Among the many highly successful hunters I know, one thing they all have in common is great hunting instincts. Yes, they also have sharp skills and deep knowledge, but more importantly, they can recognize an opportunity and seize it without hesitation.

They have an ability to anticipate what’s going to happen, and they’re able to react without over-analyzation. Often, this results in meat in their freezer when others would go home empty-handed.

The good news here is that we can all sharpen our hunting instincts, however, this is no easy task.

Watching Instincts Develop

Hunting instincts play a role in a variety of different ways, but shooting scenarios are the most obvious. Watching the development of my oldest son, who I’ve taken grouse hunting since he was three years old, has taught me a lot about a hunter’s instinct. I started him on a Savage Rascal .22, and he first learned to shoot with a red dot scope.

He’s progressed to become proficient with iron sights and magnified optics, but his grouse gun is still that little .22. He often accompanies me to the shooting range and will constantly pepper my 100-yard targets with .22 holes. He thinks it’s a gas. As staple of boyhood, he got his first Red Ryder this past spring, and we set up a backyard range for him, where he tears through bottles of BB’s ventilating aluminum cans suspended by strings. But this is more than just fun and games, he’s learning every time we shoot.

My son has always been a quick learner, and now he’s becoming a crack shot before my eyes. He’s been shooting red squirrels with his small hand-me-down compound bow since he was five. A few days ago, we followed a pair of grouse into a black spruce thicket, and when I could see a bird ducking and bobbing his way toward a tiny window through the tangled mess of dry, gray limbs and alder branches, I set the tripod we use and pointed his rifle toward the opening.

He quickly got behind the rifle and had only a couple seconds before the bird walked into the opening. Bang! The grouse dropped. We continued, and he got another one in the same manner. It was our first grouse hunt in a while, and the first time I’ve seen him shoot with such decisiveness. These weren’t lucky shots made in haste; they were intentional and accurate. He prepared quickly and took his opportunities as soon as they appeared.

We Aren’t Born with Hunter’s Instincts

I’d love to believe that the secret to being a great shot on wild game is simply flowing within the Freel family bloodline. And it’s nice to think that we all have hunting instincts and skills hardcoded into our DNA from ancient ancestors who chased down wooly mammoths with bows and spears.

But, unfortunately, that’s not how it works in the real world. Of course, some people have natural abilities (like keen vision or good hand-eye-coordination) that help them become better hunters, but a true hunter’s instinct isn’t something you’re born with. Hunting instinct is cultured and learned.

I’ve been crazy about hunting for as long as I can remember, but that didn’t mean I was always good at it. When I was 12 years old, my dad and I started calling coyotes together. I loved it, but I don’t remember killing a single coyote that first winter. Over several years, we got better, learning from each coyote we called in. We learned to predict what they were likely to do, we learned when to shoot and when to wait. As our experience and skills grew, so did our instinct for it.

We had to see a lot of hunts play out and we also mess up on a lot of coyotes before we really had the right instincts. All those experiences informed future hunts.

You Can’t Buy Instinct

Shooting animals ethically, effectively, and decisively, is a learned skill. That skill can’t be bought, and neither can good shooting instincts.

In the materialistic and hyper-marketed world, we live in, it’s easy to fall for the notion that you can buy yourself better results with better gear. While accurate rifles, quality ammunition, and precise optics do provide tangible benefits, they don’t mean shit if you don’t know how to use them. Competency takes lots of practice, and yes, some failure, too.

Based on the nature of many posts and conversations I’ve seen, I’d say it’s easy for many new hunters to be paralyzed by indecisiveness—afraid to just go, try, and even fail on their own. Many want to be told everything from where to go to which type of bootlaces they need to be using. The best advice is to simply get out there and learn as you go.

Likewise, even many experienced hunters put too much emphasis on gear and not enough emphasis on time in the field.

How to Develop a Hunter’s Instinct

The best route for developing a deadly and efficient hunting instinct is, quite simply, to spend a lot of time hunting. To get good at recognizing shot opportunities and to capitalize on them, you need to get many of animals in front of you. And to do that, you’ve got to spend serious time in the woods.

But range time matters too. I started my son out with a red dot scope because it made for one less complication to the shooting process, and he could see success and improvement. It made shooting fun. With thousands of repetitions, he’s become comfortable, quick, and decisive in his shooting. When starting with iron sights this summer on his BB gun, he was frustrated and shaky, shooting off a bench. Now he can make those tin cans dance shooting offhand better than Chuck Connors. That snappy decisiveness translates to hunting.

Experienced hunters can sharpen their instinct by practicing with a shot process. This means executing the exact same steps in the same order before every shot (this gets written about a lot in archery, but it’s important for any type of shooting). Drilling a shot process might seem counter intuitive at first, because the whole point of going on instinct is to not think about it, right? That’s true, but first you’ve got to build solid fundamentals. By practicing with a shot process, you drill those fundamentals into your subconscious. Soon, you won’t be thinking about the steps in the process, you’ll do them automatically. When a shot opportunity presents itself on a hunt, you’ll shoot the exact same way you do in practice.

It’s amazing to watch son develop his skills and hunter’s instinct. But it’s important to remember that the focus of any hunt should never be only on killing something. After all, you’ll learn more from missed opportunities than successful ones. I know I must be patient and have him only take good opportunities and ethical shots, but more and more he’s recognizing those opportunities on his own.

The post The Best Hunters Go on Instinct. Here’s How to Sharpen Yours appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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Best Overall		Primos Squirrel Buster	SEE IT
Best for Early Season		Haydel’s Mr. Squirrel Whistle	SEE IT
Best Value		Hunters Specialties	SEE IT

In the early days of my hunting career in West Tennessee, I was following my father’s footsteps as we searched the woods for squirrels with a call in hand. In my mind, it as an adventure as big as chasing elk through the Rockies. I was hunting with my dad, and that’s about as good as life gets for an 8-year-old boy.

We only toted two squirrels out of the woods on my first hunt with dad, but it was enough to light a fire that’s burned every season since.

Shortly after that first squirrel hunt, I remember buying a Mr. Squirrel Whistle from Haydel’s. In my mind, every serious squirrel hunter was equipped with a squirrel whistle hanging around their neck.

Unfortunately, I was under the impression that I’d blow the call, and squirrels would come scrambling my way, like ducks over the decoys. I’ll never forget blowing that call out behind the house, trying my best to call squirrels off the neighbor’s bird feeder. To my surprise, all the squirrels ran for their life. I might as well have sounded a squirrel siren. They scampered to the trees like their tails were on fire. That day I learned that while the squirrels didn’t come running in droves, the call I blew made every squirrel in town start barking and chattering, which is invaluable when you’re trying to locate squirrels in the woods. The best squirrel calls won’t magically draw critters into gun range, but the right call can help you locate squirrels, getting you one step closer to filling your bag limit. 

• Best Overall: Primos Squirrel Buster
• Best for Early Season: Haydel’s Mr. Squirrel Whistle
• Best Value: Hunters Specialties
• Best Cutter Call: Two Quarters
• Best DIY: Lemongrass

Best Overall: Primos Squirrel Buster

Primos Hunting

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Why It Made the Cut

The Primos Squirrel Buster sits atop this list because it’s user friendly, and even new callers can make realistic barks and chatters with it.

Key Features

• Bellow-style design
• Five sounds in one call
• Rubber/plastic construction

Pros

• Makes the complete squirrel vocabulary
• Easy, one-hand use
• Hyper realistic sounds of the gray and fox squirrel

Cons

• No lanyard

Product Description

This bellow-style call looks similar to competitors, however the authentic sounds set this call apart. You can easily achieve the distinctly different sounds of the gray squirrel and the deeper, raspier sounds of the fox squirrel. Primos claims that this call makes five sounds, but by manipulating hand placement and air pressure, you can produce even more sounds with plenty of mood and emotion. Like anything, this takes practice. But once you figure out the sweet spots, you’ll quickly find what tricks produce the most realistic calls.

While one-handed operation is easy to make solid squirrel calls, two-handed use allows for a wider range of the squirrel vocabulary. Squeeze or shake the call for barks and chatters, or make distress whines and cries with the call to your lips.

This call delivers ample options to make a squirrel give away its location. Excited barks and chatter will cause a squirrel to respond with vocalizations and often a flash of the tail. It’s just the giveaway a hunter needs to move into range for a shot.  

Best for Early Season: Haydel’s Mr. Squirrel Whistle

Haydel’s Game Calls Inc.

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Why It Made the Cut

I carried a squirrel whistle around my neck as a child, and the sound of the whistle takes me back to those first attempts at bushytails in the early fall. The Squirrel Whistle is perfect for the early season when the action slows down later in the morning, and squirrels can’t help but give away their location when you sound the distress whines and cries.

Key Features

• Lanyard Attachment
• Multiple whistle distress sounds
• Mouth call design

Pros

• Compact and lightweight
• Included lanyard ensures you never lose it
• Works equally as well as a predator call

Cons

• Not as realistic as some DIY options
• Can potentially spook squirrels

Product Description

This whistle-style call is roughly the size of a quarter and features a hole in the middle that serves as the air chamber. It’s an inhale design, so it’s important to make sure you always leave it on the lanyard to prevent choking. Four to five sharp whistle blasts create the sound of a squirrel in distress. It’s a common sound heard in the woods when a hawk or owl attacks a squirrel on the limb or ground. The end result is typically the same—every squirrel in the area starts barking, chattering, and flagging their tail. It’s designed to put them on alert, and you’ll quickly see that this squirrel call actually works.

While this distress call gets the squirrels talking, that’s also one of its drawbacks. After all, it is a distress call, so squirrels have a tendency to run away when they think they’re in danger. 

While it may play on the maternal instinct of a sow squirrel, and bring her closer to investigate what she thinks might be one of her young, it will typically put the local squirrels on high alert. If you have a squirrel close enough for the shot, it’s time to pull the trigger. Using this call to bring a squirrel closer for an easier shot will likely jeopardize your opportunity for success.

