My First Squirrel

2015 Started my foray into adventure land. After always wanting to learn survival skills and only dabbling in them before, last year started my immersion full steam ahead.

Why am I doing all of this, I've been asked? Honestly, because life is short, and I've seen too many people close to me pass away before having the chance to go on that big adventure. My Dad, the picture of health, died in his prime from a rare form of leukemia (in adults). My Uncle, having just finished building the organic picturesque farm of his dreams, died the very day he invited everyone over to partake in its bounty. No one saw it coming.

We all know that we don't know when we're going to go, which is why I am doing this now. There never will be a perfect time. Ever.

I've been hinting around about my plans long enough, so I'll open the secret drawer a wee bit wider. I'm planning to live in the wilderness for 4-6 months. I'm going with one other person, and that's as much as I'm going to say for now. Someday, alongside further developing my expertise as a strength and conditioning coach, I also want to become a master of survival.

Once I made the decision to go on this survival adventure, all of my training took on a new sense of urgency. It's one thing to learn these skills for fun and party tricks. It's quite another to learn them when you're going to need them to survive. Purpose inspires motivation.

Obviously if you're going to live in the wilderness for a bit, procuring food is essential, which is why I'm learning to hunt. I bought my first gun, a Ruger .22 take-down rifle recently, as I figured learning to shoot small game first would better prepare me for larger game later. You have to be a better shot, as the animals are small and fast. Besides that, small game is more abundant, the seasons are longer and generally the limits you can take in a day or possess would be enough to actually live on. I mean you can take an unlimited supply of jack rabbits. Assuming you could catch one every other day (good luck!), and you didn't tire of the meat, one could actually theoretically do this. (Of course with rabbit, you'd need an extraneous fat source so you didn't die of rabbit fever,but that's another story.)

I drove up to San Luis Obispo County on Friday morning, as hunting small game with a rifle in LA County is illegal. After doing some research online, I decided upon the Los Padres National Forest. A few folks on a hunter's forum I visited suggested the area. I decided to car camp in Figueroa State Campground, as my task for the weekend was to kill, field dress, butcher and eat a squirrel, not to go back packing or demonstrate my amazing camping skills.

I arrived about 10:30 am on New Year's Day, set up my camp and headed out, my Ruger .22 take down, all taken down and stuffed in my back pack. I headed out on a nearby trail hoping to find a spot that I felt safe enough to take a shot. If there's one thing the Hunter Safety Course drilled into my head, is not to take a shot unless you are absolutely sure of everything surrounding it. In other words, no shooting off at a squirrel when there's a field of trees you can't see through on the other side. I figured the only way I could do this safely, would be to ensure I was facing a ravine with an opposing hill on the other side. I'm a decent shot on a target range, but ain't no way accidentally killing someone or damaging property is something I'm interested in. That ranks right up there with ain't no way I'm taking out a cyclist on Angeles Crest highway, because I'm in too much of a hurry to slow down around blind curves.

The day was cold, but I was overdressed in my two hats, my flannel lined beanie on the inside and my hunter orange sweater cap on top, my orange down jacket and my new cold weather boots made in Canada. Still no way I was removing my orange jacket or hat. I'd heard too many stories of hunters accidentally getting killed by dumb asses not thinking straight and shooting blindly at a noise in the trees.

I walked down about a mile across a broad hilly field covered in foot high yellow grasses to what looked like a bunch of oak trees from above. As I approached the trees, I realized the oaks were few and far between. The hill sides were covered more in Manzanitas than anything, and no squirrel's going to set up shop there for lack of food.

After a few hours of walking around looking for more signs of trees squirrels would like, I realized I was in the wrong place. I retraced my steps back to my campsite, got in my car and drove.
I headed down the road until I came to another broad hillside that looked promising. I headed out, walking up the hill, frequently stopping to listen and be still. Nothing. I wasn't hearing or seeing anything! I've been camping enough to be able to recognize squirrel chatter, and this place was dead silent.

Frustrated, I drove down the road to a nearby fire station. About a dozen firefighters were hanging outside seemingly chatting on a break. I parked my car, got out and headed over to them. "Hey, any of you guys hunt squirrel?", I asked. "I've been looking all day, but I haven't seen even one." A stereotypically good looking firefighter of about 28 with striking blue eyes laughed. "Just over the hill there. Head back up, park on the left, and I swear you'll see about a dozen of them."

Yes! Excitedly, I headed my car back up, parked where he said and got out. I walked, stopped, looked and listened. I took great pains to be still. Nothing. I kept this up for over an hour. Still nothing. Finally, I decided to call it a day, but not before driving around the area looking for what I hoped might be a better spot for tomorrow.

