This weekend I had a chance to take out my new 12" .22LR Match Contender barrel for some squirrel hunting. A big thanks to Kurt Bellm for getting the barrel to me before the hunt!

I'll get to the absolute best part of the story first, and that is that I got to take my 6 year old son with me! The day before, we went to sight in the Simmons 4x32 scope I mounted on the barrel. Though he had a hard time finding the crosshairs in the EER 4x scope, he did get a chance to fire off a few rounds - his first ever from a pistol.

The next day, we were having a father son camp out with a couple of other friends, and we headed out before anyone else got there so just the two of us would be able to hunt a bit. He spotted the first squirrel 30 seconds after we got to our spot, and then I discovered how much practice I really need to make those head-shots!

So, over two mornings of hunting and 4 squirrels, I did well shooting on every other squirrel. The first squirrel I hit, after missing about 7 shots, low in the spine and had to finish him on the ground. The next squirrel was one shot to the head and done.

The next morning, I took my friends dogs with me. As we were walking down the lane, I saw a squirrel tail popping up from behind a limb and I moved around for a shot. After missing twice, the squirrel jumped into a hole in an adjacent dead tree trunk. I could see the squirrel in the hole, so I started trying to rustle him out of there with my shooting sticks. He finally tried to run to a stand of trees a little ways away, and the dogs got him. I hauled the dogs off before they did too much damage, dispatched him and put him in my game pouch. One to the dogs...

Later that morning, my buddies and I went looking for bushy-tails in a different area, and we saw a squirrel pop his head out of a hole. Because squirrels usually stress out and move if bothered enough, I started scraping the side of the tree with my sticks. Sure enough, he bolted straight up the tree. He was about 50 feet straight up when I put one bullet through his eye from a very awkward shooting position.

So, I guess I needed to make some really bad shots in order to remind myself to calm down and concentrate on the next one...

One big lesson that I learned is that the 4x scope is too much magnification for that hunt. I took the 4x off of my 7mm TCU barrel, just to have something to use for the hunt, but I will definitely be switching to a 2x in the future.

Another lesson that was driven home again is how incredibly addicting handgun hunting is! I had one of those rare moments when I was walking in the woods thinking, "I am exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to do." That feeling, plus a freezer full of squirrel meat are so rewarding!

PS - I didn't take any pictures from the hunt, as I was alone half the time, and with my youngster the other half. I'm working on being able to take pictures in the future.