You guessed it - The Red Squirrel. During the summer of 2007, I got my fly reel back from having it repaired. When I went to the garage to put it back on my fly rod, I found the cork handle of the rod had been gnawed on substantially. I had known we had squirrels living in the garage, but they had always looked so cute and innocent before. However, when I looked at my ruined fly rod, I saw them differently. Yes, I saw those cute little squirrels for the destructive little buggers that they are. Now, I don’t own a .22, which is by far the best weapon to use, so I called my neighbor and they allowed me to borrow theirs. I wasn’t long picking off four squirrels, then the activity in my garage ceased. I left for university thinking that everything was just fine and dandy back home.

I was wrong. Boy! was I ever wrong. I was updated by my mother one day that there were at least four more squirrels in the garage. I told her not to bother with them; I would be home in December, and I would take care of them So, I returned home in early December from Ontario, and I found a few more than four squirrels. I still had the neighbours .22, and in my first day of making trips back and forth between the house and the garage, I shot four squirrels. I was quite proud of myself. Using an old .22 with open sights was a wonderful way to hone my shooting skills, and the bullets were cheap as well.

So, I kept up this daily ritual of making four or five trips from my house to my garage. I even saw a few squirrels on my porch, and since it is an open porch, they were fair game as well. Squirrel after squirrel fell to this trusty, albeit rusty rifle that I now had in my possession. Those squirrels didn’t stand a chance. Of course they didn’t help themselves by becoming tame and sitting still for me either. Sometimes they would run up in the rafters, but all I had to do was make a clicking noise and they would stop, and then drop.

This little sport of ‘Whack a squirrel’ that I had created during my time off of school certainly helped me get over the fact that I never had a chance to hunt any deer or grouse this past fall. My total stack of squirrels come the end of my time at home was 20 – 16 were shot in my garage, 2 were shot while sitting on my porch railing, 1 was knocked out of the tree in front of my barn, and 1 was knocked off of the roof of my birdhouse.

I thought I had killed them all, or at least scared the rest of them into moving elsewhere. I returned home in February for a little while to work as a monitor at the World Pond Hockey Championship, and ended up stranded in New Brunswick for a week because of poor weather. This didn’t bother me at all. My mother had told me that a few more squirrels had taken up residence in the garage, and I told her that I would keep myself occupied. However, this time I didn’t have the .22. My neighbor’s son needed it at his place in Oromocto, to deal with the large grey squirrels encroaching into his garage. So, I had to rely on my .410. Two squirrels fell to that shotgun in February, bringing my complete total of squirrels up to 26.

While part of me sincerely hopes that they will eventually learn a lesson and live in the woods like they are supposed to, the hunter in me enjoys the target practice that they provide during the off-season. With the possibility of missing a second consecutive hunting season due to pursuing an education, those destructive little squirrels are all I have. I’ve been told they are good eating – maybe next time I decide to knock down twenty or so, I’ll skin them and see just what all the rave is about. However, my mom isn’t too keen on entertaining that endeavour – I tried to convince her to let me do it last time. Didn’t work.