Day 5 of the Season

 Made it out at dawn on Saturday for what was going to be a couple hours of hunting. I drive a Corolla, nothing fit for rough roads, so that usually means parking at the last easy parking area and then going on foot via road then trail then bushwhacking to wherever it is I've decide to sit. On this morning, I also planned to pick up a camera I'd left out early in the summer.

No sooner had I jumped off the trail to start bushwhacking did I hear squirrels in the trees chasing each other. Pausing for maybe five minutes to watch and listen, five different squirrels were moving around in the nearby canopy.  Three were together in the same small clump of trees so I focused on those and moved in closer, tree to tree. I still get a little adrenaline dump when realizing I'm likely to get a shot, so using the trees as a resting post makes a huge difference for controlling my wobble. 

The first shot I took felt steady, but either a slight flinch caused the round to hit far forward on the squirrel's head, at the nose. It was just a skim of the nose, and she didn't even react much other than to brush at it, but not knowing how badly or not I'd hit her, my heart sank to think I seemed to have only injured her.

After that partial miss, I moved in a bit closer again and succeeded in hitting all three squirrels within the next couple minutes. I believe the first rush of adrenaline passed and my subsequent shot were more calmly placed.

With three in the bag, that was enough for my opener, so I moved on to my nearby camera. Sitting down to review the video captures, it was exciting to find a short 5 second clip of a bobcat moving through. Bobcat was the last creature I'd not caught yet on camera from my north Georgia wishlist. No more!