Some years ago it used to be popular to "bark" squirrels with ML rifles in the .30-.40 caliber bores. I haven't heard much from folks who still like to try that shooting sport.

So, the question....Have any of you ever tried barking squirrels with modern rifles, such as a .45-70 at low speed, or a .375 H&H at medium speed? If you haven't tried it, what is your opinion...what do you think might work best in bores of .30 and above?

Maybe a.32-20?

Would it work if the shot was placed a little more into the limb?

I haven't heard of this since the 50s. My dad and one of his brothers did it as a contest; the squirrel was secondary and I can remember some being killed. They also had a board with a permanently mounted knife and they would shoot to split bullets and break a balloon on each side. They also coul;d hit golf balls that I threw straight up. The kicker is that they used S&W K-22s. I was given Dad's in 1950 and still use it but I have never hit a golf ball or split a bullet, but I have lit a match, another of their targets. They would shoot for hours and have the best time. Both would be over 100 if still alive.

The last time i tried it with a 300 sav,the critter was about 80 yds awayfinally found part of the tail and a leg I think.Good Luck

wow - its been a long time since i heard of that. we used to do it with either an old mauser 8mm or a apringfield. i remember blowing the chit out of a lot more than we barked

Lads,

Used to do that when ammo was cheap. Also shot at the acorns nearest the squirrel.

Can't remember if "barking" was the taking off of bark, or the sound the squirrel made as he went 10ft in the air!!!

Mike

Hey AC, The places I've lived across the Southeastern USA have all restricted Squirrel Hunting to either Shotguns or Rimfires(I think). If any of them allowed any Larger Centerfire or Black Powder firearms, which is possible, I'm just not aware of it.

Lots of "Bragging" associated with Squirrel Hunting when I was a kid. We could even take our shotguns and rimfires to Grade School and leave them in the Principal's office. Then pick them up after school and drop down into the Woods behind the school to Hunt. A boy by the name of Eddie Davis was the best Squirrel Hunter I've ever been around. EVERYTIME I Hunted when Eddie was around, he ALWAYS got a Limit while the rest of us did good to get 3-5. Eddie is the Head of Engineering at Eastern Ky Univ. now, and I'd never have guessed that.

Anyway, back then Squirrel Hunting basically consisted of:
1. Shotguns
2. 22Rimfire Rifles
3. 22Rimfire Pistols/Revolvers

The biggest "Braggers" worked toward using the 22Rimfire Pistols/Revolvers, since they were the most difficult to use. Eventually some of them "Bragged" about Barking Squirrels instead of "only" Head Shots. That tended to upset the folks who thought they were the really good shots(aka Super Braggers) because they had been one-upped.

So, the Super Braggers developed "Snuffing Squirrels". They used Rifles to start with, but eventually moved to Revolvers. And then they began qualifying Bragging Rights by the "Shorter the Barrel Length" on the Revolvers while Snuffing, the Higher the Brag Status was achieved.

For those of you not familiar with Snuffing, you remove the Bullet from a 22LR, dump the Powder, and replace the Bullet in the Case. Then you shoot b-a-r-e-l-y in front of a Squirrels nose. Due to the Bullet going so slow, the Squirrel dies from a lack of Oxygen!!!

the other thing we'd do as kids was to take our mausers out, load 5 gr of red dot and a toilet paper wad, then seat a piece of 00 buck in the mouth. was cheaper than buying 22 ammo, but hell powder was less than a buck a pound, 5# of 00 buck was a couple bucks and primers were about .25 a hundred, so it was really cheap shooting. accuracy wasn't to bad, at least evey once in awhile we'd hit the squirrel in the head and sure kill it fast. geez AC you sure started some kind of nostalgia

When I was young, I used to carry a sawed-off single-shot Remington bolt action .22 under my car seat ('39 Plymouth "business-coupe") to school every day. We weren't even asked about the guns in our cars, as long as we didn't take them into the classrooms other than shop classes.

I also kept a quart of Vodka (cheapest available brand) or White-Horse Scotch in the glove box for medicinal purposes. That was when I was 14....we had a lot more freedom in those days. Yes, Matilda, there were federal laws restricting sawed-off rifles, and even state laws on booze & kids back then, but unless you were a known trouble-maker, no-one, child or adult, paid any attention whatsoever to them locally. It didn't seem to cause any problems...I never locked my car and nobody ever stole or "borrowed" my rifle, ammo, or hooch, let alone the car itself.



And, yes, we could get a driver's license in those days at 14 IF we lived out in the county instead of in town. The State was smart enough to understand we had to get to school after doing the chores in the morning, and get home to do the chores in the evening after football, track, or baseball practice. I bought my own car when I was 12 and drove for two years without a license and nobody seemed to care. Just in case anyone now cares, it was a 1926 open-cab (no top) Locomobile 1/2-ton flat-bed. And the "Loco" part was for "Locomotive", not "crazy"....they had "hype" even then. It was a good deal older than I, but it still ran fine though not very fast. Ran about as well across plowed land and through the woods as modern cars do on freeways, so it had some positives to it....ample ruggedness and ground clearance being two.