I drove past my campground then kept going, winding my way up until I came across a patch of woods loaded with oaks and pine. "This is it!", I said to myself. I felt sure I saw signs of squirrels with recently chewed pine cones and loads of fresh holes dug into the ground. Maybe I'd just gotten too late of a start.

The next day I woke up early and headed out to the new hunting area I had found. With my rifle broken down and secured in my backpack, I planned to stay out most of the day. I'd heard that one has to be patient and spend a great deal of time listening and waiting.

The hillside was steep, but my heavy duty snow boots clung to the ground nicely. As I stood atop a 45 degree swath trying to figure the best way down, the branch to which I was clinging, suddenly gave way. My hand grasped its ends at it sliced me open before sending me smack down on my ass sliding 50 feet down. A huge cloud of dust settled all over me. This, my friends, is why we were taught not to carry loaded guns. Thank the gods I was a good student and listened. Embarrassed, I got up, laughing at myself and glad no one else was around. "Well, at least I was down the hill now", I thought.

I pushed on, noticing a small dry creek. There was no water up here, which didn't bode well for my squirrel theory. I somehow expected to find water here. I followed the dry creek bed down, taking careful note of my surroundings. There were loads of deer trails, loaded with deer pellets. There was a possum skull that had obviously been there awhile. Finally, I found a few fresh mounds of dirt piled above holes, holes which I was sure must be the home of ground squirrels. Add to that the fact that there were dozens of freshly eaten pine cones surrounding the area and branches with the bark eaten away, and I felt sure it was just a matter of time before a squirrel got up to gather its breakfast. I sat down at about 8 am, loaded my gun, put the safety on, left the action open and waited.

The last time I stayed in Valley Forge Trail Camp, a squirrel came out at precisely 10 am from a similar hole. He scampered across the log to another hole, got an acorn, then scampered back. He did this twice each morning I was there. I was hopeful by 10 am, Mr. Squirrel of Los Padres would make a similar appearance.

It was cold. Today I had on a pair of leggings, a pair of pants plus a pair of snow pants on top of that. I had on a nylon base layer, then a merino wool base layer then my down jacket. I had on two pairs of socks and my snow boots as well as two sweater caps. I was completely comfortable while moving.

As I sat there, waiting, my toes started to be cold, then my butt. Then I had to put on my gloves. I heard an animal off to my left. Realizing that if a squirrel did appear, closing the action would cause him to run away, I decided to ready my gun for use.

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

The sun was slowly creeping up in the sky, but there was a lot of cloud cover. I decided that if I didn't see a squirrel by 11 am, I was calling it a day at this spot and moving on.

At precisely 11 am I packed up my gun and decided to head deeper in the canyon. I love how much the forest can tell you. There were deer trails everywhere. I decided to follow them just for fun to see where they would lead. I followed the deer track trails up, taking note of spots where deer had bedded for a while. I saw swaths of feathers where some bird had lost its life. Finally, I decided to just head up hill. As I expected, I wound up on the road from where I started, so I walked down it a bit to get back to my car.

As I approached my car, about a half-dozen fifty-something male cyclists were taking a break in the same parking lot. One approached me and struck up a conversation. I told him I was trying to hunt squirrels, but so far I hadn't seen a one.

He told me he and his friends had ridden up from the other side starting down in the valley and that he'd seen a bunch of squirrels on their way in. He also mentioned a ranger station in the same direction. I knew all of that area was private land closed to hunting, but I figured I'd head that way to the ranger station anyway. Perhaps they could direct me to a good hunting spot.

Along the way I passed a stream, offering an unexpected chance to refill all of my water.

As I headed down, I passed farms and vineyards, ranches and dwellings--all private property and no ranger station. A squirrel darted across the road, then another, then five squirrels darted in front of me. I kept driving. A dead gray squirrel lay in the middle of the road.

I decided to pull over and check it out. It was still warm! It must have recently been hit, but it was definitely dead. Blood was starting to crust on its lips and one of its eyes had been knocked out of the socket. I'm guessing the impact of a wheel must have broken it's neck or fractured it's skull. Besides being obviously dead, it was fully in tact.

I got an idea.

Part of what I set out to do this weekend was to learn to field dress, cook and eat a squirrel. Well, if I couldn't kill one on my own, then at least I could learn the other skills I drove up here for. I put the now hardening squirrel into my passenger seat and headed back to the campsite. I sat wondering about how difficult this was going to be. I get squeamish cutting up chicken. I knew it was going to be a challenge, and I wasn't looking forward to it. I knew I had to do it anyway, if I expected to learn to survive in the wild.

After I pulled into my campsite driveway, I opened the car door and pulled out the dead squirrel. I laid him down face up on the picnic bench and pondered what to do. I'd watched dozens of videos and read loads of articles on how to do this, but actually doing it is always another story.

