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February 15, 2000 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d The squirrels in my front yard scurried out of my path a bit quicker than normal Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
Perhaps they knew what I was up to.<\/p>\n
I was on my way to Sandy Cross, Ga. a tiny town east of Athens in Oglethorpe County. I was on my way to meet up with David Osborn, Vance Benda and Bubba Nation.<\/p>\n
I was on my way to go squirrel hunting.<\/p>\n
“We’ll meet you at the Sandy Cross store,” Osborn said to me over the phone.<\/p>\n
There is only one store in Sandy Cross. In fact, from what I saw, there doesn’t seem to be much else in Sandy Cross aside from this store.<\/p>\n
At first, I drove right past it \u00e2\u20ac\u201d right past the whole darn town of Sandy Cross. But when I backtracked and finally came upon the lone store, I knew immediately I had found the right place. Everyone there was wearing camouflage.<\/p>\n
We headed over to the nearby Plantation Hunt Club, a 30-member group that leases and hunts a 1,700-acre plot of old plantation land, full of tall hardwoods and pines. Kind of like Park Avenue for arboreal rodents.<\/p>\n
It should come as no surprise that on this day we were to be hunting the squirrels with dogs, since Osborn is author of the book, “Squirrel Dog Basics: A Guide to Hunting Squirrels With Dogs.”<\/p>\n
Osborn, 35, of Watkinsville, a wildlife research coordinator at the University of Georgia, grew up hunting squirrels with his grandfather in rural, southwestern Arkansas. He fell in love with the sport again when he moved to Georgia in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n
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“It’s not about killing squirrels,” Osborn said as he unloaded Motley and Gracie, two of his squirrel-hunting dogs, from the back of his pickup truck. “Really, killing the squirrels is secondary. It’s all about working the dogs.”<\/p>\n
“But we still kill our share,” added Vance with a wink as he leashed his dog Mia, one of the many hunting dogs bred from Gracie.<\/p>\n
The bond between hunter and hunting dog is a strong one, stronger for some than others. Osborn and his wife Sandra have nine dogs, five of which are squirrel dogs.<\/p>\n
“They’re our family,” Osborn said. “My wife and I don’t have any kids.”<\/p>\n
So the nine dogs sleep in bunk beds in the Osborns’ laundry room. They take turns sleeping on the couch and in bed with David and Sandra.<\/p>\n
These dogs are spoken of as dear members of the family, too. During one exchange between Osborn and Benda on Saturday I did not realize the subjects of the conversation were dogs, and not humans, until they ended up with dead squirrels in their mouths. Well, at least I hope they were talking about dogs.<\/p>\n
“Let’s go, hunt it up now!” Osborn yelled to the dogs as we let them loose in the woods.<\/p>\n
Squirrel dogs \u00e2\u20ac\u201d usually curs and feists, sometimes terriers and other breeds \u00e2\u20ac\u201d do most of the work during the hunt. It’s their job to track the scent of a squirrel to a specific tree, and then bark, yelp and jump up the trunk until the hunters arrive. That’s called “treeing” a squirrel.<\/p>\n
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During downtime hunters chat, socialize, catch up. You don’t have to be quiet when hunting squirrels. Ideally, however, downtime is kept to a minimum.<\/p>\n
An average hunt for Osborn lasts two to three hours. During that time, he expects to tree 15 to 25 squirrels and kill anywhere from three to 10. But, as with anything, there are extremes.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been so physically exhausted in hunts that I’ve thrown up,” Osborn said. “It was just that busy, that hard going from tree to tree, one squirrel right after the other.”<\/p>\n
Then there is the other extreme, which is what we were experiencing early on in our hunt. The dogs were hovering close by, which is not a good sign. The squirrels weren’t “down.” They were “denned up” in trees. Therefore, no scent for the dogs to follow.<\/p>\n
“Squirrels are real unpredictable,” Osborn said with a hint of frustration. “I can’t seem to pattern them at all. It’s like flicking a switch. All of a sudden, squirrels will be down.”<\/p>\n
Of course, Osborn wasn’t figuring into the equation the “reporter’s jinx,” which I am beginning to think is much more than a running joke. It seems that most hunters and anglers that I have come in contact with experience their best hunts, their best fishing outings the day after they go out with me.<\/p>\n
“You’re the last reporter I’m going out with,” Osborn said, I believe only half-jokingly.<\/p>\n
It was 6:07 p.m. We had been hunting for more than three hours, trekking miles and miles through the primitive forest of the hunting lease. The dogs had “treed” several squirrels, but thus far they all had been holed up safely in their dens.<\/p>\n
It was beginning to grow dark.<\/p>\n
“I’m about to give up,” Osborn said apologetically.<\/p>\n
Just then, we heard Motley, Gracie and Mia off in the distance. Their barks were violent in their intensity.<\/p>\n
“That sounds promising,” I said.<\/p>\n
“Now that’s what we’re looking for,” Osborn responded.<\/p>\n
We picked up our gait and almost jogged over to the tall tree. The hunters looked upward, through the scopes on their shotguns.<\/p>\n
“I see it,” Osborn said excitedly. “It’s on y’all’s side. On the right hand side.”<\/p>\n
“Get your gun ready, Bubba,” Benda instructed Nation, a 14-year-old from nearby Devil’s Pond.<\/p>\n
“Shoot him! Shoot him!” Osborn said.<\/p>\n
One shot from Nation’s shotgun was all it took. I watched as the lifeless shadow headed down toward me, making it’s way through the tree’s branches like a Plinko chip on “The Price is Right.”<\/p>\n
The dogs were on it right away.<\/p>\n
By the way, most hunters do eat the squirrels that they kill. They even enjoy it \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and, believe it or not, say it doesn’t taste at all like chicken.<\/p>\n
As we made our way back to the truck, the dogs’ bark continued. The squirrels were down … finally. But it was too late. It was too dark. The squirrels had successfully waited us out.<\/p>\n
“We shoulda been wearin’ ’em out today,” Osborn said with a sigh.<\/p>\n
“The only thing that got wore out was us,” answered Bubba, who until that point had been relatively quiet.<\/p>\n
“Me and David always figure it’s a good hunt no matter what happens,” Benda offered. “You’re out in the woods anyway.”<\/p>\n
Those words stayed with me on my drive back home to Gainesville. And, yes, I did enjoy myself among the hardwoods and pines of Sandy Cross on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n
But, when I arrived at my house, I couldn’t bear to make eye contact with squirrels I passed on the way to my front porch.<\/p>\n
To purchase a copy of David Osborn’s “Squirrel Dog Basics: A Guide to Hunting Squirrels With Dogs” (Treetop Publications, 1999), please send $18.50 plus $4 shipping and handling (Ga. residents add $1.30 sales tax) to Treetop Publications, P.O. Box 1496, Watkinsville, Ga. 30677. For more information, call (706) 769-4695 or email treetop@negia.net<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February 15, 2000 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d The squirrels in my front yard scurried out of my path a bit quicker than normal Saturday morning. Perhaps they knew what I was up to. I was on my way to Sandy Cross, Ga. a tiny town east of Athens in Oglethorpe County. I was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":638,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions\/638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}