Trip Reports: Vol. 3, by Guest Author: Swanny Evans

Avery Kelly & David Osborn with Dexter, the Cur.

Friday night, the weather was looking pretty dismal for bowhunting the next day. The warm drizzle that was predicted didn’t exactly have me excited to sit in a tree, and I didn’t want to have to race the rain to a blood trail if I happened to get lucky. I was debating whether to even set my alarm when I got a text from an old friend with a new-to-me idea. David Osborn was taking a student from UGA squirrel hunting with his Treeing Cur named Dexter in the morning and asked if I wanted to go. I just replied, “Yes” and set my alarm.

Let me take a quick step back to explain a few things before we dive into this trip report. I mentioned this idea was “new-to-me”, but I didn’t mean squirrel hunting. I am one of the seemingly dwindling population of lucky ones that was introduced to hunting at a young age and squirrel hunting was that first introduction. I remember my brother and me being knee-high to a grasshopper, tagging along with my dad on our first ever hunt. We were the dogs that day, as dad would yell, “Run around that side of the tree and scare ‘em back this way!” My brother and I would circle the tree, dad would shoot, and I can honestly say I was hooked from that point forward. I have hunted all sorts of game since then, but I don’t think a year has passed where I haven’t hunted squirrels. They are plentiful, taste great, and can be quite the challenge, so what’s not to love? The “new-to-me” part of this hunt was Dexter, the Treeing Cur. While I have been the squirrel dog in the past, I have never hunted over one.

My alarm went off at 5:30 AM the next day, I started the coffee, and packed my squirrel hunting paraphernalia while it was brewing. There are always a few staples that come to the woods with me when squirrel hunting. I typically bring an old-school game belt that my dad loaned me about 15 years ago (I clearly haven’t returned it), my game shears which also double as my kitchen scissors (I know, I am really embracing the bachelor life), and last but not least, I always take a gun. Now I usually default to a Savage Mark II 22lr that I have killed pretty much everything under the sun with including a few deer (don’t worry that was under a research permit; a story for another day), but every once in a while, when I am feeling nostalgic, I take a side-by-side Stevens 16 gauge that was passed down to me from my grandfather. Since I didn’t really know what to expect hunting over a dog, I packed both guns, filled up my coffee mug, and headed out the door.

We were planning to hunt a large piece of public land, but we were going to meet at Osborn’s house and ride together. I pulled in at about 6:45 AM and met Avery Kelly, an undergrad that volunteers with the UGA Deer Barn. Avery, much like me, had never hunted over a squirrel dog and was pretty excited. While Osborn, Avery, and I discussed the game plan, Dexter was bouncing off the walls of the dog box in the back of the truck and whining with excitement, he knew where we were going. I patted him on the head, gave him the obligatory, but fond, “Good boy” and we were on our way.

Osborn leashing his Cur.

Before we get to the hunt, I feel like I better give some background on my old friend. Osborn is a researcher with the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at UGA who, despite not having a PhD or being a professor, has positively impacted hundreds of students and may be an author on as many or more publications than the professors there. Any student that came through Warnell and interacted with him to any significant degree would tell you the same, but what many people don’t know is that Osborn used to be famous in a much different (and perhaps smaller) world. Up until about 15 years ago he competed in squirrel hunting competitions all over the Eastern United States. He literally wrote the book on squirrel hunting with dogs (seriously, there is a book: Squirrel Dog Basics: A Guide to Hunting Squirrels with Dogs). Despite knowing David for over a decade, I have never squirrel hunted with him. He got out of the game 15 years ago and suddenly caught the bug again recently when he bought Dexter. Alright, back to the trip report.

We were riding down the dirt road through the middle of one of Georgia’s public lands and Osborn directed me to pull off to the side saying, “This looks good right here.” We unloaded and I overheard Osborn asking Avery if he had enough shells. Avery responded, “I have 15, that should be plenty.” I heard Osborn chuckle, grab a few extra shells for Avery and put them in his vest. Since they both had shotguns, I decided to take the Savage.

I am used to slowly moving through the woods and sitting for extended periods of time when I squirrel hunt. Let’s just say, I am glad I was wearing trail runners that day because once Osborn pointed Dexter in a direction, there wasn’t a lot of downtime. Within just a few minutes Dexter had already covered about 800 yards to our 500 and he had one treed. We came up over the ridge to see Dexter with his paws up on a large pine barking straight up, Osborn sort of groaned and mumbled something about the perils of a pine tree. Apparently, finding the tree the squirrel is in is only half (maybe more like a quarter) of the battle. The next step is trying to find the squirrel in the tree and Osborn told us pines always make that difficult. Dexter got tied off, we peered up into the limbs of this tree, shook vines, and looked from different angles to no avail; that squirrel had played this game before. “Let’s go find another one,” Osborn said as he redirected Dexter.

Dexter took off and disappeared over the next ridge. It started to drizzle a little bit and, “I am glad I didn’t decide to…” was all I got out before we heard Dexter bark again. “Three hundred and sixty-four yards treed that way,” is all Osborn said as he looked at data from Dexter’s GPS collar and we took off at a fast pace to the West. I was the first to make it to the large white oak Dexter was on and as I approached, I caught a glimpse of the squirrel repositioning when he saw me. I braced on the edge of a small tree, squeezed the trigger, and knocked the squirrel right out of the fork he was attempting to hide in. Over the next four hours we covered a little over six and a half miles, Dexter treed 17 times, and we killed seven squirrels. Dexter was clearly better at this than us and let’s just say those extra shells Osborn brought came in handy.

Avery, Osborn, and Dexter crossing a swollen creek.

As we hoofed it back to the truck out of breath, Osborn looked at me, smiled, and said, “It’s a little different experience than the way you squirrel hunt isn’t it?” Different is one way to describe it. While I don’t think I will be abandoning still-hunting squirrels, I can promise you that won’t be my last time hunting over a dog. The hunt was fast-paced, social, and covered an incredible amount of ground. Avery and I both had an excellent time. We all recapped the hunt as Osborn demonstrated his squirrel cleaning technique which I loosely call the “shirt and pants method” on my tailgate.

Osborn doesn’t know it yet, but I am going to find a way to invite my Dad on the next hunt with Dexter. I figure if we have a real dog there, I will get to hunt too and won’t have to spend my time circling the tree until dad gets a shot. If you have made it this far in this trip report, I encourage all of you to get outside and chase some of those bushy-tailed rascals. Together, we can make squirrel hunting cool again, introduce a few new people to the outdoors, and eat some delicious all-natural protein in the process.

The author (left) with the McNeals and Alexandra’s Satilla Gobbler from last spring.