Daniel Boone Style: 19th Century Squirrel Hunting

The great Daniel Boone used to hunt squirrels for sport and food. Back in the nineteenth-century hunters called it "Barking off Squirrels." Of course their firearms were much heavier then nowadays and the rifles had a much longer barrel.

The way these feisty little rodents were killed had to be done in such a way that the balls from the rifle or rifle shot wouldn't destroy the meat. No one wants to eat a mouthful of gunshot at mealtime. In order to do this the squirrel couldn't be directly shot.

The hunter would see a squirrel aim and shoot underneath it. Supposedly the aftermath would explode upward hit the squirrel and kill it. It can be thought of as a bystander walking past a building at the time of its collapse and being hit with spraying debris. Both incidences can be deadly.

Shooting under the squirrel and hitting the object underneath, mainly a tree or its branches may send a shock wave of wooden splinters directly into the squirrel. The squirrel if it's up high enough in the tree may not die from debris, but from the fall. The squirrel meat would be free of rifle shot and could either be eaten at mealtime or prepared as jerky.

Back in the nineteenth-century hunting squirrels would have been easy to do with the help of a dog and a good many hunters used them regularly. Squirrels have a habit of hiding behind the trunk of a tree when spotted. If you walk to side of the tree the squirrel is on it will run around to the other side. It's a game of going around the tree in circles. A dog can stand on one side of the tree while you stand on the other side causing the squirrel to have nowhere to go. When the dog barks at the squirrel it will scare it back towards you and that's when you can get it.