Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Found this back in the woods

I also saw that you can catch lots of worms by using crushed walnuts soaked in water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZutYfFwm8M

Don't have any around here but looks fun.

Rob C

Keep your squirrel tails when you shoot them. If done properly, Mepp's will buy them from you or trade for spinners. They make the hook dressings from the tail fur for their spinners. I ate a lot of squirrel in college. They're great in a pressure cooker. 6 a day is the limit. I went through a lot of .22 lr shells. Loved the CCI Velocitors. Were fast and accurate out of my rifle.

I have 340 acres that comes out to about 7000 trees.

I will actually buy the bullets for friends if they promise to shoot squirrels and crows!

There's some good videos on skinning squirrels and with what you've all said about cooking 'em, I gotta give it a try. Seems like I've cooked everything except Opossum, Squirrel and Raccoon since I've lived here, but the Coons are on my list! After ridding my pond of over 1400 BCP so far, the Coons are well-fed and fat, as witnessed on my trail cams!

I didn't get a chance at the squirrels this weekend (but when I do I'll keep the tails) but I did try the walnuts-for-worms experiment and had a dozen in no time, and on very dry ground. That was one I had to try for myself and can say that it truly works!

I have 340 acres that comes out to about 7000 trees.

I will actually buy the bullets for friends if they promise to shoot squirrels and crows!

When it comes to cooking Coons and Opossum I started losing interest pretty quickly after doing some research, so I think I'll leave those in the "things I've wondered about, but not for very long" column.

And for what you said about the possum, nuff said!

Unless your trees are really sparse, you should have a heck of a lot more than 7000 trees. If you assume trees on a 10-foot spacing, that gives you over 400 trees per acres -- and that is on the low end for many unmanaged forests. So, further assuming that 300 of your 340 acres is wooded, that still gives you well over 100,000 trees. Then, let's assume you have 1 squirrel for every 100 trees, which is again probably very low. That is 1000 squirrels! That is a lot of squirrel dinners if you just take 10% per year.



I'm kind of like Andrew Zimmern, and there isn't much I haven't eaten in my life. For about 35 years, my career took me to a lot of very off-beat places where I always sampled the local foods. I hit a million air miles way back in 1978. The only places I ever got food poisoning while traveling was in Dayton, Ohio, and at the USN Acey-Duecy Club in Sasebo Japan -- both times on American food.

I've had possum and coon. I wouldn't try possum again, at least not if I had to clean it. I've never cleaned anything worse than a possum (I've never cleaned a vulture, but it couldn't be much worse). Because rabies in coons has become so prevalent, I no longer touch coons. I still "take out" a number of them each year, but I don't touch them. I leave them for the scavengers. If I have to move them, it is with the tractor front-end loader, or a pole and pulley I have, much like what the professionals use to grab wild animals from a distance.

But squirrels -- I'm trying hard to propagate a lot more fox squirrels. We still have a lot of small grey squirrels, which are hardly worth the effort of cleaning. The fox squirrels are a lot bigger, and they sure are tasty.

I apparently don't clean squirrels or rabbits like most people. I don't care about the hide/fur. I use wire cutters to clip off the tail and the legs at the knees. I take out the scent glands. Using a sharp knife I start in the middle of the belly, and cut the skin perpendicular to the belly/spine, and go all the way around. So, I've basically cut the skin in half, from head to tail. I then just grab it and pull the skin apart towards the head and tail. I cut off the head with a hatchet. I rinse the carcass under a hose, and then gut it. I'd say it takes me longer to find the tools to do it, that it does to do it.

Squirrel and rabbit are both extremely sweet meat. Sometimes I cook the whole cleaned carcass in a pressure cooker and pick the meat from the bones for stew or soup.


Other times I will quarter them, but throw away the ribs since they are so small. In this case, the quarters get battered and fried like chicken.

Good eatn'

I second hickory hull!

Those numbers you have are for pine. The recommended spacing for an irrigated pecan orchard in Georgia is 34 trees per acre. That is a 50' row with the trees 25' in the row, but even with this spacing if you do not intend to hedge the trees you will end up thinning down to 17 trees by15 years. Then down to 9 trees per acre by age 30. This is done in order to maximize the trees canopy exposure to the sun. With pecan trees nut production is at it's best when the trees are not crowded.

Thanks for the replies. I don't think what I have is worth the effort it takes to bend over and pick up. Sure wish i could find some walnut trees...