Use this call in conjunction with a broken branch or switch to swat and thrash the leaves to add realism to your calling routine. You want to paint the picture of a predator attacking and scuffling with a squirrel in the leaves.  

Best Value: Hunters Specialties

Hunter’s Specialties

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Why It Made the Cut

This H.S. Squirrel Call produces almost the entire squirrel vocabulary, including distress cries. It’s a lot of call for a little cash.

Key Features

• Bellow-style design
• Rubber/plastic construction
• Multiple calls in one

Pros

• Budget friendly
• Versatile
• Easy one-hand use
• Realistic

Cons

• No lanyard

Product Description

The H.S. Squirrel Call is a bellow-style call designed to produce a wide variety of squirrel sounds. It allows hunters to mimic barks, chatters, screeches, and distress sounds of the gray and fox squirrel. This is another call designed to help you locate squirrels by enticing them to bark and chatter back at the sounds produced.

With a rubber and plastic construction that’s not hindered by rain or moisture, this call will work in any weather conditions. You can use one hand to easily run the call if you’re toting your squirrel hunting rifle in the other. Or use it with two to dial in hyperrealistic calls. 

Best Cutter Call: Two Quarters

Why It Made the Cut

The two-quarter method is one of the best squirrel calls to mimic the cutting sound of a squirrel in the treetops as it feeds on hickory nuts. And the grinding of the ridges found on the outer edges of a quarter against itself simulates this cutting sound perfectly.

Key Features

• Two U.S. quarters with ridges on outer edge
• Material: Copper with a copper/nickel coating

Pros

• Produces authentic cutting sound
• Inexpensive
• Available
• Packable

Cons

• Limited volume
• Doesn’t demand a response like other calls
• Easy to lose or spend

Product Description

This is one of the easiest calls to acquire and use on this list. It’s a soft and subtle sound, but one that carries to impressive distances on a calm and quiet day in the woods. It’s a great early season call when squirrels are actively feeding on hickory or beech nuts. And it’s one that might best be labeled a confidence or curiosity call.

You might be wondering why you’d need a call in the early season when squirrels are abundant and gorging themselves on nuts. The truth is, this sound works to settle a squirrel down after it’s been spooked. Whether you’ve bumped a squirrel while moving in close or stirred things up by firing your gun, the two-quarter cutting call is a great way to help squirrels in the area to settle back down and resume feeding.

Keep in mind, squirrels are territorial. They are a lot like hogs and will not be left out of a feeding frenzy. When they know other squirrels are back on the move to feed, they’ll quickly join, which is why this call works so well.

Simply grind the quarters against one another along their ridged edges. It perfectly mimics the sound of a squirrel’s teeth cutting against a hickory nut. Add realism to your routine by throwing nuts (or rocks) to the ground to resemble the thud of nuts falling from the treetops. Again, these are audible cues that squirrels are actively feeding in the area. And gray or fox squirrels can hardly resist them.

Best DIY: Lemongrass

Why It Made the Cut

The lemongrass calling method has been passed down by squirrel hunters for generations. When performed properly, it’s far more realistic than any store-bought call, especially when it comes to distress whistles.

Key Features

• All natural DIY option
• Made from grass blades
• Incredibly life-like sound

Pros

• Super realistic
• Easy to acquire
• Inexpensive

Cons

• Not a native grass found locally in the wild (must be store-bought)
• Requires a learning curve
• Not pack/vest friendly

Product Description

Sometimes the best squirrel calls are the ones you make yourself. That certainly seems to be the case when it comes to the whistle sounds produced by this DIY lemongrass option.

Lemongrass is a tall perennial grass native to the tropical climates of Asia, Australia, and Africa. But don’t worry, you can still get your hands on a small batch of lemongrass at your local grocery story for a couple bucks. In fact, a two-dollar pack of lemongrass is enough to make more than enough squirrel calls to keep you busy.

Simply remove the outer layer of the stalk. Then, split and peel back a blade. When folded back over itself, the grass makes somewhat of a sound chamber that you’ll suck air through.

When placed on your lips, this inhale style call allows you to emit the whistling sounds of a distress squirrel or the cries of a baby squirrel. Again, when done properly, this method produces the most lifelike distress sounds out there.

READ NEXT: Squirrel Hunting Tips and Tactics

FAQs

Things to Consider When Buying a Squirrel Call

As a young boy, I bought the first squirrel call I found hanging on the shelf at the local Buck “N” Bass store. There was no questioning whether I needed it, or how much it cost. In those days, squirrel call options were few and far between. Luckily, there are more call options available now than ever. So, before you head to the sporting goods store or shop online for squirrel calls, here are a few things to consider.

How They Work

As a young hunter, I was naïve in my expectations of how a squirrel call should work. And while squirrels will approach the sound of your call from time to time, these calls are designed to make squirrels talk (chattering or barking) to give away their location, rather than setting them in front of your crosshairs or bead. 

Buy or Build

Before you buy a call, consider some DIY options to build your own. You’ll often hear old-school squirrel hunters talk about calling squirrels with two quarters or a blade of grass, and there’s a reason serious squirrel hunters still use these methods.

Cost

Fortunately, squirrel calls are relatively cheap. You’ll find options on the shelves starting around $10 and combo packs with multiple calls included for $25. Again, homemade options are easily acquired for a couple bucks, if not free.

Evaluating Squirrel Calls

I selected the calls on this list based on quality in sound, ease of use, and the value in price. There have been a number of manufactured calls over the years that have come and gone, but the calls mentioned above, for the most part, are still found on the shelves of popular sporting goods stores today.

I’ve used these calls over the years to effectively locate and bag a ton squirrels. Do they work every time? Absolutely not. Do they work enough to earn a spot in your squirrel vest? No doubt about it.

Final Thoughts

When the action gets slow, the best squirrel calls can be the ticket to get them talking, so you make a move for a shot. They add an exciting element to hunting squirrels and should help you put more of them in the bag. 

The post The Best Squirrel Calls of 2023 appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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A FEW YEARS AGO, Clay Newcomb bought his first mule. The unbroke female cost him one beat-up World War II rifle (complete with bayonet), a 1994 Honda FourTrax quad, and $500 cash. Three months later, after tearing through YouTube tutorials and calling a horse trainer once a week, Newcomb found himself the proud owner of a broke mule. Soon he started riding Izzie into the woods at night, racing after his Plott hounds, Fern and Jedi.

There’s a rich and somewhat bizarre tradition of Ozark hunters chasing raccoons with their mules, although it’s not widely practiced these days. But Newcomb isn’t the historical re-enactor type, and he’s not trying to revive the glory days of Ozark coon hunting. It’s admittedly a nod to tradition, but he mostly hunts with Izzie because he’s always wanted a mule, and he’s always hunted coons, so he might as well combine the two.

“There is something in human nature that greatly values partnering with an animal to do work. It’s so satisfying,” he says. “And from a practical standpoint, to ride a mule is an efficient way to hunt because you can cover a lot more ground. It’s just a good way to travel in the wilderness.”

Most nights, though, that efficiency takes a back seat to inclusivity, because there are typically more hunters than mounts. Tracking coons with the Newcombs is something of a party, and Clay is often accompanied by his three kids (who almost always bring a friend or two), a pair of dogs, one mule, and occasionally a donkey. Fortunately, they have plenty of room to roam, thanks to the nearby Ozark National Forest and landowner permission on several large private tracts.

“The best part of a hunt is when you’re all sitting there in the dark, talking, then bam—a dog barks,” Newcomb says. “It’s coon-hunting etiquette that no matter what you’re talking about, you stop talking. And boy, do new people pick it up quick.”

When Newcomb hears deep bawls from Jedi or Fern’s squalling barks, he knows the hunt is just getting started. 

This story originally ran in the Fall 2019 issue. Read more OL+ stories.

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A group of golfers in Arizona witnessed a special sight over the weekend when a bobcat hunted down a rabbit right in front of them in broad daylight. One of the golfers, Bradley Leavitt, recorded the scene on his phone and shared the video to Instagram on Sunday.

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“It is very common to see rabbits all over the golf course here in AZ. Occasionally you will see a bobcat,” Leavitt wrote in the post. “Rarely do you see a bobcat in full hunt mode with complete disregard of any nearby golfers.”

Sitting in their golf cart, the players watch as the bobcat stalks its prey from the tee box. The cat slinks down the fairway, taking a few quick steps and then freezing while crouching low to the ground. With its belly rubbing the grass, the bobcat makes a wide loop around the unsuspecting rabbit.

Then, in a sudden burst of speed, the bobcat sprints toward the rabbit on the edge of the fairway. Caught flat-footed, the rabbit tries to run but it’s too late. After a brief tumble in the sand, the bobcat bites down on the rabbit’s neck and kills it.

“Oh my gosh, that bunny is toast,” one of the golfers says as the bobcat walks back across the fairway with the limp rabbit hanging from its mouth.

Read Next: Watch a Bobcat Savagely Take Down a Mule Deer

As Leavitt pointed out, it’s rare to see bobcats hunting this close to people. The wily cats typically stalk their prey during lowlight hours far from view. It’s possible that this bobcat was accustomed to humans on the course, or it could have been so hungry that it was willing to take the risk.

“Glad you didn’t interfere. They have to be desperate for food to expose themselves in this way,” one commenter wrote on Leavitt’s post. “Sorry for rabbit, but Bobby has to eat.”

The post Watch a Bobcat Hunt a Rabbit on a Busy Golf Course appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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The sounds of frenetic scratching on pine bark pulled my eyes skyward. Scanning the uppermost branches for any tell-tale movement, I expected to see the subtle shimmy of pine needles or a twitching bushy tail. But the canopy was still.

As I reached for binoculars, a flurry of lacy white flakes fluttered down from directly overhead — the inner duff of a pine cone shredded by famously industrious rodent incisors. The flakes came from a dense weave of pine needles but one with open branches on either side. All I had to do was wait.