Anyway, we were dirt poor in the middle of the depression and for some years afterward, and I used to keep my eyes open for California Valley
Quail, rabbits, and both red & gray squirrels on the drive to and from high school every day. Definitely improved the menu a fair number of evenings. With a pot of coffee, a skillet-full of fried potatoes, a yam pie (who could afford pumpkins out of season?), and veggies from the garden, a supper of rabbit, quail, or squirrel was downright tasty. Some nights we also had home-made ice-cream and maybe a skillet of home made corn-pone with home-churned butter, too....

That's when I learned to "bark" squirrels, but I soon found it was more productive to use a ML "squirrel rifle" with a round ball placed a tiny bit deeper into the limb than right under the bark. With the .22 I usually took whatever shot was most likely to produce food and didn't try to show off by barking them very often.

Don't know why "barkin" popped into my mind yesterday, but I would think some of the modern medium-bore rifles with substantially reduced loads
should work even better due to the better modern optical sights.

can you imagine the uproar if a 12 year old kid took off hunting with his 22 on the handlebars of his bike today? they'd have a swat team and 12 helicopters chasing him down. probably thrown him in jail as a terrorist

quote:

Originally posted by butchloc:
can you imagine the uproar if a 12 year old kid took off hunting with his 22 on the handlebars of his bike today? they'd have a swat team and 12 helicopters chasing him down. probably thrown him in jail as a terrorist

Yeh, Butch - That's one of the reasons I have learned to hate the entire modern world.

Greed has always been with us, but the growth of the Nanny State has become an insane cancer.


It appears to have at its core a philosophy which says that if we pass enough laws and throw enough of OTHER PEOPLE'S money at every problem we see or can even imagine, no-one will EVER die. What sane person can believe that BS?

When I was 9, I got my own first personal deer-rifle (a 6.5 Mannlicher from my uncle) and shotgun (a 16 gauge single shot H&R which I still have) from my dad.

I used to put the shotgun on my bicycle handle bars (an old fat-tired Schwinn with a basket in front), and I'd ride in toward town to the edge of a grain field that bordered a large irrigation canal which also marked the City Limit. There I would find a group or groups of adult hunters standing on the edge of the grain under the scattered cottonwoods, shooting doves. If I stood around and looked forlorn, inevitably they'd give me a few shells, so I could shoot too, and I'd have a whale of a good time trying to swing that shotgun with a stock that was just plain too long for me.

Still, I learned to hit doves, which I took home to eat even then. Of course I didn't have a hunting license, but then who expected a 9 year-old kid to buy a hunting license? Nobody. I never even bought one for deer until I came home from the Army a good many years later....

When DID this world start becoming a paper-barred prison? And why DO we put up with it?

quote:

Can't remember if "barking" was the taking off of bark, or the sound the squirrel made as he went 10ft in the air!!!

Mike

Neither, actually. It is shooting just under the bark of the limb the squirrel is lying flat on. Object is to kill the squirrel without actually shooting it. The bullet passing just under him causes enough "concussive shock" from the bark and little bit of wood being forced upward, to kill him without breaking the skin.

Sounds like a fable to some, but it isn't.

quote:

Originally posted by butchloc:
can you imagine the uproar if a 12 year old kid took off hunting with his 22 on the handlebars of his bike today? they'd have a swat team and 12 helicopters chasing him down. probably thrown him in jail as a terrorist

Love the side roads of this thread. In the early 50s in Cleveland Ohio, I'd get on a bus dressed in blue jeans and hunting vest, carrying my uncased 16 side by side, go to the end of the line( Strongsville ) shoot a rabbit or two and maybe a phaesant. With the game cleaned and tucked in the vest's game poch I'd get on the bus and ride home.Try that today. roger

I barked a few squirrels long ago, just to see if it could be done. I used a .50 Ithaca Hawken, 50gr. fffg, patched round ball. I'll never forget the one that came back to life in the game pouch of my hunting coat! I guess the "concussion" didn't actually kill it! 'Twas pretty exciting there for a minute.

Are they from the barking spider family? I find it easier just to blame the dog. Lou

For reference:
it wasn't totally known that shooting uphill caused the bullet to shoot high. Many early squirrel hunters learned that to hit the squirrel they had to aim low, slightly into the bark of the limb the squirrel was sitting on. The practice came to be known as "barking" because it was the way one actually could hit the squirrel shooting at 45 degrees and a lot more at times.

Often the bullet actually did hit the bark and bounced up and occasionally the bullet exploded wood shavings into the squirrels head and killed it.

Those that shot steep angles and aimed directly at the squirrels head came home empty as the normal climb of the bullet caused it to shoot over the target.

Barking therefore became a term used to refer to any squirrel hunting that caused one to shoot slightly low at squirrels in a horizontal position that was hugging a branch for disguise.

With a scope sighted rimfire the best shot is at the junction of the head and the branch it is sitting on. This typically results in a 40 grain solid in the eye socket!

