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Post by Purebred Redneck on Apr 1, 2008 13:23:19 GMT -5
The website is pretty accurate
The grey squirrels like the big woods. The fox squirrels hang out around fields or narrow strips.
If you drive down in the ozarks, you're going to find a ton of grey squirrels just because a 10,000 acre national forest may only have 100 acres of field. Now you'll find some fox squirrels near those fields and some creek bottoms but that's probably about it.
Likewise, if you go up into northern missouri where 10,000 acres might only have 100 acres of woods --- the fox squirrels are much more abundant. But you're going to find grey squirrels too whereever a sizable piece of timber is.
99% of the squirrel hunting I do is along the interstate 70 line from St. Louis to Columbia --- specifically busch, danville, and whetstone. It's pretty much a 50/50 mix of fields and woods so you're likely to encounter both at the same time. Although it still holds true that the bigger woods there are, the more grey squirrels there will be. And of course the more fields you have, the more fox squirrels there will be.
I like the fox squirrels better because they are bigger. Most of my hunting is done may-sept in the mornings. The squirrels are scattered and temps get hot pretty quick so you may only kill 1-3 squirrels each day. So to make it worth my while, I want to try to kill some big ones. Besides, old roads between two fields on the conservations grounds are good to walk on. The woods may be only 50 yards wide (prime ground for either squirrel) and it makes it easy to get into range quietly. You scare one off, he doesn't have anywhere to go. You just sit down for 15 minutes and shoot him when he pokes his head out. ;D
Now in late sept and october, I'll head into the bigger woods and I'll kill my 5-6 grey squirrels each day. When they are that easy to kill, greys are alright. It takes two greys to equal one fox. But by the middle of october I've probably killed 100-150 squirrels that year so I'm pretty sick of it. Besides, it's time to get the bow out anyway.
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Post by jimh on Apr 1, 2008 13:38:42 GMT -5
Red, you're 180 degrees from what that web site mentioned. yep they are dbl the size though and hung like a horse too! (well a 3lb horse anyway)
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Post by Purebred Redneck on Apr 1, 2008 15:34:48 GMT -5
"Both of these rodents occur throughout Missouri, but the gray squirrel is more abundant in the Ozark and Mississippi lowland regions, while the fox squirrel is more common in the northern and western prairies."
"The grays are more common in the smaller bottomlands and the "foxes" along the higher ridges. In the prairie regions of the state, fox squirrels are found along the few remaining Osage orange hedge fences,in farm woodlots, along timbered fence rows and in timbered draws. "
That's pretty close to what I said. I only disagree with one sentance --- I think they have that backwards. Whether it's a typo or if we differ, I don't know. "The grays are more common in the smaller bottomlands and the "foxes" along the higher ridges.
I'm also not 100% sure what a Mississippi lowland is. To me, that's fox squirrel habitat. But I'm not sure what they're talking about.
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Post by jmarriott on Apr 1, 2008 16:13:56 GMT -5
I got to agree with PBR on this. (Oh my GOSH, did i just write that).
Fox tree rats are in the river bottoms and greys on the ridges in Indiana at least.
Fox's are on my hit list and I have to go to the big woods in the south to get grey's. We can still shoot tree rats out of non motorized boats and some of my favorite hunts are in the southren Indiana lakes in the fall. I think the season starts in august but normally i let the leaves start to fall before i go cause they get lots of flea's on them here and the august temp's are just to hot to enjoy a whole day of tree ratting. I alway's have the 22 mag winchester with me while scouting deer.
I could find no mention of tree rat harvest's in Indiana.
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Post by jimiowa on Apr 1, 2008 16:21:45 GMT -5
Groundhog are pretty rare in my part of the state. They are considered a fur bearer in iow and require either a fur harvester or hunting license, season does not open till June.
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Post by jimh on Apr 1, 2008 18:47:58 GMT -5
well Red i knew there was something backwards. i'm telling ya though i see more fox squirrels in the ozark region than the greys, specificly in the montauk, rolla, licking area.
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Post by Purebred Redneck on Apr 2, 2008 9:16:05 GMT -5
I'll agree with that but that's a unique part of the ozarks.