Finally, a little gray body bounded toward the tree’s trunk and paused in the open. I had just enough time to click the safety off and level the shotgun’s bead on the squirrel’s head. The 20 gauge boomed and the squirrel thumped to the ground nearly at my feet. Agitated chatters erupted not 30 yards up the hill.

Squirrels are the everyman game animal. They are delectable on the plate, ubiquitous and relatively easy to hunt, yet challenging enough to keep it interesting. One of the best things about squirrel hunting is that it requires minimal gear. Even if you’re not a squirrel hunter, chances are you already own almost everything you need. With that in mind, here’s our ultimate guide to squirrel hunting.

Gun Options

The main types of guns for squirrel hunting are shotguns, rimfire rifles, and air rifles. Some folks will chase squirrels with a pistol but we’ll stick to long guns in our guide.

Shotguns

I rarely pack a shotgun for squirrels. Stalking with a .22 is my preferred method, but I was jonesing for squirrel meat in a bad way and the thick September forest canopy had stymied my efforts with the rifle. It wasn’t for lack of game, gray and fox squirrels were plentiful on the public lands I hunted. But settling the crosshairs on a stationary squirrel’s noggin’ just wasn’t happening. My elitist preferences aside, the shotgun is always the top option for early-season precisely for the reasons already mentioned — fast-moving squirrels in dense foliage.

I’ve killed squirrels with 12, 16, and 20 gauge shotguns. And the perfect squirrel shotgun, in my opinion, is an automatic or pump 20 gauge. It’s light enough to tote comfortably for miles, throws plenty of pellets, is easy on the shoulder, and you can find loads everywhere.

Choke options should be limited to modified or full. Modified is best for situations when you know you can get close to the squirrels, say, if the woods are damp after a shower or slightly breezy. For most outings, go with the full choke. Treetop squirrels in the woods are often farther than 30 yards away making pattern density, or the lack thereof, an issue. Tighter patterns are a requirement because squirrels are surprisingly tough. A few pellets won’t necessarily kill or even stop them. Yes, the full-choke can ruin meat on closer shots. But for 20 yards and under, you can edge a pattern toward the front end of a stationary target. Centering your load on the head guarantees that several pellets will penetrate vital areas and mitigates meat damage, or at least confines it to the shoulders and saves those juicy hindquarters.

Shot size is always a topic of debate. Some hunters prefer to saturate a squirrel with 7 1/2s while others prefer to blow holes completely through them with #4s. While 7 1/2s will undoubtedly kill squirrels, the smaller shot loses a lot of thump at longer ranges. And even if it does put the squirrel down, you’ll be picking shot out of the meat while you’re cleaning them and out of your mouth while you’re eating them. I’d pass on the 7 1/2s.

Number 4s carry more than enough energy to completely pass through a squirrel and anchor it. There’s some argument against 4s — fewer pellets and possibly more extensive meat damage — but those arguments are relatively flimsy. Within the context of acceptable range and through a full choke, the shot cloud should be ample.

Even with my praise of #4s, though, I shoot #6s. In four decades of squirrel hunting, #6 shot has rarely let me down. It’s plenty heavy to roll a squirrel (broken squirrel bones are a regularity), the shot cloud density makes me feel a little better about saturation, and, most of the time, the pellets pass completely through. But let’s keep it simple, grab a box of either #4s, #5s, or #6s and slip into the leafy squirrel woods with confidence.

Nontoxic shot for squirrels is something I haven’t experimented with yet, but it’s on my list for the off-season. Steel and bismuth are the options I’m looking at for both environmental reasons and the real possibility of requirements from game agencies.

You likely noticed that there was no mention of the .410 in this shotgun discussion. Yes, some folks hunt squirrels with a .410 and do just fine by limiting the range and scenarios for pulling the trigger. But shotgunning squirrels is about maximum efficiency. If you want to up the challenge, grab a rifle.

READ NEXT: Best Sub-Gauge Shotguns for Squirrel Hunting

Rifles

Rimfire rifles and squirrels are the perfect pairing in my mind. You can build or subtract from the challenge with choice of caliber and optics. The .17 HMR and .17 M2 offer whisker-splitting accuracy out to 100 yards if long-range rodents are your thing. But the HMR (a necked down .22 magnum casing with a .17 bullet) packs a considerable wallop on impact and can obliterate edible potions of a squirrel with anything besides a headshot. The M2 (a necked down .22 long rifle casing housing a .17) is a slower round and proclaimed by some fans as the perfect squirrel rifle, though, ammo can be pricy and difficult to find.

In the .22 calibers, the .22 WMR is the answer for 100-yard-plus squirrel sniping, but like the .17 HMR, it could easily be considered overkill.

That leaves us with the plink master, the first rifle many of us called our own, the humble .22. But even here there are options among loads with the .22 short, .22 long., .22 long rifle, and .22 long rifle subsonic. Most .22 rifles must be specifically chambered for the corresponding round, though, some like my Henry rifle can handle all of them. The differences between rounds hinge on velocity and bullet weight. Shorts are the lightest weight, lowest speeds, and are a sub-30-yard squirrel round while .22 Ls are flatter shooting with the same weight bullet and longer casing holding more powder. Long rifle cartridges offer heavier bullets — up to 40 grains — with that extra powder of the .22 long and have mostly supplanted .22 Ls. Subsonic .22 loads combine the quiet “pop” of a .22 short with the skull-penetrating weight of a 40- or even 45-grain bullet.

You can opt for hollow-point .22 rounds, but they’re not needed for head shots. And, like the .17HMR, can destroy a lot meat if your aim is off a bit.

READ NEXT: Best Squirrel Hunting Rifles

Scopes

Keep it simple. At .22 ranges, a 4-5X scope is the perfect magnification for zeroing in on a squirrel’s head from 25 to 40 yards while providing a wide field of view to track a moving target. Scopes designed for better low-light visibility are a plus since many shot opportunities will happen in the gloom before sunrise and right after sunset. Zero your scope at 25 yards and you’ll be good out to 50.

Air Rifles

Occasionally, if I’m feeling particularly stealthy (or need a dose of humility) I’ll tote a scoped .22 air rifle into the woods. The air rifle is a close-range weapon (25 yards or less), and head shots are a requirement. There’s just not enough energy to reliably penetrate a squirrel’s hide and reach the vitals at normal shooting distances. And while squirrels will die with a .17 pellet to the brain, the extra heft of the .22 adds a measure of assurance. Be sure to check local regulations concerning hunting with an air rifle.

READ NEXT: Best .22 Air Rifles

Gear for Squirrel Hunting

You don’t need camouflage clothing for squirrels. Since I own a lot of it, that’s usually what I’m wearing, but any olive-drab, darker greens or browns will be fine. Earth-tone plaid flannel shirts are great for cooler weather.

Footwear should be habitat appropriate. While you’ll be sitting and standing still for periods of time, you’ll also be moving. If you’re hunting lowlands, go for something waterproof. The uplands call for boots with more support. Here in the Ozarks, I wear snake boots from late summer through November because copperheads and timber rattlers prowl the ridges even after a few frosts. Besides serpent protection, the boots are waterproof, tough, and generally do everything I want them to do.

Other gear includes binoculars, to identify that suspicious-looking bump on a limb, and a squirrel call. Squirrel calls don’t bring squirrels to you. Instead, they reveal a hidden squirrel. I use mine sparingly, and only when I know a squirrel is nearby and hiding. Even in ultra-stealth mode, squirrels seem to have an involuntary reaction to the soft chatter of another squirrel. It’s usually subtle — a slight tail twitch or small repositioning to get a better view — but sometimes they boldly bounce out on an open limb and bark back.

READ NEXT: Best Squirrel Calls

I don’t carry much into the squirrel woods — a gun, ammo, bug dope, squirrel call, binoculars, maybe a jacket, and a bottle of water. The best way I’ve found to pack it is in my turkey hunting vest. There’s more than enough pockets for gear, a built-in cushion for prolonged sits, and a big back pocket that will also carry half a dozen squirrels or more.

Habitat and Behavior

There’s a wide variety of squirrel subspecies out there but in Eastern, Midwestern, and Southern woods, hunters target both fox squirrels and gray squirrels. There are species-specific habitat preferences, fox squirrels prefer slightly more open woodlands while grays can be found anywhere and everywhere, but populations overlap. (Red squirrels are also found all over the country, but hunters rarely target them because of their very small size).

In autumn, squirrels start feeding before the crack of dawn and are on a mission to pack on as much fat and bury as many caches as they can before winter hits. Food preferences are the same for both species — hickory nuts, white oak acorns, red oak acorns, walnuts, pecans, some soft mast. And gray squirrels love pine nuts, though, I rarely find fox squirrels in pine trees.

As fall transitions into winter, food sources dwindle and squirrel populations become more concentrated. The hottest squirrel spots are usually red oaks, which are often passed over early because they pack more tannic acid, amping up the bitterness. Winter squirrels are less picky, but you’ll still find some in their autumn haunts searching for loot they buried when food was everywhere.

While low light periods are best in autumn, winter squirrels are late risers with activity peaking during the warmer hours. On especially cold and nasty days, they don’t leave the den. Neither should you.

Squirrels have two breeding seasons per year: one in summer and one in winter. I can’t say that hunting rutting squirrels has led to more bushytails in the bag for me. Winter activity levels are regulated by weather and food more than lust. But watching two or more boars in hot pursuit of a sow in heat is high entertainment as they swirl around the trunks and branches.

Squirrels are messy eaters and leave ample sign in the areas they frequent. Look for gnawed mast hulls and shredded pine cones on the forest floor or scattered on a favorite feeding stump or rock. Besides feeding sign, you can scan the limbs for warm-weather leaf nests and check out hollowed standing timber as well.

Pack your binoculars while scouting. Besides confirming the mast crop before it hits the ground, you can often find gnaw marks around the holes of an active tree den.

How to Hunt Squirrels

The tried and true method is to be sitting in the middle of woods loaded with mast at daylight or a couple of hours before sundown. Like so many other forest hunts, the first indication that your quarry is near will likely be through sound— swishing branches, claws scampering on tree bark, mast hulls pattering on the forest floor, the excited barks or low whistles of a squirrel that has spotted you or another potential threat. If squirrels are around, you’ll soon hear them.

