Squirrel hunts next

Published 12:15 am Sunday, September 30, 2018

LOREAUVILLE — Chris Courville’s hours spent in the shop are numbered.

The 36-year-old Loreauville outdoorsman is getting squirrel hunting fever and it’s about to be cured.

Courville, a member of the Lake Fausse Pointe Hunting Club, has owned Louisiana Marine and Propeller Services since 2003. When he isn’t working to help other outdoorsmen get their boats back on the water next month, he’ll more than likely be squirrel hunting.

For sure, when the squirrel hunting season opens Oct. 6, Courville will be in the woods along the lake with his 11-year-old son, Landon. Go back in time and the scene — father-son squirrel hunters walking side by side — will look just like those days he went squirrel hunting with his father, the late Lawrence Courville, who died in December 2017.

First squirrel hunts with dad

His father made it a point to hunt with his sons, Chris and Jed Courville, also of Loreauville. The brothers carry on the squirrel hunting tradition to this day.

“Yeah, my dad was always an avid hunter. When squirrel season rolled around, he was there,” Chris Courville said. “I’ve been squirrel hunting since I was a kid. I’ve been squirrel hunting all my life.”

He started going on his own around “12 or 13ish,” he said, noting his son will be hunting with supervision for a while longer.

“He’s wanting to hunt by himself but I don’t know if I’ll let him loose by himself. Maybe next year,” he said.

Courville’s son is getting better and better with his aim. The youngster hunts squirrels with a Remington 870 20-guage shotgun and he is a fair shot, according to his dad.

“Yeah, so-so. He’s 11. He’s probably better than I was at that age,” he said.

“I normally let him take the first shot.

If he doesn’t (hit the squirrel), I follow up behind,” he said.

Courville goes squirrel hunting with a 12-gauge Benelli shotgun.

Dad’s advice: Pick up feet, be quiet

His father’s best advice for successful squirrel hunting?

“Pick up your feet and be quiet,” he said, remembering the occasional rap on the noggin if that advice wasn’t followed on a squirrel hunt with his dad.

The outdoorsman proclaimed squirrel hunting his favorite.

“I also hunt deer and ducks, mostly deer. I go duck hunting whenever and wherever I can,” he said.

Experience has been a good teacher for squirrel hunting, which is one reason he has been scouting in the weeks leading up to the opener. Like other successful squirrel hunters in the Teche Area, he knows squirrels feed on a wide range of nuts, berries and fruits, with their top choices being acorns, hickory nuts and beech mast.

“I went walk the week before last. Before that, I went check another spot to see if they’ve been cutting or not,” he said.

“I found a few cuttings in the green oaks and a good sign of cuttings in the water oaks,” he said. “We didn’t go walking much but the little walking we did they had plenty of signs. The water oaks had real good signs.”

Greenery intereferes early

Squirrel hunting in early fall, basically during summer conditions, means getting out when the woods are green, particularly after weeks of rainfall. Much of the time, visibility is such that a squirrel hunter gets no more than a fleeting look through the leaves at a squirrel, even if it is at a standstill.

Courville said he is accustomed to squirrel hunting in such conditions early in the season. Along the edge of a swamp, he said, visibility “is not too bad.”

Get on the ridges and it gets kind of thick and hard to see them,” he said.

Visibility improves with each succeeding cold front that moves through the region, he said.

Vision is important. So is hearing.

Courville and hundreds of other squirrel hunters can recognize the sound of clippings falling the trees, like a soft rain. They know if they find the source, they’ll find their bushy-tailed target.

And they listen for the unmistakable sound of squirrel claws on tree bark, particularly on serene mornings when squirrels might be chasing each other up and down.

Courville is more than ready to hear that. He can hear the clock ticking for opening day