Ground squirrel hunting is a blast and a great way to get kids into hunting. Elk hunting can be tough some years. You get up well before daylight and don’t get back to camp until well after dark. By the third day, you’re so sore that you can’t even move and some years if you see an elk you’re lucky, especially now that Idaho is overrun with wolves. And you’re really lucky if you even get a shot every three to five years.
So for a kid just starting off, elk hunting is not the hunt to take them on — unless you want to scar them for life. That’s why I say ground squirrel, aka whistle pig hunting, is a great hunt for a beginner. (Their actual name is Townsend’s ground squirrel).
To begin, they get a lot of shooting. On a good day, I’ll get 400 to 500 shots. Secondly, they don’t have to be quiet. I remember deer hunting as a 7-year-old. In those days, they didn’t make cold weather clothing for kids so you were freezing and Dad wouldn’t let you make a move. If you had to scratch, you had to slowly move your hand up and scratch yourself. And you couldn’t make a peep.
On a whistle pig hunt, that’s not the case. A kid can move around and talk. Of course, you don’t want to talk too loud or do calisthenics, but still, you have a lot more freedom. Let’s be real. A kid wants to shoot and the whistle pigs oblige.
While hunting them, you’ll see some cool stuff. One time while I was shooting and a badger ran out and grabbed my whistle pig. Another time, an 87-year-old buddy hit one and I said, “You got it!” Right while it was bouncing around a hawk swooped down, grabbed it and took off. Then I said, “You had it.” Many times while shooting, hawks will land out in front of you and pick them up.
Whistle pigs and badgers can totally destroy a pasture if they aren’t thinned out. They will make a pasture useless for grazing cattle and you’re sure scared to ride a horse across the pasture or he may step in a hole and break a leg and flip and hurt you to boot.
Most of your shots will be within 75 yards, so a .22 is a great rifle to use. The Ruger 10/22 is great because of the after-market 25 round clips that are offered. I love tricking out Ruger 10/22s to make them more accurate, which helps since whistle pigs are so small. You can also hunt them with your bow to sharpen up your archery skills.
.22 shell prices have dropped and are once again affordable, or another good option are airguns. I’m about to start testing a Umarex Hammerli 850 Air Magnum, which is a break-barrel .22-caliber airgun. That should work perfectly. Plus, with an airgun the bullet won’t skip across the prairies as bad which makes it a perfect choice for a kid to learn with.
Another fun option that I’m going to have to check out is the Umarex Air Javelin. It is an air archery option. It is like an airgun that shoots arrows. How cool would that be to hunt whistle pigs with?
On these hunts, it is a good time to teach your kids about the need to watch the background so a bullet doesn’t skip across the prairie and hit someone. They need to always be watching to make sure that someone didn’t drive up behind where they’re shooting.
It is best not to touch them or if you take your dog with you not to let him eat one. Many times they carry the plague, which you don’t want to catch. Which brings up the point that shooting them helps thin out the population which in turn helps prevent the plague, which in turn actually in the long run helps preserve the population.
Moral to the story: Get out of house isolation and go isolate out on the prairie and have a fun day of shooting with your kids.
Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana.He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.
