When I was hunting squirrels regularly in my youth (with a scoped .22; never any good with a pistol), I wouldn't take a shot unless it was thru the ears of eyeballs; but I'll admit the last squirrels I killed were taken with a semi-auto 12-bore, were shot in my yard (had a big yard), and I was danged well pleased with myself. Seems my wife and I had enjoyed watching squirrel antics for years; but they somehow suddenly became "demon" possessed! The danged things begin to climb onto the back porch and chew gaping chunks from the bottoms of bannisters and posts, chew holes in door frames, jump onto window ledges and chew the corners off my wooden shutters, etc.; in short they were doing hundreds of dollars in damage to my home. We tried everything we knew to run them off to no avail; those rascals would return as soon as our backs were turned, and I finally I had no choice other that to break out the old semi-auto 12-bore. So from that point forward, whenever we heard squirrel chewing I'd grab the shotgun (kept by the door at this point) and slip out as quietly as possible to do battle. Invariably, their recognition of my presence was simultaneous to my seeing the squirrel so that any shots taken were at a varmint instantly in "high gear". This insured that all shots taken were of the most sporting variety; and 36 squirrels later, after every one of these little grey blurs had been given a sporting chance, peace came once again to Collier's Creek. One funny story; got up early one AM to find a squirrel destroying the base of a back porch column. As it was morning shower time, I was clad only in my boxers; but in defense of my home I felt compelled to act quickly and grabbed the shotgun by the carport door. Easing to the outer edge of the carport, there sat the offender staring at me from a distance of approximately 6'. Faster than a freshly turpentined cat, the squirrel made a bee-line towards my back yard shed along with an accomplice I had not seen. In text book form I rolled them both; and as I stood there in my underwear with smoking gun in hand and ego swelled with great pride; my next door pointy-headed liberal leaning Obama supporting retired professor neighbor, whom I had not seen across the way, comes walking across the yard and he says with the sincerest tone of concern, "Tom, you OK"? With zero hesitation I smiled and said "Jim, I've never felt better"!