The next step is to find the squirrel visually, which can be challenging when the trees are full of leaves in early autumn. Don’t look for the entire squirrel, you probably won’t see one. Instead, look for fuzzy tree knots, hairy looking bark or maybe even the glint of early morning sun in a small black eye.

Then you’ve got to close the distance if need be. In early season, all that foliage hides you just as it hides the squirrel. Basic stalking is the name of the game here. If possible, approach with the sun at your back. Plan your path to a tree that’s closer to the squirrel and can also hide you as you use it for a gun rest. Go slow and then even slower. Time your movements with the squirrel’s and be aware of twigs or other obstacles on the ground that could alert the animals to your presence. Hunted squirrels, especially on public lands, are not the same animals encountered in city parks and suburban back yards. They’re not dumb, and a squirrel on high alert is tough to kill.

Later in the year, when the limbs are bare and any mast is already on the ground, squirrels are even noisier as they pilfer through crunchy leaf litter. They’re more visible as well, but you are, too, so you’ll have to move even slower. Or, as my dad always said, “just keep your butt planted at this tree.” Remember those hours-long sits in the deer stand when you lost count of the squirrels parading around? Probably the best way to kill squirrels in mid-autumn is to sit in the same place all morning long.

Squirrels have a relatively short attention span when spooked. If they don’t leave the area entirely, they’ll be back to business after a 15- to 30-minute wait. Likewise, a gunshot doesn’t necessarily send them running. In this regard, the .22 rifle with its softer report offers more multiple shot opportunities. But often, even a shotgun blast just reveals more squirrels as they bark and maneuver to get a better view of what’s going on.

After the shot, mark the location of any downed squirrels, make sure that they’re dead, then sit tight and scan the branches for more movement. If other squirrels are close by, you’ll rarely wait long.

If no squirrels have revealed themselves after a 20-minute sit, ease through the woods listening and watching. When you discover an area with lots of sign, give it another 30-minute sit and so on and so forth until activity dwindles. On cool days, that may not happen until early afternoon. And on cloudy, misty days with a slow drizzle, squirrel action can be fantastic all day long. The very best times to be in the woods is right after a shower or the morning after a day or two of heavy rain. If conditions are calm (windy days are tough), hungry squirrels will be swarming the mast.

Squirrel Hunting in Winter

Many states have squirrel hunting seasons that run late into the winter. After big game, waterfowl, and upland seasons are closed, you can still get out and chase squirrels. In northern states, where frigid winter weather quiets the woods, the key is to hunt on (relatively) warm sunny days. Ideally, pick days with minimal wind and you’ll see the most squirrel activity.

With all the leaves down and snow on the ground, squirrels will see (and likely hear) you coming from a long ways away. That’s OK. Just head for a spot in the hardwoods where you see a lot of squirrel sign, sit down, and be still. Eventually squirrels will forget about you and get back scampering. If there’s snow, focus on areas where you see a lot of squirrel tracks.

For late-season hunts, it pays to have an accurate rimfire rifle for longer shots. With minimal cover in the woods, you will have a hard time sneaking close to squirrels. —Alex Robinson

Squirrel Hunting in Spring

Spring squirrel season will look much like the early fall season. Leaves will be back on the trees in late spring, so you’ll have to use your eyes and ears to locate furry targets tucked into the heavy foliage—it’s a fun challenge.

Also like the fall season, spring squirrels can be found searching for food in the early and late hours of the day. However, a squirrel’s feeding patterns will be slightly different in the spring. You won’t find squirrels in the treetops cutting on hickory nuts just yet. Rather, they’ll be feeding on soft mast food sources, buds, berries, or on the ground, searching for leftover nuts. Key in on these potential food sources near squirrel dens or nests, particularly near a water source, and you should have plenty of action.

Squirrel hunting in the spring can be difficult due to warm temperatures. The heat is tough on the squirrels as well as hunters and dogs. They’ll move early and late when temperatures are cool. That’s when you should be making your move as well. Key in on potential hotspots, get in before daybreak, and be ready when the action unfolds. Squirrels will make their move again in the afternoon as temperatures begin to drop before dark. Don’t miss the opportunity to beat the heat and bag your squirrels in the first and last hour of the day.

Warmer temperatures in the spring squirrel woods also means the potential for doing battle with snakes, ticks, chiggers, mosquitoes, and poison ivy. Make sure you’re on the lookout for rattlers and be prepared for the bugs with various replants.

Here’s a look at the states that offer spring squirrel hunting opportunities (find specific season dates on each states fish & game website). —Brodie Swisher

• Arkansas
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Missouri
• Oklahoma
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Virginia

Squirrel Hunting Dogs

Using dogs to find and tree squirrels was a tradition across the South and one that has been revived in recent years. The quiet solitude of daybreak alone is one of the primary charms of squirrel hunting for me. But for those who enjoy conversation, camaraderie, and the earnest work of a good canine in the field, hearing a mountain cur or feist bark “treed” is a little bit of heaven on Earth. My advice: Find a local squirrel dog enthusiast and join them on a hunt. Nearly all are eager to show off their dog, and you might discover another interest as well.

READ NEXT: How to Buy and Train a Squirrel Hunting Dog

Your Squirrel Hunting Questions, Answered

When is squirrel hunting season?

Squirrel hunting season is typically in the fall and winter. However, many states have squirrel seasons in the summer and spring. Check your state’s hunting regulations to find out exact season dates. 

What to wear squirrel hunting? 

You don’t need to wear expensive camo clothes to go squirrel hunting (though you can if you want to). Wear earth-toned clothes that will keep you comfortable while sitting in the woods. Also check your state’s small game hunting regulations to see if blaze orange is required for squirrel hunting. 

When is the best time to hunt squirrels?

Squirrels are typically most active around midmorning (maybe an hour or two after sunrise). In the winter, squirrels get active during the warmer parts of the day. 

Can you hunt squirrels with a pellet gun? 

Yes. There are a variety of modern air rifles that are capable of cleanly killing squirrels at reasonable distances. Check out the best .22 air rifles here.

Squirrel Recipes

Squirrel meat is one of the most underrated game meats in America. You can get fancy with squirrel recipes or you can simply fry the meat and dip it in hot sauce. Here are some of our go-to recipes.

• Nashville-Style Hot Fried Squirrel
• Rabbit and Squirrel Gumbo
• SQUIRREL STEW WITH PAPRIKA AND GREENS
• BRAISED SQUIRREL AURORA

Get in the Game

Back when I was a kid, squirrels were the first game animal pursued by new hunters, but in recent years, small game hunting has largely fallen by the wayside. Lost with that experience is a plethora of hunting skills and the enjoyment of a pursuit that’s a cornerstone of our outdoor heritage. But the simplicity of the squirrel hunting means that it’s an experience still within reach of nearly every hunter.

The post Squirrel Hunting Tips and Tactics appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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Folding shotguns comprise only a small segment of the firearm market. However, they do offer a real advantage for anyone who needs to keep a shotgun handy when space is limited. This platform is ideal for a truck gun or camping trip. Some bush plane pilots rely on folding shotguns, storing them in the cockpit as predator backup when ferrying hunters into the backcountry.

Granted, all action types—pumps, auto-loaders, and break-actions—can be disassembled into two pieces. But folding shotguns allow you to skip reassembly, which is no small consideration in an emergency. Here’s a look at some notable folding designs past and present.

The First Folding Shotgun

Long before the folding shotgun concept became the province of relatively inexpensive break-open “utility guns,” there was the Burgess pump-action designed by Andrew Burgess.

Made from 1894 to 1899 at the Burgess Gun Company in Buffalo, New York, the gun was originally intended for combat and law enforcement. The Burgess was a tactical shotgun before the term existed. Featuring a 20-inch barrel and six-shot capacity, this hinged, external-hammer 12-gauge could be holstered, making it a concealable option under  a jacket or vest . A pivoting pin and folding latch allowed the gun to be carried folded in its holster with a fully loaded magazine. The Burgess could then be drawn by its shooter and quickly locked into battery.

Instead of the common reciprocating handguard used to cycle pump shotguns—that patent hadn’t expired yet—the Burgess featured a sleeve around the wrist of the stock. Yanking back the sleeve—along with the grip and trigger guard—and then pushing it forward, unlocks the bolt, ejects the empty, and chambers the next round from the magazine.

In 1895 a standard-grade Burgess cost $30, plus $1.50 for the holster. By 1899, Winchester had bought out Burgess, most likely to reduce competition with their Model 97 pump. Today, the Burgess is a collectible. One in very good condition can fetch close to $8,000.

Chiappa Double Badger

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As anyone who has owned a Savage Model 24, Valmet, or Baikal rifle-shotgun knows, combination guns are not new technology. Chiappa took the concept a step further with the Double Badger, which has double triggers. It’s available in .410/.22 LR, .410/.22 WMR, 20 gauge/.22 LR, and .410/.243. When folded in half, the Double Badger is just 21.2 inches, which means it’s pack friendly or can be stowed under a seat in your truck. For increased accuracy, this gun has fiber-optic ghost ring sights, plus a rail for optics. At 6.25 pounds, it’s heavy by folding gun standards. Chiappa does make a handier option called the Little Badger Deluxe, although that’s not a shotgun: It’s a rifle-only platform chambered in .22 LR or .22 WMR. That gun weighs only 3.6 pounds and measures 17 inches when folded.

Read next: Pocket Pistols for Personal Protection

Beretta Model 412

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Imports of Beretta’s highly regarded Model 412 series began in 1946, and ended in 1988. The 412 was a single-barrel folder offered in 12-, 20-, 28-gauge, or .410. The barrel is a monobloc design, which means it was braised to a single component as opposed to a demibloc that offers more strength for double-barrel shotguns. The Model 412 weighs a scant 5 pounds and features a checkered fore-end and pistol grip stock. They are beautiful guns that cost less than $200—if you can find one. If not, consider the legendary 412, which continued in Effebi’s Beta series. It can be had in the same gauges as the 412, though it’s less elegant. It also breaks open differently, using a lever system located on the tang of the shotgun—similar to that of many over/under and side-by-side shotguns—instead of the trigger-style lever the Beretta employs. 

