Squirrel Shooting in 2021

2021 has turned out to be an interesting shooting season in Alturas. I went up a couple of weeks later this year. Shooting was not the same as it used to be pre-2017, but they appear to coming back.

The wet years and the poisoning seemed to cause a large die off of the Beldings Ground Squirrel in Modoc County. We went from them being everywhere to having to find them. The Covid pandemic of 2020 came and I went from shooting 30 days a year to only going up twice for a total of 9 days in 2020. A major set back happened when the owners of Alturas Ranches decided to stop issuing trespass permits to squirrel shooters because of Covid. It seems that they were concerned that we shooters from down South might bring the virus up there and infect their workers. Though we were disappointed, it was probably a prudent move on their part. I felt that there was a good chance that they would not reopen the ranch because the squirrel population was down and the poisoning they were doing seemed to be very effective. I ended the 2020 season when we pulled the "Tin Twinky" home on July 4th.

The first trip of 2021 turned out better than expected. Steve Sandgren and I met in Alutras on a Thursday in early March. At that time of year, the alfalfa is completely down to dry brown nubs with a few green leaves starting to show. The squirrels usually come up from their hibernation in late February and begin to forage for food. This is a very good time to shoot, as they are very easy to see running around on the almost non existent alfalfa. There is another perk when we go early. The land owners will allow us to drive on the fields before the alfalfa begins to grow. We can drive our rigs into the field to do set-ups that we can not do later in the season. Later in the season, we have to set up around the perimeter of the fields and shoot longer. I thing I shot about 750 rounds on the first trip. The second trip was later than usual. Steve had commitments and could not go up until late April. We shot some of the same fields, but were able to shoot Alturas Ranches again and did fairly good on that ranch. I shot about 850 rounds on the second trip, Thursday through Sunday. My go-to ranch that I shot for many years seemed to completely dry up as far as squirrels go. Not sure what happened, but the fields around Rd. 45 just do not seem to have any squirrels at all.

The next trip would have been around the 10th of June when the alfalfa will be cut for the first cutting. This is always a good trip, as the alfalfa is cut down to the ground and the squirrels are a bit bolder than usual because they have not been shot at much due to the high alfalfa. I do not have enough ammo to go again. I am down to about 500 rounds of copper and I can't seem to find any more right now. I think I will forego that June trip this year. They will be there next year and hopefully ammo will again be available.