OUTDOORS -- Marsh column

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on December 6, 2014 11:52 PM

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Of all the state's mammals, the southern fox squirrel is most unique. It has several color phases, including the reddish phase of northern states that has extended its range into the northern mountains in recent years.

But, the southern color phases vary. The most prized is black with white nose, ears and feet. However, an all-white fox squirrel is rarer. I have taken only one although I have seen a few others and these are not albinos, but simply have white fur.

The most common fox squirrel is brownish body with black head, white ears and feet and gray tail. Another slightly less common color is all-gray body and tail with black head, white ears and feet.

Fox squirrel hunting is open in 27 counties and the bag limit is one per day, two in possession and 10 per season. In comparison to gray and red squirrels, which have a bag limit of eight daily and no possession or season limit, the fox squirrel is less abundant.

However, in good habitat, they are fairly common for a hunter who knows how to find them. It typically takes me two days' hunting to bag a fox squirrel.

I make a couple of trips for fox squirrels each season. They take me to game lands across the coastal plain. I have seen them at Holly Shelter, which is near my hunting territory for other species.

I prefer making it a road trip with the goal of finding prime fox squirrel habitat. Only 3 percent of the original longleaf ecosystem that is their primary home remains intact. Longleaf lumber and needles are valuable to humans as well as fox squirrels.

I watched Bladen Lakes State Forest being impacted by logging as well. The timber removal operations concentrated the pine straw operations into smaller areas. To facilitate pine needle harvest, workers cut and stacked turkey oak, blackjack oak and other understory trees that fox squirrels depend upon. Once they removed the understory, the area was not as amenable to fox squirrels.

Over the long run, rotational management of longleaf forests for human use is also conducive to maintaining fox squirrel habitat on a landscape-wide scale. If land does not produce income, the landowner will convert to uses other than longleaf production and fox squirrel habitat. A hunter must simply keep looking for new areas when his favorite places are temporarily lost to forest products production.

Hunting fox squirrels is much the same as hunting other game animals and birds. Finding a good spot is imperative. At Bladen Lakes, I found several areas with nests were in the same bay heads year after year. But, my favorite spots have been razed.

I walked for miles, looking for fox squirrel tracks in the sandy roads until I found a spot that has produced at least one fox squirrel every hunting season for several seasons until last year. Logging had removed longleaf pines right up to the tiny bay head in which grows a massive, hollow red bay tree. Usually there are as many as six to eight nests nearby.

Last year, pine straw raking activity on the remaining forested area adjoining the bay head pushed out the fox squirrels. However, I headed to the hollow tree recently, hoping the deer hunters would have had their fill of hunting over Thanksgiving weekend. The game land is open to hunting on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

I sat on my folding stool and leaned back against the bark of a familiar longleaf. Particles of bark itched their way down the back of my neck. Kicking gigantic pinecones and incredibly long needles away from my feet, I checked my watch. The time was 8 a.m.

Checking my watch showed 20 minutes had passed. A shadow caught my eye. Looking up, I spotted the silhouette of a fox squirrel leaping from its nest onto an observation limb. Aligning the crosshairs of my Remington 541-T .22-rimfire rifle, I squeezed the trigger. It had taken many years to find a spot that almost guaranteed sighting a fox squirrel, but only 20 minutes to complete this trophy small game hunt.

Admiring the beautiful, gray phase fox squirrel, I marveled at how its coloration blended perfectly against the bark of a longleaf trunk. The color phases, while beautiful to humans, are perfect camouflage evolved to hide fox squirrels from predators whether terrestrial or airborne.

Sitting in the sun, I soaked up its warmth as well as the scenery. In a symbiotic relationship, Fox squirrel hunters need fox squirrels to survive and the reverse is true. Hunters, through their license fees, buy and manage longleaf ecosystems, guaranteeing that fox squirrels will continue to thrive.