My first squirrel hunt/ kill

First squirrel

On 15/05/2012 I went out walking with a friend, Ben Saint and where we walk is sometimes uses for pheasant shoots, so there are pheasant feeders around there, and by some of the pheasant feeders someone had laid very strong rat/ squirrel traps and they were somewhat successful, we found one squirrel but it wasn’t dead it was trapped up around the shoulder so on the basis it didn’t squirm or run away when we got close we assumed it has been there a while so Ben took my knife and simply pushed it through the side of the neck, killing the squirrel almost instantly.

We took the squirrel which we named Shellie back to base camp, it’s the first squirrel I have ever skinned and first animal Ben had ever killed so it was an interesting effort to try and gut and skin it, but we did it, it took a long time, we used the Finnish Pukko knife. The video will be on YouTube soon I hope.

We then decided to light a fire and cook the squirrel, I had never eaten squirrel before so after spit roasting it over a fire we decided it was done enough to eat, It tasted great, no sauce no vegetables just plain meat straight of the bone, not a huge amount of meat but enough for Ben and I to have a good try each.

As we were walking out of our den we noticed more pheasant feeders, so in hope we had a look to see if they had traps, one more un-dead but seriously injured squirrel which was dispatched with another quick stab to the throat, and two outright dead but still warm ones, so on this discovery we pulled out our knives and skinned and gutted the lot of them, the 3 bodies currently are in a plastic bag in my freezer and Ben insisted on taking the skins, he wanted to practise tanning and making stuff from them.

So next time I see Ben we’re taking a squirrel and seeing if we can make a nice little sauce for it and make it all the nicer. Very successful day and I did take home one of the tails to try and save to put on my hat.

Hope you all have enjoyed my very brief recount of that glorious sunny squirrel hunting day.

Stay safe

God Bless
WWB

An update

I haven't posted in a long time, but in the last couple of months I have been out and done abit, here is a quick look back at the last couple of months:

I have been confirmed a place on an expedition trip to MADagascar so I have been doing some exped training, I went for a long walk in February with a couple friends, I carried 20 Kg for 19 miles which wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, It was a nice day out, explored a new area around my friends area, it was simply just walking, we stopped once for lunch, our pace was slower than normal walking but again it was quicker then I thought we would be.

In march we did another exped training camp, but this one was with the team who is going to MADagascar it was a two day walk in the Royal Forest of Dean, 15 miles first day and 9 the second, I carried less weight so it was more comfortable, we had to buy all our food at each stop so we didn't have to carry allot of food at any time. It was a very good camp but they put us in a campsite down in a valley at the beginning of March so when we woke up in the mourning it was very cold, frost everywhere, but it was a brilliant weekend.

Stay Safe
God Bless
WWB

A small day out with a Friend

Finaly free from extra work so managed to have a day out with a friend (28th Jan with Ben), packed a few tools and bits and bobs planned some reviews review and went for a walk, found a nice spot lit a small fire and did the videos, practised some carving and did some hawk throwing with a little less then perfect success luckily no damage so all good. Unfortunatly it was only a short day so need to get out again soon.
Stay safe out there guys
God Bless
Andew
WWB