Bagging memories
A first time for everything
A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO, my craving for fried squirrel, biscuits and gravy got the best of me. I loaded the truck and headed to my favorite Kentucky ridge to harvest a few for dinner.
The chilly morning was a little overcast, with no wind—my favorite kind of day for hunting squirrels. The sun rose in a subdued gray sky as I entered the woods with my squirrel bag, rifle and a thick foam cushion I have used for years, along with a thermos of hot coffee, a soda and my traditional vittles of summer sausage and crackers. I had finished my first mug of coffee on the drive and was anxious to get to my spot near a grove of hickories and pour another.
I spotted a squirrel as I settled on my comfy cushion and leaned against a big hickory tree. I took a moment to pour a mugful of coffee and watched the steam rise from my cup. Coffee always tastes better when you’re sitting in the woods. I continued to watch the squirrel as it scurried up and down the same tree. It was clearly busy with something other than breakfast.
It wasn’t long until a second squirrel emerged from high in the hickory tree. He came from a den that I could observe clearly from my seat. The first squirrel ran past the second, and I noticed that as it entered the den, it carried in its mouth a stick with a few leaves still attached. I watched the den closely until finally the squirrel emerged and scampered down the tree just as the other one jumped into the den with a long piece of bark. My imagination carried me inside that den to see the squirrel at work.
In all my years of hunting squirrels and being in the woods, this was the first time I had seen squirrels tending to their den, like a robin in the spring tends to its nest. I watched this scene as I enjoyed my coffee. Finally, the thermos was empty. I had come for a bag full of squirrels, but I changed my mind.
I have seen a lot of things in the woods in my lifetime. Some things are possibly a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I cherish those memories. Seeing two squirrels work on their den is probably not that big a deal to most, but for me it was a first. I decided that this trip would mean more to me as it was. I stood up, shouldered my bag and headed home. Those squirrels and biscuits would have to wait.
KEN MCBROOM, an outdoors writer/photographer, created RamblingAngler.com. McBroom grew up in Lynchburg, Tennessee, and now lives in western Kentucky.