TriStar Folding Survival Shotgun

This Turkish-made single-shot folder in 12-gauge has a 3-inch chamber (TriStar also offered it in 20-gauge and .410-bore). It’s a no-frills synthetic-stock gun with a Parkerized finish, featuring a 20-inch fixed choke cylinder bore barrel. The curb weight is 4.5 pounds, so the recoil from buckshot or slugs will be substantial, though you could outfit the TriStar with a recoil pad. The stock is hollow for stashing small supplies like matches or a first-aid kit—if you have a screwdriver to remove the recoil pad. The shotgun breaks open via a lever forward of the trigger guard. It is no longer produced by TriStar, so you will have to search the used market for one. It shouldn’t cost you more than $100. When folded, it certainly fits the definition of a pack gun and could be used to hunt small game, particularly in the mountains where every pound you carry makes a difference.

Yildiz TK36 and TK12

One of Turkey’s oldest gunmakers offers two notable single-barrel folders: the Yildiz TK36 .410 and TK12 12-gauge. Both single-shots feature select Turkish walnut stocks and fore-ends, recoil pads, fixed modified chokes, pistol-grip stocks, and tang-mounted safeties. They both use the same lever system forward of the trigger guard as the TriStar. The TK36 weighs just 3.3 pounds and measures under 4 feet long (44 inches) with a 28-inch barrel. The TK12 is the same length, but weighs in at 4.8 pounds since it’s a 12-gauge. Both guns are still in production and cost less than $200.

Khan Arms Stylox 

Khan Arms, a Turkish manufacturer, offers the Stylox series of single-shot folders in 12- and 20-gauge, plus .410-bore. The Stylox is available in 10 variants with synthetic, camouflage, and wood finish options. For backcountry pursuits and defense, the Tac Fidelio is a perfect choice due to its synthetic exterior, raised blade front sight, and Picatinny rail for mounting an optic. If you don’t need the sights or rail, the Type-S is a similar gun that uses a traditional front bead. Both options have recoil pads to mitigate felt recoil. 

Harrington & Richardson Folding Shotgun

This time-honored American company made its contribution to the folding shotgun platform with a series of single shots from the early 1900s to the 1940s in 12-, 20-, 16-gauge, and .410-bore. The H&R folders typically have case-hardened frames, external hammers, top-break levers, 26-inch barrels, and walnut pistol grip stocks. As a very sensible feature, the forend was recessed to accept the trigger guard when the gun is folded, making it more compact. Weights range from 5¾ to 6½ pounds. H&R folders are still available on the used market, but they’re getting a little pricey for a brand associated with economy products. A recent search listed one for $450.

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My dad taught me to shoot a rifle, follow a blood trail, and gut a deer. And that’s simply the way it was for many kids who grew up in hunting families. It was up to Dad to teach the kids to hunt. While that’s certainly changing—just see our story on #huntingmamas—dads still tend to get most of the focus when we talk about raising kids to be hunters.

But when I look back closely at my own childhood, it’s clear that I never would have been the hunter I am today without my mom. She was the one who took me to hunter safety classes (Mom actually took the course, even though she had no intention of ever hunting), she packed all of our food for deer camp, and she was there when I killed my first animal.

The Outdoor Life Podcast: What It Takes to Raise Diehard Hunters (A Mother’s Day Special)

At the time I was too young to deer hunt, but old enough to go to deer camp, and also old enough to shoot a BB gun. So while my dad, grandpa, and uncles were off in their stands waiting for deer, it was up to my mom to watch over us kids as we chased squirrels with our BB guns and slingshots.

You can listen to how that adventure played out in the podcast embedded here. You’ll also hear about how hunting editor Andrew McKean’s mom Janet, age 87, watched her boy grow into a hunter at a very young age. And you’ll hear about how executive editor Natalie Krebs’ mom, Victoria Cornelius, has embraced the idea of her daughter devoting her career to hunting.

Read Next: Bloodlines: How One Bowhunter’s Decision Is Shaping the Way Three Generations Hunt

Perhaps you’ll even hear stories or perspectives that remind you of your own mom and your own upbringing as a hunter. If that’s the case, don’t forget that it’s Mother’s Day. Call up your mom, and just tell her thanks.

The post Podcast: What Does It Take to Raise a Hunting Kid? We Asked Our Moms appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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While many state agencies reported a welcome bump in hunting-license sales in recent years, the so-called Covid-19 bump in hunting participation has flattened out. Hunting license sales have returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to a new report from the Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports. Overall, sales were down 3.1 percent in 2022 compared to 2021.

CAHSS began tracking hunting license sales during Covid lockdowns, when anecdotal reports indicated there were more hunters in the woods. State agency data backed that up: hunting license sales jumped by nearly 5 percent in 2020, a deviation from the decades-long decline. Here’s a glance at the last three years of overall hunting license sales in the U.S.

• From 2019 to 2020, hunting license sales increased 5 percent
• From 2020 to 2021, hunting license sales decreased 1.9 percent
• From 2021 to 2022, hunting license sales decreased 3.1 percent

This year’s survey indicates that the modest gains made during the pandemic era have mostly subsided. Just six of 46 states saw an overall increase in hunting licenses sold in 2022 when compared to 2021. CAHSS did not make public which six states saw increased license sales due to privacy agreements with state agencies; Arkansas, Colorado, Minnesota, and Montana did not provide data for this year’s report.

Still, we do know that hunting license sales were down overall in all four geographical regions: the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, and West.

Why Are Hunting License Sales Down?

The report from CAHSS only analyzed license data provided by state agencies and did not examine potential causes of the decline or survey hunters. Still, there’s one major difference between 2020 and 2022 that could explain the return to pre-pandemic hunting license sales.

“Probably the biggest factor that we were dealing with through the pandemic was time. A lot of people started working from home,” says Swanny Evans, director of research and partnerships at CAHSS. “And we’ve seen people get back to work, we’ve seen travel pick up. We’re back in the real world, kind of, and I think time has become a constraint once again.”

While the pandemic was indisputably a tough period for many Americans, hunters were often able to embrace lockdowns. The conferences and work travel that normally filled Evans’ own schedule vanished. Suddenly he had more time to turkey hunt.

“But everybody else had a lot of time to turkey hunt, too,” says Evans. “And I could attest to that from not only the sign-ins on public land in Georgia that year but also the harvest on public land, and the anecdotal evidence of seeing people everywhere.”

There are plenty of tactics that R3 professionals (folks whose jobs revolve around recruiting, reactivating, and retaining hunters) can do to encourage hunting participation, but troubleshooting what could be the main culprit of these declining license sales isn’t one of them.

“When you start asking people about why they don’t hunt or they don’t hunt as much as they want to, time is the number one factor,” says Evans. “And it’s something that we can’t control. We can try to improve access and we can try to reduce hunting regulation complexity. We can try to make sure that more opportunity is there, that [would-be hunters] have the knowledge to hunt—whatever it is. But we can’t give people more of their own time.”

Another factor could be a more stable supply chain. Surveys and anecdotal evidence revealed that nearly half of “Covid-bump hunters” were motivated to secure their own meat at a time when it was difficult to find in grocery stores.

“For the overwhelming majority of hunters, one of the primary reasons that they hunt is for the food,” says Evans. “During the pandemic, people kind of saw that as an opportunity. ‘If we’re gonna have supply chain issues, I want to be self sufficient. Maybe I should give this a try, or maybe I should get back into it.’”

Yes, Nonresident Hunting License Sales Are Declining, Too

While nonresident hunting license sales were up nearly 13 percent in 2021 compared to 2020, they’ve mostly declined in 2022 with an overall drop of 3.1 percent. (Coincidentally, overall resident sales also dropped by 3.1 percent.)

Three out of four U.S. regions saw declines in nonresident licenses last year, with the West leading the pack at a 7.2 percent decrease from 2021, followed by a 2 percent decrease in the Southeast and a 1.5 percent decrease in the Midwest. Only the Northeast experienced a modest increase of 1.4 percent.

The surge in 2021 nonresident licenses tracks with national trends at the time, when many states had relaxed Covid-related travel restrictions, but plenty of would-be hunters hadn’t yet returned to their places of work.

CAHSS is working to collect additional data about hunting license sales to better understand hunter participation, including digging into common complaints about overcrowding on public lands and excess hunting pressure. Investigating these trends is tough work considering it requires wrangling 50 state government agencies, all of which sell hunting licenses slightly differently.

“It’s important to keep in mind that unfortunately we don’t have any perfect data sources when it comes to counting hunters,” says Evans. “A license sale doesn’t necessarily equal a participant for a variety of reasons. And then when we start looking at resident versus nonresidents, well, how many people are hunting numerous states each year? So looking at these overall license sales, we’re going to see fluctuations. We try to track them as best we can and we use that as an indicator of participation. But it’s not exactly a hard metric for what’s going on with hunting participation.”

The post Hunting License Sales Have Fallen Back to Pre-Pandemic Levels appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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Best Overall		Brocock Commander XR	SEE IT	LEARN MORE	Summary Lightweight, compact (with the stock folded), and easy to pack over long distances.
Best Budget		Air Venturi Avenger	SEE IT	LEARN MORE	Summary A great entry-level airgun at a competitive price.
Best Youth		Benjamin Maximus	SEE IT	LEARN MORE	Summary Easy to fill, has limited power, and is fit for smaller shooters.

I’ve been airgun hunting for 20 years and have shot nearly every .22 air rifle available. With that experience hunting with and reviewing airguns, I’ve put together a list of the best .22 air rifles.  

