One Tough Texas Squirrel

Ok folks, I think you all remember the ninja squirrel I ran into in Tennessee a couple of years ago. Well I’m here to tell you, Texas has some ninja squirrels also. AND THEY’RE BIG!!!!
A couple of days ago Mark Johnson and I were finally able to get out and try our luck at some bowhunting. I set Johnson up in a ground blind, which I made a few months ago. I made the blind in September when I shot my first two bucks. You may recall it was made out of some cedar tree limbs. It’s set up really nice, so I get Johnson set up about 0530 and I go up to the other ground blind on the little hill about 100 yards away. The plan is to hopefully see some does or maybe even a buck, and knock at least one and possibly two down this morning so we can get back home and start processing them. About 0645 the feeder goes off and I’m thinking, in a few minutes them deer will be running in saying, here I am, here I am, take me, take me. As I sit looking around I don’t see a thing, and it’s about 0710 when I hear Johnson take a shot at something. As I look around the shrub I’m leaning against towards where Johnson is at, I see the hind end of a deer running into the brush so I figured I’d give it about 45 minutes and then we’d start looking for it. At 0810 I approach Johnson and he tells me 4 Axis deer came strolling in to about 24 yards. After a few minutes of watching them he takes a shot and now it’s the moment of truth. He points out where the deer were standing and we start looking for some type of sign indicating he got a hit. After looking for a long time we didn’t find a trace of blood nor the arrow. Who knows where the arrow went. So after satisfying our mind that a) he missed and b) we lost the arrow, and c)we weren’t going to be processing any deer meet today, we decided to get back into the blind since the turkeys usually show up around noon.
So we agreed to wait for the turkeys.

Well if you have never hunted in Texas, you’re in for a surprise. When we got here the temperature was in the high 40’s, with a nice breeze. Now at 10 am it was in the 70’s with not much of a breeze and it was getting hot and we were facing the sun. I glanced over to Johnson and tell him about the big squirrels Elliott has seen out here. That’s right, Elliott said he has 3 or 4 large squirrels coming to the feeder, and since we aren’t seeing any deer I’d like to take a try at one of them squirrels with my bow. Heck, it wasn’t 15 minutes later when I glance up towards the turkey feeder and see a large squirrel eating some corn. Hey Johnson, there’s that squirrel and I’m going take it with my bow. Well I’ll try and take it!! So I get out my handy dandy Nikon rangefinder I just bought last month that I’m dying to use. I range the squirrel at 28 yards. As I am ranging it the squirrel sees me and stands on its hind legs and looks straight at us. As it stands on its hind legs looking at us I can’t help but notice it is rather large, and looks to be as large as my dog which is a dachshund. Johnson says “if you hit that squirrel at 28 yards, you are the man”. As I draw my bow and look thru the peep sight that’s when it happens. I don’t know if Johnson saw it but that squirrel shot the bird at me. No kidding, that’s what I saw, and then it ran up a little tree it was standing next to. It layed on the branch like it was working on it’s tan. The nerve of that little varmint shooting the bird at me. So I took aim and I’ll have to be honest, I didn’t think I would hit that critter. As I released the arrow I could see that arrow fly and then WHOMP it hit that squirrel and knocked it off the tree. The only thing Johnson could say was “holy - - - -“, holy - - - -. We sat there for a few seconds and the only thing I heard from Johnson for a few seconds was “holy - - - -“. Heck I couldn’t believe I hit that squirrel at 28 yards, but I did and we went to get it, since I would be eating squirrel nuggets tonight. The story doesn’t end there. As we got close to where I hit it we could see the squirrel running through the brush and then it ran up a big oak tree. As it was running I kept saying to myself “what’s wrong with this picture”. Then I notice that squirrel is running up the tree with my arrow still stuck in it. Johnson and I looked at each other in disbelief. That ole squirrel was running with my arrow stuck in it. The arrow was sideways through it and when it got up about 20 feet on the oak tree it tried going into the hole but couldn’t. Then in a hurried move it maneuvered the arrow, that was still stuck in it, through the hole in the oak tree and worked it’s way down into the tree. We never saw the squirrel again. I’ve attached a picture of what the squirrel or any other animal would see, and as you can see it’s a pretty good hiding spot. Well so much for squirrel nuggets tonight.