Today it was nice and dry in the 60's with a nice breeze. A refreshing change from the rainy grey weekend we had. I decided to walk around the property during my 'lunch hour', mainly along the hill in the back with the Condor in hand wearing my camo jacket & hat. Didn't make much difference since I was moving.. but hey I looked good and it was comfortable :) for a while anyway..
A few min. later I noticed a squirrel climbing down from my oak tree near the street and crossing the lawn all the way back to where the hill starts. He climbed a tree and seemed to make his way towards me. He was a good 30-35ft up and at least 30yds out when I lost sight of him as I was getting ready to locate him through the scope. I figured he had seen me by now and is being cautious. After about 10min. of hiding behind a tree and listening to the squirrel cracking nuts open, I started getting hot. I still couldn't locate him, and I didn't want to get too close to spook him. Besides he was still kind of close to the neighbor's driveway so I went back inside and took the camo jacket off re-thinking my strategy. I decided to stay by my favorite 2nd floor window for a little while to see if he thinks the danger is gone and give him a chance to make his way along the hill towards my position, as they usually do.
Sure enough not more than 3-4min. went by when I see him jump to another tree closer, and walking quickly and straight to a thin branch almost all the way out to the end to get some fruit or nuts. There were a lot of leaves at the end of that branch but I was able to spot his head through an opening but nothing else. That's good enough for me. His head was facing me diagonally at an angle and it was down as he was munching on something. I could take either a broadside headshot or a (semi-) frontal one since it was a weird angle. I went for the latter since his head was down and I had a decent view of at least 3/4 of the front of his head. A/O cleared things up real nice just a hair over 30, or around 31yds. Put the crosshairs on his skull close to his left eye and let the Kodiak do its thing. Big "crack" like sound and the squirrel falls and does a small death dance for no more than 2secs.
The 21gr lead projectile had traveled through its head and out the right shoulder again like one other time a couple of wks ago. The sheer power of the Condor enables the Kodiak to smash through everything and always exit its prey.
Of course there was another one near by which I spotted as I came out to collect this one, but he ran very high up a tree and I lost him. My neck started bothering me after a coule of min. looking up so I gave up on him although I would have liked to bring 2 squirrels to my neighbor so we can both have enough to eat for once. I had to go back to work but not before dropping the squirrel off at the neighbor's, since the wife doesn't allow critters dead or alive in the house. I can't wait to taste him tomorrow. I 'm hoping I 'll get another one and we can maybe have 2. Gotta go get some beer tonight :)