I’ll start with my standard disclaimer for these types of articles. The “best” rifle is a subjective measure that depends on its end use and your personal preferences. These are guns that I would choose based on criteria such as accuracy, power, size and weight, cocking action, magazine capacity, trigger, or the cost of ownership. With that disclaimer out of the way, here are my top picks:

• Best Overall: Brocock Commander XR 
• Best Budget: Air Venturi Avenger
• Best Spring Piston: Hatsan Model 65 
• Best Compact: Brocock Sniper XR
• Most Accurate: FX Impact
• Best Semi-Auto: AEA HP Carbine 

It would be easy just to select my overall favorite airguns and say, “I’ll take the .22 version of that.” However, I am going to start with a clean slate, ask myself what I’d want specifically in a .22, look at what’s available on the market, and share my choice. Some of these you will have seen in my previous articles, but others will be new to the lists.

Best .22 Air Rifles: Reviews and Recommendations

Best Overall: Brocock Commander XR

Brocock

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Key Features

• Huma-Air adjustable regulator
• Lother Walther polygonal barrel
• Tactical stock, AR-style stock, and pistol grip
• Shrouded barrel with integrated baffles

Pros

• Very accurate long-range capabilities
• Quiet
• Ergonomic and adjustable
• Fast, smooth cycling of sidelever

Cons

• Expensive
• Picatinny rail under bottle could be longer

The Brocock Commander XR is lightweight, compact (with the stock folded), and easy to pack over long distances. The sidelever action and magazine are reliable and can cycle quickly without coming off target. When shooting off sticks or with a bipod attached, I find this rifle is an absolute tack-driver on long-range prairie dog shoots. When hunting at distances over 100 yards with an air rifle and an 18-grain pellet, everything on the gun has to work well and work the same way every time, which the Commander does, and it’s why this rifle makes the grade. 

It has a bottle-forward design that is configured to accept an AR-compatible stock and pistol grip. The rifle uses a sidelever cocking and loading system that cycles the 10-shot magazine. The cocking handle is comfortable to use and only needs a short straight pull to cycle. Air management is provided by the HUMA regulated air delivery system that works with the adjustable hammer and valve to provide a high-level consistency. 

You can choose from an aluminum or carbon air cylinder. The aluminum is less expensive, and the carbon fiber is lighter. Dual air gauges monitor both regulator pressure settings and the air supply status. A power adjuster—located on the right-hand side of the breech block—works well for on-demand tuning.

If you are looking for a gun that is both a good all-around small game rifle and can be set up to reach out for longer range small game and pest control shooting, the Brocock Commander XR is hard to beat. With adjustable power, flexible airflow management, a precision barrel, a design that provides a stable and solid shooting platform, this is one that I felt comfortable making my pick for the best .22 air rifle for hunting overall.

Another great long-range hunting air rifle: FX Dreamline

Best Budget: Air Venturi Avenger

Air Venturi

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Key Features

• Value pricing
• Adjustable regulator
• Shrouded barrel
• Accurate and powerful

Pros

• Excellent performance out of the box
• Responsive trigger and sidelever action
• Rugged and reliable magazine
• Fully adjustable regulator allows optimization for specific projectiles and applications
• High-capacity and high-pressure air storage provides a high shot count

Cons

• Stock has a hollow and plasticky feel
• If the regulator is set high, a high pressure (4351 psi) fill is required

For a rifle to be a great entry-level gun, it has to be easy to set up and shoot, offer the performance to allow a new shooter to achieve success and see improvement, and continue to support the shooter’s needs as their experience level grows. The Avenger does an outstanding job of addressing this requirement.

The standard Avenger is a full-sized PCP rifle in a black synthetic sporter style stock that will fit most shooters well. The air reservoir sits below the barrel and provides a surprisingly high shot count due to the high fill pressures it can accommodate. The rifle is cycled with a sidelever action using a well-designed cocking lever that reliably auto indexes the magazines. Two pressure gauges display the status of the air storage and the regulator setting.

The Avenger is an excellent example of a gun that can adapt to the shooter’s needs. It is an excellent choice for novice PCP shooters and airgun aficionados who want to tune and modify a gun to make it their own.

I have used the Avenger .22 to hunt squirrels and rabbits with standard Diabolo pellets, and dialed it in to work with airgun slugs for long-range prairie dog shoots. The intrinsic accuracy, tactile trigger, smooth cocking action, and overall ergonomics make this an easy gun to shoot accurately. The low price makes it an attractive rifle to purchase, and the features and functionality ensure it will continue to provide value as a new shooter gains experience. And for all of these reasons, the Avenger was my pick for best budget .22 air rifle.

Best Spring Piston: Hatsan Model 65

Hatsan

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Key Features

• Excellent performance, accurate, and powerful
• Quiet Energy sound suppression system
• Quatro adjustable two-stage trigger
• SAS shock absorber system

Pros

• Quiet
• Accurate and powerful
• Excellent shooting characteristics
• Competitively priced

Cons

• Only available with conventional spring piston

What makes a spring-piston gun stand out for me—in addition to accuracy and a solid power output—is a smooth shooting cycle, a manageable cocking effort, and a good trigger. I also want a comfortable and ergonomic stock, a quiet gun in terms of the muzzle report and mechanical functions, and is fun to shoot. The Model 65 ticks all of these boxes.

The Hatsan Model 65 is a conventional spring-piston air rifle that comes with thumbhole stock made of Turkish hardwood, that has stippling on the pistol grip and forestock, and an adjustable cheekpiece. This rifle is loaded with the technology Hatsan developed such as the SAS shock absorber system for taming bidirectional recoil, the Quiet Energy sound suppression system to bring the report down to a backyard-friendly level, and the Quatro trigger which is one of my favorites in this category of guns.

With all the interest in new airgun technologies these days, we sometimes forget that spring-piston airguns are still one of the primary gateways to airgunning. There is something to be said about a fully self-contained rifle. You just need to grab a handful of pellets, and you’re good for a day in the woods—no spare tanks or compressors needed. And the Hatsan Model 65 is one of the best .22 air rifles of the breed: It is intrinsically accurate, has a well-designed stock, a trigger that breaks crisply and is consistent, along with a smooth shooting cycle that allows the shooter to get the most out of the gun, and that’s why the Hatsan Model 65 is my pick for best spring piston .22 air rifle

Another great spring piston: Gamo Swarm

Best Compact: Brocock Sniper XR

Brocock

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Key Features

• Semi-bullpup design
• Adjustable Huma-Air regulator
• Shrouded Lothar Walther Polygonal Barrel

Pros

• Very accurate
• Adjustable power
• Compact design

Cons

• Moderately heavy
• Expensive

The Brocock Sniper XR Magnum is based on a semi-bullpup platform. The standard gun incorporates the Brocock HumaAir regulator system, a choked Lothar Walther Polygon match grade barrel, a Hi-Lo power adjuster for quick modifications, a 10-shot magazine, a two-stage adjustable trigger, and a 480cc Carbon Fiber air cylinder. The sidelever action is silky smooth to operate and incorporates a hammer and valve assembly that increases the power output and reliable shots-per-fill count.

The Brocock Sniper XR .22 leverages elements of both carbine and bullpup platforms. This hybrid “semi-bullpup” design results in a short and lightweight carbine that has the performance of a full-size rifle. The HUMA regulator provides outstanding shot-to-shot consistency and is adjustable so the shooter can fine-tune the gun for a specific projectile. I’ve used three-position power control as a quick means of adjusting to various shooting conditions, starting the day shooting long-range prairie dogs, then shifting to hunting cottontails around the sheds and outbuilding at the farm, then pigeons in the barn. The combination of a compact platform with outstanding performance is the reason the Brocock Sniper XR makes my list for best compact .22 air rifle.

Another great compact .22 air rifle: AirForce Talon

Most Accurate: FX Impact 

FX Airguns

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Key Features

• Interchangeable barrels and slug liners available
• FX Smooth Twist X Barrel
• Adjustable regulator and power plenum
• AR15-style grip, CNC aluminum stock, adjustable recoil pad (height)

Pros

• Extremely accurate
• Adjustable match trigger
• Carbon-fiber tank: 480 cc Standard, 300cc Compact
• Shot count: approximately 130 shots per fill
• Multi caliber

Cons

• Expensive
• Complicated to set up for new shooters

I am not a serious competitive shooter, though I occasionally compete and have had a chance to watch and speak with some of the best competitors on the circuit. Many of the top shooters I’ve talked to have told me without reservation why the Impact is one of the best .22 air rifles for benchrest and speed silhouette. And when a group of the best comes close to a consensus, I’m going to pay attention. 

The FX Impact is a bottle-forward bullpup built on a CNC aluminum stock with an adjustable recoil pad and an AR-style pistol grip. It uses a sidelever action that quickly and smoothly cycles. The two-stage adjustable trigger uses a post and blade configuration and offers incredibly light and tactile responsiveness. There are several barrel options, and they are interchangeable.

Airgun competitions in the U.S. and Europe are gaining popularity, especially benchrest, high-speed silhouette, and field target. The FX Impact has become one of the most widely used and successful platforms competing in benchrest and silhouette, and it is because every aspect of the gun has a laser focus on wringing every bit of accuracy. I am not a competitive shooter, but I have an Impact .22 set up for long-range prairie dogging, and it is quite simply one of the most accurate air rifles ever built. The FX Impact’s track record for incredible accuracy and consistency is why it’s my pick for the most accurate .22 air rifle.

Best Semi-Auto: AEA HP Carbine

AEA Airguns

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Key Features

• Semi-auto action
• Folding stock
• High power
• Shrouded barrel

Pros

• Accurate
• Powerful
• Reliable
• Compact and lightweight

Cons

• Occasional misfeeds with some ammo (functions reliably with most pellets)
• Uses a lot of air and pellets

There are a few semi-auto PCP air rifles on the market, but not many good ones. I’ve been shooting the HP Carbine for a few months now, and besides having a good track record for reliability, they have built this gun on a smaller frame and kept both the size and the price down. AEA seems to have found the sweet spot.

