isn’t the story I was gonna tell of. As I said, Roy decided I knew enough gun safety that he would take me out on a couple of hunts around the Thanksgiving Holiday.

It was to a bright cloudless morning that my first hunt began. I was armed with a .22 caliber, Rueger Centennial Rifle, and Roy with a .22 caliber Remington Rifle; we headed out to the woods behind the old homestead his mother still lived in. The wind was still for once since we had arrived there, a good portend that we would have some good luck hunting. Our prey? Tree rats, commonly known as squirrels.

I guess we had tramped the better part of two miles into the woods, talking only in hushed voices, we finally heard the rustling in the trees and on the ground as these tree rats foraged for their winter stocks. Crouching down behind the remains of a downed tree, we scanned the area looking for the small gray rodentia.

Roy spotted one first, it was about fifteen feet in front of us. A tree rat was sitting on the stump of the tree we were hiding behind. Fluffy tail flicking nervously, poised for a quick escape, the little creature sat back on its haunches to get a better look around. Roy put a bead on it, and pulled the trigger. The crack of his rifle made me flinch. The woods seemed to amplify the .22’s report, disturbing the crows we never saw but heard. Their raucous cawing signaling danger in the woods.

One second I saw the squirrel on the stump, the next, it had disappeared. My first thought was Roy had missed his small, frisky target. Roy got to his feet, clicking on the safety as he did and walked over to where the little critter once was. He bent over and lifted the still body of the squirrel by its tail. His bullet had neatly gone through the tiny head in a clean kill. With his trophy now tucked in the plastic lined hunting pouch, we resumed our trek to find my squirrel.

A rustling in a tall hemlock brought my eyes to turn upward to scan the treetops. Then I saw him, sitting on a branch about twenty some feet above our heads.

Settling the butt of my rifle into my shoulder, I squinted up the barrel, trying to get a bead on the tree rat that seemed frozen in place on the lofty branch. Taking in a breath and holding it, I pulled back the trigger. The branch just below the squirrel shattered and hung by strips of wood. The squirrel was now alarmed, it didn’t really seem to know where the assault had come from, but it still chattered a warning instinctively.

I swore under my breath when I looked over at Roy who was smiling with amusement. It seemed that shooting up a tree was going to be a liability for me. Undaunted by my miss, I aimed up to the high reaches of the hemlock, certain I had my bead on the critter. Again, I took my breath, held it and pulled back on the trigger. A small branch above my target disappeared. Taking a second quick breath, I shot again, this time taking out the very branch the squirrel sat upon. It’s little body tumbled downwards for a few feet before it managed to snatch onto another branch.

Now it hung upside down, chattering angrily at us before it made some truly phenomenal leaps that took it through the trees and out of sight. I think if that tree rat had hit the ground, I surely would have beaten it to death with the butt of my rifle.

Roy took out two more squirrels and we called it a hunt. I never did go squirrel hunting again after that day.