Spring is for squirrels

North Carolina’s spring squirrel season begins May 12

A gathering of squirrels is called a “scurry” or a “dray.” Basil Watts, a retired Cape Fear River Pilot from Southport, NC, was astounded when he witnessed what he called a scurry of gray squirrels during a hunt in May 2024.

“I was sitting in a folding chair in a patch of woods in Pender County, NC,” he said. “All of a sudden, I heard scraping and rustling. The sounds were made by a gray squirrel that was scampering along the top of the trunk of an oak tree that had been blown down, so it was laying parallel to the ground. I could see the squirrel running along. Then another one appeared, then another and another. Before I could get a clear shot through the bushes, I had seen at least a dozen squirrels. It looked like they were having a parade.”

Watts was able to get off some shots with his shotgun. When he left the woods, he was carrying two squirrels in a plastic grocery bag stuffed inside his game vest pocket.

Great hunting conditions

“It was just something I thought I would try,” he said. “I didn’t realize the hunting would be as good as it is in the fall and winter. Truthfully, it was better. The squirrels were obviously following one another by scent, like they do at other times of year – particularly during the January breeding season. I had seen a few squirrels chasing each other during the January squirrel ‘rut’ and there would be a half-dozen squirrels in the same tree. But I have never seen that many in one spot at the same time.”

Watts was taking advantage of an expansion of the North Carolina gray squirrel season that was first opened in May 2023. He hunted several days using a double-barrel 20-gauge shotgun loaded with 1 ounce of No. 6 lead shot, or a double-barrel .410-bore shotgun loaded with No. 7 1/2 lead shot. The season applies only to private land in North Carolina, and hunters must wear the appropriate hunter orange clothing unless they are owners of the property they are hunting. The 2025 season dates are May 12 through 26. The bag limit is 8 gray squirrels.

“I have used a Mr. Squirrel call and had a few squirrels respond to it,” he said. “It imitates the sound of a gray squirrel either being killed by a hawk or an owl, or the whistling of a hawk as it attacks the squirrel. I just follow the directions that came with the call, using it while shaking a branch against the ground to sound like a squirrel struggling in the talons of a raptor. It makes squirrels move or otherwise reveal themselves by scolding or flicking their tales. I have even had a few squirrels come to me when I was using a dog whistle to make sounds like a scolding squirrel. Sometimes calls work. It is usually when the wind is very calm and squirrels haven’t seen you. Most of the time, they don’t work, but it’s always fun to try them.”

Watts also hunts by stalking slowly through the woods, looking up in the trees. In spring, squirrels feed on different foods than they do in autumn and winter. The best conditions are calm or during a very light wind, when squirrels that are moving through the trees can be detected by the sight of moving tree limbs. A foggy morning or a day with misty rain is also great because water drops dislodged by squirrels moving through the trees allow a hunter to pinpoint them by the sounds.

Lots of movement

“They eat green pine cones and hardwood leaf buds in May,” he said. “It can be difficult to get a clear shot at a squirrel because they are always moving. They act different then they do in the fall, when a squirrel may carry a hickory nut to his favorite sitting place on a branch against the trunk of a tree to eat it. They also spend a lot of time on the ground in fall and winter. In May, a squirrel is always scampering along twigs and limbs, bouncing as it feeds. You aren’t likely to get a shot at a stationary target, so you have a better chance of hitting one with a shotgun than with a rifle.”

Another hunter, who hunted gray squirrels in Pender County during the 2024 May season was Bruce Trujillo, a semi-retired machinist from Castle Hayne, NC. He hunts squirrels with a Carolina Cur named Poncho.

“I was skeptical of hunting squirrels that time of year, although I have hunted squirrels in Georgia in August and in other states that have summer seasons,” Trujillo said. “I tree squirrels with Poncho year-round for training. But when we are training during warmer months, we go to open areas like yards and parks, where I can watch for poisonous snakes.”

Poncho was bitten by a snake during the fall hunting season a few years ago. Although he did not know the species that envenomated his small dog, Trujillo guessed it was a copperhead or cottonmouth.

“I see copperheads in the fall and cottonmouths all the way into January and February,” he said. “But we didn’t see any snakes during our May hunts. The weather was warm enough for snakes. In fact, the weather was extraordinary, and the hunting was great.”

Sound science

Trujillo carried his .22 Ruger semiautomatic rifle and I carried a Remington 541-T loaded with .22 long rifle high velocity hollow points. He loads his rifle with standard velocity ammo to preclude excessive meat damage, and we both try to shoot squirrels in the head. However, the squirrels Poncho treed were difficult to see, or were running. We only bagged two squirrels. During the next hunt, he carried a 20-gauge shotgun loaded with No. 6 shot. I carried a .410-bore shotgun loaded with No. 7 1/2 shot. As odds would have it, most of the treed squirrels presented easy-to-see stationary targets despite the trees being fully leaved.

“I prefer using a rifle because I like the challenge of hitting squirrels,” he said. “You always have to make the decision about which firearm will be better for the particular hunting conditions. If there are two hunters and one of them carries a rifle and the other carries a shotgun, you are always going to be right.”  

Colleen Olfenbuttel is the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission Game Mammals and Surveys supervisor. She provided the background for the agency’s decision to host the May season.

“The season was proposed in May 2021 based on comments we had received from squirrel hunters, who asked if the Commission would consider a spring season,” she said. “Once we reviewed these comments, we agreed that it would create a unique opportunity to hunt gray squirrels during a time of year when other big and small game seasons were closed. We also identified at least 10 other southeastern states with spring squirrel seasons and none had reported any biological concerns or conflicts with other user groups. Lastly, to assure the proposed spring squirrel season would be biologically sound, we reviewed our data on gray squirrels and determined that a spring season would not have a detrimental impact on gray squirrel populations. We have seen a decline in squirrel hunters and harvest over the decades, so we also felt this season may serve as an opportunity for hunter retention and recruitment. The proposed new season received support during our public hearing process, with 62 percent of comments in favor of the spring season. The spring season was approved in February 2022 and the first gray squirrel spring season occurred in May 2023.”

Hunters and others may have had some concerns about the spring season. However, Olfenbuttel said the season was sound, based on the life cycle of gray squirrels, which have two breeding periods.

“The season follows the spring breeding pulse at the same interval that the fall season follows the summer breeding pulse,” she said. “The timing of the spring season is biologically appropriate, as is the fall season. In addition, the timing of the spring season allows increased hunter opportunity during a time of year when weather is mild, or even ideal, for hunting. In short, the spring gray squirrel season is a great opportunity for new hunters to get in the woods at a time of year when squirrel abundance is high and the spring weather is good.” 

Dealing with fleas

A hunter may notice itchy bites after handling gray squirrels. The animals are notorious as hosts for fleas.

“If you just stuff squirrels in your game vest pocket, the fleas may stay alive for a long time,” said Basil Watts. “They may jump off the squirrels and come out wherever you put the vest, whether it’s inside your house, inside your vehicle or on your clothes.”

Putting the squirrels in a zippered plastic food storage bag only solved part of the problem. The fleas still stayed alive and there could also be problems with warm squirrels spoiling in a sealed plastic bag in the heat of May.

“I remembered when my son, Ray, was in high school,” he said. “He was doing a bug collecting project and just dropped a cotton ball soaked in isopropyl alcohol inside a jar to kill insects. Now, I just spray any squirrels I shoot with alcohol and put them inside a grocery bag. It kills the fleas in seconds. Pump spray eyeglass lens cleaner also works well. So do eyeglass cleaning wipes.”