Was a nice sunny, warm day here today. I spent all day, from 7am until 3 pm, at work staring out the huge glass front doors of the precinct at the large section of open woods on the other side of the parking lot. All day I kept wishing I was roaming around those woods with one of my air guns. So,,, when I finally got off work I raced home and got changed to go hunting :)
I decided to give the .22 cal Panther her first hunting trip so I grabbed the Crosman Hollow Points that it likes so much and headed for the large section of woods down the street from my house. I parked in the designated parking spot (State Land) and as soon as I got out of the truck I heard squirrels barking behind me. I scanned the group of large pine trees behind me and sure enough there were 2 squirrels up there chasing each other around the trunk of one of the larger pines. I loaded a CPH into the Panther and crept towards the playful squirrels. I got within 20 yards but just as I was getting ready to shoulder the Panther they saw me and high tailed it to the top of the tree and disappeared. I tried to locate them in the branches but they were nowhere to be found. I think they made it to the safety of a large leaf nest in the top of the tree.
I had just purchased a new squirrel call so I decided to just sit tight and start calling after a few minutes. After about 10 minutes I started barking on the call and mixed in some chatter sounds. Immediately I got a response from a squirrel in the distance. I kept calling, he kept answering and each time he answered he sounded a little closer. After about 5 minutes of calling I could hear he was gettin close and then all of a sudden I saw movement in a tree about 40 yards away. There he was, barking away and tail flickering back and forth. I still didn't have a clear shot so I kept calling. He started moving again in my direction and within a minute or two he was in a big pine tree 30 yards out sitting out in the open on a thick branch barking his brains out. I leaned on a pine tree to my left, put the crosshairs of the leapers 3x9x32 on the nutters head and pulled the trigger. I immediately heard a loud "POP" followed by the squirrel falling off the branch and crashing to the forest floor. He did a 10 second death dance then layed still for good. The Panther drew blood and got the job done right out of the gate,,, she was now a hunter :) I retrieved the nutter, reloaded the Panther and headed down one of the foot paths that meander through the woods in search of another target.
I had walked about 200 yards when all of a sudden I heard something scurrying around in the leaf litter on the forest floor. I stood still and listened. It was off to my right and coming my way. As the sounds got louder I was able to make out 2 squirrels running almost directly at me, one squirrel chasing the other. At a distance of 10 yards the squirrel being chased ran up into a small tree, the second squirrel following him. This was my chance to get into a shooting position so I moved slowly towards them, but they noticed me immediately and both of the nutters took off into the branches leaping from tree to tree. I kept my gaze fixed on the bigger of the two and watched him run up to the very top of a large pine tree and disappear among the branches. It took me about 10 minutes of slowly circling the tree and peering intently at each branch in the tree, but I finally spotted him clinging to a small branch at the top. I had a hard time finding a good shooting location but I finally found a spot that gave me a clear shot of his shoulder angling up towards his head. Distance from me to him was 20 yards, but it was almost straight up which meant I had to aim the Panther almost completely vertical. When the crosshairs crossed his shoulder I fired and was rewarded with that same loud "POP". The squirrel clung on for a second then let go and plummeted to earth slamming into the forest floor. He didn't even twitch after the impact. Squirrel #2 was in the game bag and the Panther had proven herself again :)
I slowly hunted the trails until almost sunset and I did see 2 more squirrels, but I never got a shot at them. I decided to slowly walk the main trail back to the truck and keep my focus on the thick briar patches that line the trail. Sometimes in the late afternoon just before dark you can spot rabbits emerging from the briars as they begin to get active, so I was hoping I'd get lucky and spot one.
I was almost back to the truck and hadn't seen any rabbits when all of a sudden I saw an eye looking at me about 10 yards off the trail near a very thick briar patch. I already had a CPH loaded so I quickly zoomed down the scope from 9x to 4x, set the AO to 10 yards and shouldered the rifle. Put the crosshairs on his eye and then lowered the point of aim to compensate for the close range. Pulled the trigger, the gun fired and the rabbit simply fell over,,, his back legs kicking in the air for a second or two before he layed still. Got a couple of deep scratches retrieving the rabbit but it was worth it.
I was completely satisfied with the Panthers first hunt. She performed outstanding, the CPH's peformed excellent, and together they formed a very lethal combination. I haven't chrony'd the Panther yet, but after todays performance I'm going to chrony her on my first day off. The rifle was really knocking the stuffings outa those tree rats.
Got home and took some pics for posting. It was a little dark when I took the pics so you can't really see the rifle that well, but you can see her handy work just fine :)
Jeff