Things get turned around over the years and meanings change. Hard core Eastern hunters chasing eastern grays would never shoot a squirrel in the head as that is the best eating out of the entire squirrel. That would be like shooting a deer in the loins. But today squirrel can carry many odd diseases which concentrate in the brain which can kill you. Several die every year from eating squirrel brains, I think two or three died last year in one state. In addition, I don't think as many today have the taste for it as in years past. Barking a squirrel to save meat and to save the head is a lost art.

Best

quote:

Originally posted by rolltop:
For reference:
it wasn't totally known that shooting uphill caused the bullet to shoot high. Many early squirrel hunters learned that to hit the squirrel they had to aim low, slightly into the bark of the limb the squirrel was sitting on. The practice came to be known as "barking" because it was the way one actually could hit the squirrel shooting at 45 degrees and a lot more at times.

Often the bullet actually did hit the bark and bounced up and occasionally the bullet exploded wood shavings into the squirrels head and killed it.

Those that shot steep angles and aimed directly at the squirrels head came home empty as the normal climb of the bullet caused it to shoot over the target.

Barking therefore became a term used to refer to any squirrel hunting that caused one to shoot slightly low at squirrels in a horizontal position that was hugging a branch for disguise.

With a scope sighted rimfire the best shot is at the junction of the head and the branch it is sitting on. This typically results in a 40 grain solid in the eye socket!

That is an interesting explanation, but certainly not what "barking" squirrels meant in the part of the Ozarks where I learned it. My family owned several sections of land there (several thousand acres, actually) and still does. The men were pretty much all squirrel hunters (among other things). Incidentally, it did not mean that to at least 6 generations of them. Our family trees (both my Dad's and my Mom's kin) have lived, hunted, and farmed there for so long that we have our own cemetary with no one but our family buried there.

Got any good fishing on that property,AC? roger

Hey Mr. AC,

What a great thread you started! I've killed piles of squirrels in my life but never could get that barking business down. Y'all's stories are great.

We all kept our guns and fishing tackle in the dorm rooms at Arkansas Tech in Russellville when I was in college. We didn't want college to get in the way of our education! That was in late sixties and early seventies so that has all changed now.

At that time gasoline was 23 cents/gallon so we could drive all over the Ozarks hunting, fishing,and just looking around.

Mr. AC, may I ask what county your land is in? I live in South Arkansas now but I lived up in that area for a long time working in the State Parks. I never got into MO much but have some good friends that were from what used to be Branson.

Thanks for the stories y'all. Merg

quote:

Originally posted by merganser1:
Hey Mr. AC, Thanks for the stories y'all. Merg

I think it would be great if guys like you, Ray Atkinson, and Ray Makeeta would wright biographical type books with hunting ,shooting and related experiences.Kind of a legacy to the clan. roger

quote:

Originally posted by bartsche:
Got any good fishing on that property,AC? roger

Not that I can recall, Roger,'cept for catfish. I guess it is possible, though as my uncle George spent the last 40 or 50 years buying up property all over the place every time he got some extra money together and found some on the cheap. In the dirty '30s when our branch of the family (my dad, three of his brothers, and their wives) all moved west to earn money to send home, we used to go back occasionally to look in on the old folks, help them get in the winter's wood, and to mosey on up to Lake of the Ozarks to fish.

That move west was interesting. Took almost three years before my dad decided to settle in the Phoenix, AZ area. In the meantime we saw Devil's Tower, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Crater Lake, Pike's Peak, Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, and just about everywhere else that wasn't anywhere in particular. We worked at farm labour, gold-mining, logging, whatever would bring in a few bucks. Same with my mom's family, 'cept they settled in California for about 20 years then all moved back.

The family almost lost all the land during the great depression...was down to one small piece by the time WWII brought the economy back onto its wheels. (Can't recall for sure if that remaining piece was 160 acres or just 80 acres we had left by then, but it was where my great, great grandparents had their big house, 3 stories high and a basement.) Last time I was to that house or the property was after several hitches in the military, when I was then in graduate school at University of Oklahoma in Norman.

It still had no electricity, no indoor plumbing, and no running water other than a spring in the basement, even at that late date. Unfortunately, the old house burned to the ground about 30-40 years ago when a lit kerosene lantern got knocked over. I still remember great evenings on the veranda with the fire-flies, a wind-up Victrola and a battery powered crystal radio though.

Since then the family has built several new homes for the brothers (and the kids and their wives) on their various alotted pieces of ground there. Mostly, they now raise cattle, 'cept for one cousin who has a very large poultry operation that raises a lot of "Tyson" product (Yuuchh!). Still an awful lot of the land is just "woods" and doesn't produce anything much except privacy, ticks, chiggers, copperheads, turkeys, deer, and fun.

My sisters still go back every couple of years or so, to keep in touch with the kinfolk.

Anyway, all the land George & the rest of the family has bought after the depression is NOT contiguous, so am not sure which counties the various parcels are all in. I know the main piece is in Hazel Valley, near Winslow.

I reckon I should go back one of these days to visit again myself, but I may have waited too long. I hate flying, but can't drive more than about 50 miles anymore. (Had two aircraft burn out from under me...don't intend to see if the third time really is the charm.)