I dug through my gun safe last week and found my old Ruger 10/22 that I coon hunted with back in the early 1990s. I sighted it in at 30 yards and went hunting with it Saturday morning in Fayette County (SW TN). This would be my first time squirrel hunting with a rifle and not a scattergun. I was hunting a new place so I did not know what to expect or if it was even a decent woodlot for squirrels. It ended up being fair with a mixture of oaks, hickories and pines, amongst other various species. Needless to say, I started out slow and had only managed one squirrel (out of three I had seen at that point) in the first hour. I was thinking, boy this is going to be some kind of slow compared to me blowing them down with the shotgun like I had for so many years. At that point I told myself that my goal was five and anything above and beyond that would be icing on the cake. Long story short, I managed to shoot out six, but one got on the ground and got in a hole so I only brought out five. I should have had two more that were chip shots but I flat out missed them. I shot the bark off the tree right next to their heads and they lit the woods up running away from me; I don't blame them, I would have too. All in all, it was a good hunt and I learned a fair amount, but I still have a ways to go as far as chasing these bushytails, picking my shots and hitting them in the neck/shoulder area with a .22. While it was far more challenging, it was far more rewarding to make it happen with a single shot from a .22.

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Andy S.