GTA
General Discussion To Gateway To Airguns => Hunting Gate => : June 16, 2007, 11:41:12 AM
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Saturdays are great. I can be at home all day and get plenty of opportunities to shoot the local squirrel population that happens into my backyard. Today was a fruitful hunting day. Four critters down for the count. I have included a couple of pics below. Most of these were at 20-30 yards. I have a couple of good places on my deck that I can use as a nice rest for my arm and make for a smooth shot at 30 yards. It really helped that I set up a target at 10 yards to work on my hold, breathing, and trigger pull and shot 40-50 shots in between squirrel visits. I can already tell that developing good technique is going to be the key to hunting and shooting from a standing position, etc.
well, in addition to shooting them, I decided it was time to take it to the next level by learning how to skin them. I searched the internet and decided to try what seemed to be most often called the "old timer method." Hey, its harder than it looks! For a video on this method, see this link. http://members.localnet.com/~nickdd/ (it is probably already on this board somewhere, I am not sure where I found it but it was very helpful and makes things look really easy.
My biggest problems (and I have only tried it four times now) are (1) cutting through the tail wrong and (2) how to skin the lower legs once the rest of the body is done. My wife was none too pleased with my decision to try this. I can tell its going to take a while before I can convince her we should cook them. I may have to find some way to just do it myself when she is out and about. Her interest in anything having to do with squirrels ends the moment they fall to the ground.
So any advice on skinning them would be much appreciated. Note that I didn't post the pictures of the squirrels without their hide but if that would help with the advice giving I will take some pictures as I go through the process next time.
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Great shootin Jason, what pellet's were you using to harvest the nutter's?. Very nice pic's of your baby with her trophy's. I put up a old post about easy squirrel skinning tech., this is how I do it also. Check it out. Ed
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Thanks, I am using Beeman FTS .22 pellets in an R9 Goldfinger. It is my first gun and I am only about finished with the first tin of pellets. I plan to shoot another tin of FTS through it and then perhaps branch out. The FTS seems like a good multipurpose pellet but I can already see the need for one that is more designed for hunting.
Given the power of the rifle I am using (a medium power one I think), if I am shooting at 20-30 yards, is it better to use a hollow point like the Crow Magnum or something like the penetrator?
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Yeah the crow mags will really whack them. Id try a set of predators also!! Those are simply evil on small game...
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Congratulations Jason,
Real good shooting, that Goldfinger is good shooting rifle, and looks just fine with its trophy !
Thanks for the photos !
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I'll give a second recommendation to the Predators. I don't know if you have Sportsmans Warehouse available, but they have the best price
on those that I have found so far. They definitely Git-R-Done!
Good shootin' with that new R9!