Mat Manning heads out on his first hunting trip with the Huntsman Revere and explains how to keep on top of bushy-tails in warm weather.
Too many shooters give up on grey squirrel control during the warmer months as they deem it to be a waste of time when the trees are in full leaf and quarry is hard to spot. This gives squirrels an easy opportunity to bounce back as they produce litters of young in the spring and at the end of the summer. Leave squirrels unchecked for just a few months at this time of year and all your hard work will quickly be undone; the tree damage caused by their bark-stripping, their predation of songbird eggs and chicks, and their impact on native mammals by spreading disease and outcompeting for food and habitat will quickly spiral back to where it was before your pest control efforts got underway.
Fortunately, there is a very easy way to keep the squirrel cull rolling even when it is impossible to see anything up in the dense summer canopy. The solution is to set up feeding stations and draw squirrels out into the open where you can get clear shots. Load a hopper (either homemade or shop bought) with peanuts, keep it topped up for a couple of weeks while the squirrels home in and gain confidence and you’ll be able to snipe them from a hide about 20m away.
My latest outing after grey squirrels was based at a feeder that I’d shot twice before in the past couple of weeks. It had already produced good bags, which is always encouraging, but this session was particularly exciting as it was my first trip into the field with the new Daystate Huntsman Revere. The Huntsman was already a great airgun but the Revere sees the addition of some neat new features including a sidelever action and a new magazine that holds 13 shots in .177 calibre, 11 in .22 and 10 in .25. Coupled with an MTC Mamba Lite scope and Daystate Rangemaster Sovereign pellets, it had already given a great account of itself on the range and I was eager to put it to work on some pest control.
It was set to be a hot day so I arrived in the woods just after daybreak in the hope of snatching a few hours before the heat became unbearable. I had topped up the feeder on the previous day so I could head straight to the hide without disturbing the feeding station. My hiding place comprised two camouflage nets; one set up to create a screen in front of me and the other behind to make a backdrop to obscure my outline. I chose a site in deep shade, to boost my concealment and to keep me out of the heat of the sun, just over 20m from the feeder.
The squirrels were certainly eager to get back to the peanuts, and the first once actually showed up while I was still settling in. I glanced up after putting my shooting sticks in place and the greedy little rodent was sat on top of the feeding station – proof that my arrival had caused minimal disturbance. The oblivious squirrel was soon framed in the Mamba Lite’s sight picture, the crosshairs came to rest on its skull, I applied a touch of hold-under to compensate for the relatively close-range shot and touched off the trigger. The pellet connected with a loud smack and the squirrel dropped with barely a twitch.
If I had needed a rapid follow-up shot, it would have been right on hand. The biathlon type dropdown handle of the Revere’s new sidelever already comes to hand very instinctively to cock the gun, index that slick new magazine and probe the next pellet into the breech ready for action. It’s a pleasure to use and is very fast and smooth.
Only a few minutes passed before another squirrel turned up at the feeding station. Shooting from the support of sticks over such a modest range, pellet placement was a mere formality for the Revere, and another unlucky bushy-tail was soon added to the morning’s tally. And that’s the pattern that the session followed for the next couple of hours.
As the sun climbed up over the treetops, the action gradually slowed down and the combination of heat and hunger soon had me heading for home. It had been a productive morning, though, and I had managed to account for nine squirrels in just over two hours. That’s another nine tree-rats that won’t see the late-summer breeding season, and clear proof of the importance of keeping the cull running right through the summer.
Apart from bringing more destructive squirrels to book, the morning had also been an excellent opportunity for the Huntsman Revere to prove what it can do, and it passed the test with flying colours. Not only is it an excellent airgun in terms of its performance, it is also a real looker. Daystate may have equipped this rifle with some neat new features but I am delighted that it has maintained the appearance of a classic sporting rifle.
