I hope everyone had a good deer season and got to shoot what they wanted, either a trophy for the wall or a freezer full of meat.  Or both!! But now that it is over, it is time to turn to small game.  Many of us older folks grew up hunting squirrels, rabbits and game birds, and there is about six weeks left to hunt them.

    Learning to hunt squirrels and rabbits is great training for hunting big game.  You learn to read signs, be patient, acquire shooting skills and identify food sources that will help when hunting deer, turkey or anything else.

    This time of year is both a challenge and a blessing.  With leaves off the trees, you can spot a tree rat a long way off as it scurries from limb to limb. But they can see you just as far away and hide before you get near. And if you jump a rabbit you can get a decent shot.

    There is no food in the trees, either.  So you won’t be able to sneak up on a trembling limb where a squirrel is busy cutting pine cones or acorns and not paying enough attention for predators like you.  When they are feeding in the trees you can often get in close for an easy shot. Not with bare trees!

    Squirrels feed on the ground this time of year. When they see movement, they will run up a tree to a hidey hole and you may never see them again.  But sometimes they just flatten against the tree on the opposite side, so you can throw a stick to that side and make them move around for a shot.

    When food sources like oak trees dropping acorns are available, you can set up near one and let the squirrels come to you.  Not gonna happen after Christmas.  Now you have to still hunt, easing through the woods alert to seeing or hearing a squirrel before is hears or sees you.

    That kind of hunting will help you still hunt for deer but multiply the squirrels ability to spot you before you spot them by about a thousand times for a deer.  But it is fun, keeps you warmer than sitting still, and can be very productive.

    My good friend AT had a pack of rabbit beagles, and we ran rabbits almost every Saturday after deer season when I was in high school. Deer season was limited to the month of November and one week at Christmas back then, so we stated letting the dogs out in early December.

    I loved listening to the dogs run and figuring out where the bunny would circle back ahead of them so I could be in position for a shot.  Rabbit hunting with dogs is easy compared to without them.

    I killed my first rabbit while squirrel hunting with my .410. As I eased along a field line looking for activity in the trees, I jumped a cottontail and hit it as it bounced away.  I think daddy and mama were as proud as I was that day!

    Once after a light snow AT didn’t want to let his dogs out, so we hunted without them.  We went to a farm where the owner had cut timber a year before, so there were brush piles all over the place between his fields. We would go up to a pile and one of us would get in position while the other climbed into the brush, shaking the pile to spook the rabbit.

That’s what my friend and fellow writer Daryl Gay calls “Rabbit Stomping,” the name of one of his humorous books.

Dove season was over by Christmas, but we still hunted quail some.  Most of our quail hunting was earlier in the year, though. Daddy often said he did not like to put too much pressure on the coveys we hunted, they had a tough time just surviving in the winter without being pushed, scattered and harassed by us.

I miss those hunting days but nowadays I prefer spending time in my bass boat in the winter!