I got out my "Survival Wisdom, & Know How" book I had received as a Christmas present and turned to the pages on field dressing small game. One thing was for sure, I didn't want blood all over my campsite, making it more attractive to bears. I got my knife and some twine and headed into the forest nearby.

WARNING: NEXT SECTION CONTAINS GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF DRESSING A SQUIRREL. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO THESE TYPES OF THINGS.

The squirrel was fairly hard now, as rigor mortis had set in. Urine hung onto his little penis, and I noticed the large comparative size of his balls. "Hmmm", I thought. Guess I'd never given much thought before to a squirrel's reproductive organs.

I knew you were supposed to make a cut in such a way as to not puncture the colon or bladder, somewhere around the anus. The tip of my knife had difficulty slicing through the fur, so I cut a large gash into one of his thighs. Dark red blood seeped out onto his white underbelly fur.

God this was gross.

I cut a line down one leg, then the other. I cut a horizontal line to connect the two and opened up his body cavity. His intestines fell out.

"Oh God", I thought. " This is so gross". I knew I needed to remove all of his organs and cut his windpipe, so I could pull all of this stuff out. Cutting his fur away from his body was harder than I expected. He was just so tough!

I couldn't bring myself to break his sternum, as I've seen done in some of the videos, so I decided to cut off his head instead.  The cracking sound his spine made was disgusting. Even though I knew the squirrel was dead, this was still more disgusting than dissecting a frog in biology class, which I had truly enjoyed. Somehow I thought this would be closer to that. Wrong.

Cutting off his head freed up his windpipe, so I was finally able to get the stomach, liver, bladder and intestines out in one fell swoop. I severed his colon and pulled everything through. No leakage. Good.

Then I set about to try to skin him. Jesus! This was tough. I mean it wasn't an easy process. Pulling the skin off the dang thing was akin to literally ripping it off. There was no way to be delicate about this, as I soon learned. Dirt was getting on the meat everywhere, so I decided to take my decapitated squirrel back to my campsite and finish up the job there.

I placed him on a paper bag and finished the skinning process. Cutting through the tail made my skin crawl. I imagine it would be like what cutting off someone's little finger would be like. It was tough and grissly.

As the skin came clear, it became obvious to me I was going to have to cut off the feet and the hands too. I had read in a book just to break the bones, so I decided to try.  Snap! Oh God! It was just so repulsive to break this poor dead animal's bones, but I did it anyway, finally removing all of its appendages from the edible meat.

Now that I had my fully skinned, decapitated and de-footed squirrel, I decided to try several attempts at squirrel fare. First, I dipped the two thighs into garlic and butter and pan fried them up to a golden brown. Second, I took the arms and breasts alongside some fresh rosemary sprigs I brought along, and I made a soup. Third, I filleted the back into thin strips, so I could try my hand at squirrel jerky.

The thighs were so tough, they were almost inedible. Think the toughest chuck steak you ever had or maybe rubber. I managed to peel off a few bits. The garlic was so strong, despite the texture, it tasted fine.

The soup was delicious. Along with the fresh rosemary, I brought along butter, so it had a nice subtle gamey quality to it. It was fatty and herbacious, and I drank every last bit of it down. The occasional squirrel hair added to its mystique.

The jerky, however, was a hit! I marinated it in apple cider vinegar for about 20 minutes before smoking it for several hours over some hot coals. It was crispy and delicious, and I honestly wish I'd had more.

I buried the head, feet, back bones, entrails and any remaining meat on the skeleton out in the forest--far enough away that I wouldn't be aware of any visitors.  Sure enough, in the morning, not one morsel remained. I'm thinking maybe the possum I'd seen the night before got to it.

Either way, I felt I had done that poor squirrel justice. Probably some animal would've gobbled him up that night anyway, but I was grateful I'd been able to make use of him to learn some lessons I needed to know.

Learning all of this makes me truly appreciate the lives we live now. As I sat cutting apart that squirrel, I realized I never have to do that. I never have to deal with animal hair or dirt in my meat. I never have to look in the animal's eyes and wonder about its life. I never have to wince as I remove its head or break the bones in its legs to remove its furry little feet. No, someone, somewhere else does all of that for me in a far off plant.  All I do is go to the super-market and buy the finished product, ready to eat.

I'm not adverse to eating meat, but I'm realizing that perhaps in learning to kill and prepare it myself, I will more fully appreciate what is being given to me. I know in a survival situation, I will not be able to take my next meal for granted. There may be weeks that go by without so much as an animal siting. My goal then is to learn to use every single part of the animal, so that absolutely nothing goes unused. I will learn to appreciate the parts that make me wince now--the grissle, the chewy bits and the dangling fat.

I will learn not to waste.