This is a tactical design with a folding AR-style buttstock, pistol grip, and bottle-forward configuration. The gun folds for easy packing and transporting, deploys quickly, and offers an ergonomic and stable shooting platform that I like for offhand shooting. The shrouded barrel does a good job of reducing the sound signature.

It’s accurate, powerful, and spits out pellets as fast as you can pull the trigger. I think this caliber is one of the best .22 air rifles for plinking or hunting. With this gun, you will consume a lot of air and a lot of pellets, so you need to ensure you have access to both. I would suggest that you think about investing in a compressor, so you always have air available.

Another great semi-auto airgun: Hatsan Invader

How to Choose One of the Best .22 Air Rifles

To select the best .22 air rifle you need to answer three questions:

• What is your budget?
• How will you use the air rifle? 
• Are you willing to invest in an air compressor or air tank? 

If your budget is over $1,000 you have a lot of accurate and powerful .22 air rifles to choose from. I’d suggest a PCP for maximum accuracy and power. Then you just need to decide if you’d like a target rifle like the FX Impact or a hunting air rifle like the Brocock Commander XR. In the $500 range you can choose from excellent PCPs like the Air Venturi Avenger or a springer like the Hatsan Model 65. The deciding factor will be if you prefer the simplicity of a springer or the precision of a PCP. In the $250 range you can still find excellent PCP and springer models like the Gamo Swarm and Hatsan Flashpup QE. 

Read Next: The Best PCP Air Rifle Compressors of 2023

FAQs

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Advertising does not influence our gear reviews and it never will. While we always focus our coverage on standout products—because we want our readers to be aware of the latest and greatest gear—we also cover the flaws and quirks of any given product.

Final Thoughts

The .22 caliber is arguably the most popular caliber being used in PCP air rifles, and right behind the .177 in spring piston guns. If we look specifically at hunting applications, the .22 is probably the most widely used caliber. 

They’re the most popular for good reason. There’s a broad selection of .22 rifles; they’re flat shooting, and have good terminal performance. There’s also a vast range of affordable pellets in varying designs and weights. I’d advise you to look at the online retailers when choosing pellets for your .22 air rifle, as they will have a much better selection and often better prices than you’ll find in a big box store. If you choose the right gun and the right projectile, one of the best .22 air rifles will serve you well whether you plink, shoot competition, or hunt.

• Best Overall: Brocock Commander XR 
• Best Budget: Air Venturi Avenger
• Best Spring Piston: Hatsan Model 65 
• Best Compact: Brocock Sniper XR
• Most Accurate: FX Impact
• Best Semi-Auto: AEA HP Carbine 

The post The Best .22 Air Rifles for Hunting, Competition, and Backyard Shooting, Tested and Reviewed appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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IT WAS THE DRIEST year on record when 21-year-old Paul Gatschet saw the advertisement in the local paper.

Volunteers wanted, announced the Hays Daily News. Farmers near La Crosse, Kansas, had a jackrabbit problem and they needed help corralling the crop-destroying critters. So one afternoon, Gatschet and his younger brother, George, drove south from Hays to join the rest of the volunteers. Neither Gatschet had participated in a rabbit drive before, but they were willing if it kept local farmers from losing their crops.

This particular drive was slated to comb four sections of rolling prairie. Organizers loaded nearly 80 volunteers—all boys and men this day—into cars and farm trucks, then dropped them off again along the perimeter. By the time everyone was in position, the hunters had formed a spindly square, each side stretching 2 miles long across the countryside. Then they started walking.

One of the many remarkable things about this rabbit drive was precisely how unremarkable it was in that era. During the height of the Dust Bowl—sometime between 1934 and 1936—the Kansas Emergency Relief Committee reported more than 98,000 men, women, and children took part in 269 drives across 13 counties in western Kansas. More than 2 million jackrabbits were killed or captured across 1,974 sections, with an average of 923 rabbits killed per drive. They were, by all accounts, slaughters.

The chaos and brutality of the drives bore little resemblance to what any modern hunter would call rabbit hunting. Still, the cooperation required to pull off the largest organized game drives in North America’s written memory is astounding. Western rabbit drives remain a fascinating, if mostly forgotten, chapter in the history of small-game hunting. They’re also just one way Americans coped with what was arguably the worst ecological disaster in our nation’s history.

Although hundreds of thousands of Kansans took part in the drives, Gatschet is one of few participants still alive today. Now 88, Gatschet figures that drive occurred, by his best recollection, in 1956—a full two decades after the Dust Bowl. But the severe drought conditions of the 1950s had replicated the failing crops and overwhelming jackrabbit numbers of the 1930s. Apart from the clothing the men wore to the rabbit drives that year—jeans cuffed above the ankles, white T-shirts, the occasional black leather jacket—it played out just as hundreds of drives had across western Kansas over the previous 50 years.

“I’m not too proud of it,” says Gatschet. “But this is what happened.”

Kansas Rabbit Drives During the Dust Bowl

Paul Gatschet was born in October 1934, smack in the middle of the Great Depression and just in time to weather the worst of the Dust Bowl. Wall Street had crashed on Black Tuesday exactly five years before to send the global economy spiraling. The Black Sunday dust storm, named for its suffocating, sun-blotting conditions, would howl across the High Plains at 60 mph by the time Gatschet was six months old. Drought was the new reality. Plows from Nebraska to Texas had ground the region’s fertile topsoil into oblivion. Native grasses had all but vanished, along with their deep roots that held the prairie in place. Wind blew away whatever was left.

Gatschet remembers those years as mostly dry and hot. Swarms of hungry grasshoppers and blowing dust descended on his hometown of Hays and surrounding Ellis County. Many children developed dust pneumonia—a chronic and sometimes fatal condition—from inhaling all those tiny silt particles.

“My mother told me she covered my crib with a wet sheet to keep me alive,” says Gatschet, who grew up in a three-bedroom house on 11th Street. “Real fine dust would come in through the walls. As a baby I didn’t know anything about that, but as I got older, I remember we had dust storms. It got pretty thick, and of course that wasn’t good for your lungs.”

Like most rural boys of his generation, Gatschet spent his childhood hunting with his father. There were no deer in the region yet, but Kansans could hunt ducks and geese. And rabbits. Lots of rabbits.

Black-tailed jackrabbits (which are actually hares, not rabbits) can grow up to 2 feet long and reach speeds of up to 40 mph. Oversized hind legs launch them across desert sage and grassy prairie, and their giant ears release heat to cool their bodies. Jackrabbits are prey animals, with often-bulging amber eyes that can scan nearly 360 degrees for predators. They have a knack for speedy replacement. Females can produce multiple litters each year, with up to eight young in each.

Jackrabbits are primarily desert dwellers, so it’s not particularly surprising that their numbers swelled when drought settled over the prairie. The critters ransacked already struggling crops like wheat and sugar beets and stripped bark from precious shelterbelt trees. It was common to see jacks in the daytime and easy enough to shoot them with pistols as they fed in the fields.

“When it was hot and dry, we saw a lot of rabbits,” Gatschet says. “When the coyote population got low, the rabbit population seemed to go up too.”

Gatschet’s father was a schoolteacher and his mother was a good cook with five children to feed, so their boys brought home whatever they could during and after the Depression. Gatschet remembers those jackrabbits—fried, baked, stewed—tasted pretty good. 

By the time the Gatschet brothers spotted the newspaper ad in 1956, Paul was in college studying English. Drought worse than the Dust Bowl had returned to the prairie. That meant rabbits had, too.

Like the jackrabbit drives before it, organizers didn’t allow guns. They were much too risky with so many people and so many rabbits running around. Instead, volunteers carried clubs, resulting in a mob’s stockpile of sticks, baseball bats, and splintered 2x4s, some even wrapped in barbed wire. The Gatschets hadn’t brought anything like that, so someone passed Paul the spoke of an old hickory wagon wheel. The wood felt heavy in his hands.

The drivers began walking toward the center of the four sections, where an enclosure of chicken wire had been erected. Their plan was to funnel the rabbits into the pen and dispatch them there.

At first it felt to Gatschet like they were corralling cattle. They started kicking up jacks, which leapt and hopped ahead of them. Coordinators kept an eye on the drivers, nudging or checking their pace to ensure the pests didn’t squirt back through the lines. When the men closed on the final square mile, the driven jackrabbits began to converge. But it wasn’t until the rabbits saw their own kind running toward them that chaos broke out.

“You could tell the rabbits were confused. As the group got smaller and smaller, it got to where there were just solid rabbits in the middle—about 50 yards square. Now and then you’d see a rabbit just go—like, Oh, he’s taking off. And he would go, because we didn’t have any guns.”

One nearby rabbit made a run for it, and Gatschet reacted out of instinct.

“I threw my hickory spoke at him.… It was substantial, and dagnabbit if I didn’t hit the rabbit in the head and roll him.”

Among the boiling jackrabbits were two or three coyotes that had gotten swept up in the drive. As the coyotes made their own bids for freedom, they burst through the human wall only to be met by a knot of coyote hunters. Those men hadn’t been allowed to carry guns either. Instead, they’d brought their dogs.

“The greyhounds got beat up pretty well,” says Gatschet, recalling a coyote that ripped one dog’s slender jaw. “It got pretty gory. But usually those hunters had one or two Russian wolfhounds with them, and the wolfhounds would come in for the kill. It was a dual hunt.”

By now the square of drivers had pushed the rabbits into the chicken-wire trap. Most Dust Bowl corrals were octagonal, built 54 feet across and anchored by sturdy posts. As the size of the rabbit drives tapered into the 1950s, so did the corrals.

“The little square got smaller and smaller, and the rabbits inside the fence started jumping but they couldn’t make it over. And what surprised me was—I just thought it was like cavemen. Some of the guys started to holler, ‘We’ll get you SOBs!’ And a call went up among the men. They all just rushed the rabbits, clubbing them left and right,” says Gatschet. “The rabbits could tell it was the end.”

Rabbit Drives in the West

It’s hard to pinpoint the beginning of jackrabbit drives in American history, but one thing is clear: Hunters were driving rabbits long before Europeans arrived.