There's lots of rivers & valleys as well as cattle country down there. Anywhere halfway open is going to have the fox squirrels
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Post by jimiowa on Apr 2, 2008 10:55:27 GMT -5
Since dense forrest is rare in Iowa most of our squirrel are Fox. There are Greys in some dense forrest areas. I remeber having visitors down from Dubuque and their son was quite facinated with the Fox Squirrels since they only had Greys up there along the Mississippi River.
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bounce
Royal Member
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Post by bounce on Apr 2, 2008 12:03:16 GMT -5
All we had were the big red Fox Squirrels a round hear and in my young hunting days Dad had a 80 acre farm mostly pasture, creek, buildings with two corn cribs and several acers of big cottonwood trees. We would fill the corn cribs every year and they would be full all winter and not emtyed till late summer usealy. To drive in the drive way are .22's were allways locked & loaded, drive in fast everyone would jump out and start shooting away as the squirrels would run everywere. This was to last as long as we had time for as we were allways there to work allso. But a dozen or so was normal and they were "BIG" and fat some may well have ben 5lbs though we never weighed any. In 1978 bought this place were I live now and traded the squirrel farm for 80 acers close to me. The new owner of the squirrel farm took out the trees & buildings and put in a pivit with 80 acers he owend just to the west side of the squirrel farm so today their are no more squirrles there.
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Post by deputydon on Apr 2, 2008 15:54:33 GMT -5
Which brings up a good point....Unfortunetly modern farming does NOT benefit wildlife....
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bounce
Royal Member
Posts: 5,727
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Post by bounce on Apr 2, 2008 17:03:44 GMT -5
No it shure dosent, We don't do the habitat like we use to [Hebicide] and we don't leave them any grain anymore. By the way DD I would call my earcorn feeder Idea sucsessfull, one corn ventalater fed out 4 bu. of corn December through mid march. Squirrels were the bigest feeders fowlowed by rabbits, Pheasants, birds [Bluejay,Cardnals,etc,]
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Post by Jack on Apr 3, 2008 8:08:41 GMT -5
".Unfortunetly modern farming does NOT benefit wildlife...." I'd have to agree, at least in some ways. Around here, in the 70's the local farmers took out all the hedgerows- I believe there was a gov't program to get more acreage in production. Hedgerows here used to be a 6-10 foot strip where there was a fence, possibly, piles of rocks, brush growing, trees, too. Great cover for a lot of game. Also, the varieties of alfalfa grown here mature a lot faster than older varieties. First cutting is likely to be mid May- just when pheasants are on the nests in the alfalfa fields. Those 2 factors pretty much wiped out a huge population of pheasants in my area. In the 60's, opening day of pheasant season, some schools closed- nobody went, anyway. Now I rarely see one. And of course, when you turn farms into suburbs, the only game that benefits is the deer that eat the shrubs, and you can't hunt the deer in the 'burbs, anyway. Oh, and coyotes eating the 'burb cats.
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Post by jimiowa on Apr 3, 2008 8:38:27 GMT -5
We do well in some areas and not so well in others. While Farmers are starting to put in more greenbelts along streams to stop erosin before it get to the streams. The advent of Bio Fuels (Iowa being something of a leader state in that field) and the reduction in CRP(Consevation Reserve Program) funding. Has resulted in a habitat reduction. However there are other things that get into it. Turkey are being blamed for the reduction in pheasant populations in Iowa. It is said that they break pheasant eggs in the nest. Our Turkey population is exploding due to having no or few predators that can take a turkey consistantly. That is competetion for habitat. I could go on and on but you get the picture. It seems to me the more Man tries to manage the eco-system the more it get's messed up?
As for Squrrel, they are pretty safe in Iowa because the places they live are where one can't drive a tractor.
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Post by Jack on Apr 3, 2008 12:50:32 GMT -5
Jim, I hadn't heard the thing about turkeys breaking pheasant eggs. We do have a good population of turkeys in NY, so who knows? As you say, it's rarely a simple, one line answer.
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Post by jmarriott on Apr 20, 2008 5:36:44 GMT -5
I got a nice hog at 200 paces yesterday. head shot with the .222 rem. The other one was just about 50 yards but the 200 yarder was the days trophy.
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