LOREAUVILLE — When the squirrels don’t show themselves that much, if at all, more often than not it’s the veteran squirrel hunter who comes back with a limit on opening day.

Chris Courville did that Oct. 1 while hunting on Lake Fausse Pointe Hunting Club land in rural Iberia Parish. He started hunting around one-half hour before sunrise, to no avail, then bided his time like he has since he started hunting with his dad 35 years ago.

His patience paid off with a full brace of squirrels.

“It was kind of hard hunting for a little while. I didn’t kill my first squirrel until 7:30,” Courville said after the hunt with his son, Landon Courville, 15, his son’s friends and a dad of one of the boys. “I ended up killing my limit (eight squirrels) but I had to walk a mile-and-a-half to do that.”

Courville’s teenage son, who has been hunting with his father since he was about 5, didn’t fare as well opening day and neither did his buddies.

The younger Courville harvested one squirrel, and shot but lost another one, and was incredulous when his father opened his bag and pulled out eight squirrels after the morning hunt on a cool, sunny day.

Like hundreds upon hundreds of other squirrel hunters across the state, Courville, et all, were chomping at the bit for the squirrel hunting season to get underway in 2022. The opener is a revered tradition in the Sportsman’s Paradise, especially in Acadiana, particularly in Ville Platte in Evangeline Parish.

Young Courville spent as much free time as possible reloading shotgun shells in preparation for the big day. He made a list of friends to bring on the first day, including Tyler Munnerlyn and Jonah Weeks’ father, Jeremiah Weeks, who joined them and also bagged one squirrel that Saturday.

Courville hunted with his Benelli 12-gauge shotgun and scanned dozens of trees, all with foliage, to eventually spot squirrels and fill out his limit.

While the majority of squirrels he saw a few weeks earlier on the property were in cypress trees, that wasn’t the case opening day.

“Two were in cypress trees. Some were in sweet gum trees, oak trees, pecan. They were scattered. I don’t know what happened,” he said.

And feeding time didn’t start right away.

“It looks like they fed kind of late. Why? I have no idea. No clue. There wasn’t much fresh cuttings and they just weren’t moving,” he said.

Courville, who has owned Louisiana Marine and Propeller since 2013, said two other club members scratched while a few others put the squirrels they shot together and had a limit.

“It was kind of slow. Everybody was complaining. There just wasn’t a lot moving,” he said.

Far from discouraged, Courville planned to be squirrel hunting bright and early the following day, the second day of the season. He’d be alone that Sunday trip because the others, the younger outdoorsmen, had homecoming event plans for the remainder of the weekend.