Many early media reports credit the Paiute-Shoshone with developing the jackrabbit drives. This is true enough based on archaeological evidence and firsthand accounts of modern Paiute drives in Nevada, but the Paiute-Shoshone corralled rabbits for subsistence.

“The old rabbit drive was and still is a favorite means of producing food for these desert people,” Harry W. Gilmore wrote in American Anthropologist in 1953. “…Each person tak[es] his station about 50 feet from those next to him. This line circles around toward a lake or river, thus forming a semicircle. By closing in gradually, the semicircle becomes smaller and smaller, and the animals are unable to escape. Finally they are trapped between a solid line of people and a body of water and are easy prey for arrows and ordinary sticks.”

One of the first mentions of controlling native jackrabbits as vermin appeared in Michigan’s South Haven Messenger in 1846. The newspaper column, “Slaughter of Jack Rabbits: The Western States Are Alarmed About the Pests,” explained that while Colorado and California’s rabbit drives “have a certain element of sport and general frolic, [the drives] are nevertheless a very serious business.”

That particular account is rife with fear: the farmers feared devastation of their crops; the agricultural secretary feared the West would become the next Australia. (Though Australia also organized its own rabbit drives, those farmers had a true pest problem on their hands. Rabbits are an introduced species to the continent.) Other accounts made it clear that rabbit drives were festivals that rallied residents around a good cause.

“The largest drives are extensively advertised and the railroads run special excursions to the scene of conflict,” reads a 1901 Kansas City Gazette article about the California drives. “Everything assumes holiday attire. Popcorn stands, barbecues, red lemonade, circus balloons … and gamblers interest the great crowds of 10,000 to 20,000 people which assemble to see the fun. … The rabbits cry shrilly like a baby in pain when being killed. The fur flies in an obscuring cloud. Sometimes the young rabbit hands hit one another in the excitement and dust of the slaughter and the drive ends up in a free fight to the intense amusement of spectators.”

Kansans began putting on their own drives in the mid and late 1800s, but the revelry didn’t drain away until drought and dust arrived with the Great Depression. By 1935 there were an estimated 8 million jackrabbits in 30 western Kansas counties. Clubbing the pests seemed the most practical solution. After all, no one could afford ammunition to shoot the rabbits once corralled. Jackrabbits also provided a source of food and, at first, income. Some counties paid bounties between 1 and 4 cents per rabbit while they could afford it. (Hodgeman County, just southwest of Hays, stopped paying out after 44,000 pairs of ears were turned in.)

As crops continued to fail, livestock died, and money dried up, Kansans—who bore some of the harshest Dust Bowl conditions—grew more desperate. Normally self-reliant farmers were losing everything. Many sold off land to pay mounting debts. They couldn’t feed their families. Their children were falling sick and even dying. In the 1930s, it felt like the world was ending. For some, it had. 

That helplessness explains, in part, the violent mob mentality that so surprised Paul Gatschet 20 years later. As author Timothy Egan explains it in his book The Worst Hard Time, residents who were trying to survive during the Dust Bowl “vowed to make a last stand” against the latest threat to their livelihoods: jackrabbits. “If nature is out of whack, then we’ll fight with everything we got.” The drives had strayed beyond necessary evil into controlled chaos. Rabbit drives were almost like state-sanctioned riots, where after church service on Sundays, “a mob of people with clubs herded rabbits into a corral and smashed their skulls.”

Kansans funneled their desperation, frustration, and fears into the singular task of killing the critters they felt were threatening what little livelihood remained to them. It was the farmers versus the rabbits, and it was clear who had to win.

Even if the jackrabbit drives became less of a festival and more of a fight, the Kansas Emergency Relief Committee made sure to celebrate them with widely distributed newsreel footage.

“Extermination of the rabbits has been a value to the counties in many respects,” says the unnamed narrator of a 1936 film touting the agency’s accomplishments in 1943. “While it would seem from this that all the jackrabbits in the world had congregated in the western part of the state of Kansas, there are numerous neighboring states in which rabbits of any kind are a scarcity.”

Live jackrabbits were loaded into trucks and driven to other states, while some dead rabbits were butchered and eaten. Many Kansans feared catching rabbit fever, however, and most were ground into fertilizer and feed for chickens and hogs. 

It’s impossible to accurately estimate how many drives were organized nationally (thousands) and how many jackrabbits were killed (millions). The last widely publicized jackrabbit drives were organized in 1981 in Mud Lake, Idaho. While locals were more concerned with protecting their crops than their public image, they made headlines as national media picked up footage of the drives.

“About 800 men, women and children, armed with ax handles, baseball bats, tire tools and golf clubs, stretched across a mile of the desolate prairie near Mud Lake and rounded up jackrabbits which they claim have done an estimated $5 million in crop damage” read one widely syndicated Associated Press article. “Many of the jackrabbits were beaten to death during the drive and others captured in a pen had their necks broken and their heads decapitated.”

Animal rights groups, including the Idaho Humane Society and the Fund for Animals, sued the drive organizers on grounds of animal cruelty. The Idaho Supreme Court ultimately sided with the farmers.

Then, in 1983, the region’s jackrabbit population crashed. 

Jackrabbits in Modern Kansas and the West

If jackrabbits received excessive ire in the early 1900s, the opposite is true today.

“Unfortunately rabbits don’t get much attention in our state, or most states,” says Jeff Prendergast, the small game specialist with the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. “I’m from Missouri and that’s what I grew up hunting—rabbits. But out here quail and pheasants are king. Rabbit hunters are almost treated like second-rate citizens or hillbillies. That’s just my impression. But it definitely seems like there’s more of a gentleman status to the bird hunters.”

Prendergast holds just one of two small-game positions within the entire KDWP agency, and the resources at his disposal are limited when it comes to jackrabbits. KDWP focuses on demand from bird hunters and doesn’t often hear from rabbit hunters. When they do, it’s usually about cottontails. The farther west you drive through Kansas, the more likely you are to spot a jackrabbit. By the time jackrabbits began appearing in written accounts of the Western frontier, settlers had already disturbed the natural landscape so much that it’s hard to say what “normal” looked like. There’s a lot biologists don’t know about jackrabbit populations then or now.

“They cycle,” Prendergast says. “They seem to do well in dry conditions, like during the Dust Bowl times, whenever they had those kind of [population] explosions. If you think about jackrabbits as a whole, you have different species—but you get a lot of jackrabbits in the arid Southwest—Arizona, New Mexico. So it makes sense that they can persist in those dry environments and those dry years.”

It’s hard to gauge just how well jackrabbits are doing in Kansas today, and Prendergast couldn’t provide an estimate on a total statewide population. He does know, based on the state’s annual rural mail carrier survey and excluding those natural population cycles, that their numbers have been relatively stable since the 1970s.

In the northern Great Basin, a black-tailed jackrabbit’s population cycle lasts between 7 and 11 years. “Jackrabbits are known for their dramatic population fluctuations,” reports the USFWS, and their highs “may be twice or even hundreds of times greater than during population lows.”

Still, it’s been years since black-tailed jackrabbit plagues made headlines. Which is puzzling: We know jackrabbits overran the country from Kansas to California during historic drought. And we know the West is currently experiencing record-breaking drought. So why aren’t we beating back rabbits with sticks anymore?

Researchers aren’t sure. Different studies point to different culprits, and the answer probably lies in a combination of disease, parasites, rising predator populations, and changing habitat as edge cover diminishes. It’s also possible that the absence of black-tailed jackrabbit spikes reflects an overall species decline. Maybe there just aren’t enough critters to reach noticeable levels anymore.

And while both white-tailed and black-tailed jackrabbits were present in Kansas when settlers arrived, white-tailed jackrabbits—historically more present in the north of the state—have been extirpated from the state.

“When they talk about jackrabbit drives where they’d surround a couple sections and push hundreds of rabbits together, you’re not going to do that now,” says Prendergast. “We’re definitely not at the levels we’ve seen historically. We’re not at levels that we would consider concerning, but I don’t know what to say a healthy [level is].”

Jackrabbits are a species of least concern in Kansas, with a liberal bag limit of 10 jacks per day and a year-round season. Though few hunters target jacks, harvest numbers help shed some light on jackrabbit numbers. Last season, an estimated 1,625 hunters in Kansas killed about 3,575 jackrabbits. Most of those were likely opportunistic shots taken by pheasant hunters. In 2006 to 2007 (the earliest year for which data was available), some 3,640 hunters killed about 57,900 jackrabbits. This difference is less a reflection of declining rabbit numbers than an example of a spike in their population cycle.

“Now you don’t see many jackrabbits in the daytime,” says Gatschet, who still lives with his wife in Hays. “We used to see a lot of them in the daytime when we were younger. But I understand from some of my friends who hunt that they still have some north of Hays, but you have to know which field to go to get them.”

In the 10 years Prendergast has worked as KDWP’s small-game specialist, he can’t recall a single complaint about jackrabbits. 

“We don’t really see the densities of jackrabbits we once did,” says Prendergast. “So it may be that we’re not noticing the small damage that a few jackrabbits cause over what was the perceived damage. Even in the Dust Bowl, the jackrabbits were something of a scapegoat. [People] needed something to blame for the crops failing and [losing] what little was out there. Realistically the jackrabbits probably were eating the brushy, weedy stuff that wasn’t really impacting the farmers. The crops were failing anyway.”

AS HIS FELLOW Kansans clubbed the trapped jackrabbits to death, Paul Gatschet mostly just watched, his hickory spoke hanging by his side as volunteers shouted and swatted and swore.

“To hear the rabbits, that ‘eh eh eh,’”—Gatschet imitates the panicked bleat of a rabbit in distress—“it was a dramatic thing. We went out there thinking we were going to help the farmers. But I left with the feeling they were just God’s creatures. They were just rabbits. They had to eat. So what do you eat? There’s wheat, so help yourself to the farmer’s wheat. And they did. I didn’t feel good about it, and I never went on another drive.”

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