very cold but clear with no wind this morning. squirrels out thick early today, but not eager to play with us. Slicks' rampage just getting started now, methinks. Lefty is kinda like the OSU defense. you never if the passionate, motivated team or the lazy, heartless team is gonna show up. Lefty did tree three squirrels today without riding Slicks tail to the tree. Slick treed three also. I killed one over each dog, all the rest ran in holes or timbered out to find one before I could get a clear shot at them. saw lots of squirrels today, but didn't do much shooting. Slick is doing great except for bouncing off of trees while I'm trying to find the squirrel or a makeable shot. I tied him at one today which timbered out. nearly hung himself trying to follow after the fleeing rat. Lefty did ok today, really, but he grabbed up both squirrels and thrashed them just as long as he could before I could catch him. that little mother fucker knows exactly what he's doing, too. on Wednesday I tried to beat him over the head with a dead squirrel. I genuinely offended him in doing so. he was horrified, but it damn sure got his attention. the next squirrel that hit the ground that day was Slicks and Lefty did not try to snatch it. I may be on to something. Slick grabs them up as soon as they hit the ground, too, but I yell "DROP" and he drops the squirrel and steps away and does not tear them up.
we went to a dozen or more dens and leaf nests today, too. no pics today. dogs whooped, especially Slick. I noticed something quite curious yesterday and today. yesterday and today I killed three very large mature fox squirrels. one boar, two sows. they all had fat on them like I've never seen on a small game animal of any sort. the sows looked "fat". very rotund and obese looking. all three had gobs of visceral fat and 1/4" thick back fat. so much fat on them that I had to trim it! I've skinned a lot of squirrels, but never seen anything like this before. hope it is indicative of a very bountiful food supply this year and not the coming of an Arctic winter.
I'm going to try to keep count of how many squirrels each dog trees that I can verify visually, not just how many I shoot out to each. sometimes I just cannot get a bullet in them. the ones that they fuck up on by leaving the tree won't be counted. so I have to adjust my original count to Slick 8, Lefty 2. after today,
Slick 11
Lefty 5