Quitman man takes man’s best friend to the woods whenever he can’t get squirrels out of his mind. Barking, treeing and shooting: an unbeatable combination.
Gary Rodgers turned loose his prized squirrel dog, Faith, who quickly started working the hardwood bottom and treed just minutes into the hunt. Several hunters surrounded the tree, and the action started fast and furious as the treetop came alive with squirrels running, flying and soaring through limbs as they tried to evade the hunters.
Boom, boom, boom, roared the shotguns as the hunters tried to catch up to the squirrels. When the action was finished, multiple squirrels had met their demise in one tree.
From humble beginnings with Faith, to the present day, Rodgers, who lives in Quitman, has built a legacy and established a unique breeding system that continues to produce some of the world’s best treeing dogs. Pound for pound, his dogs are second to none.
“You’ve got to love it and put in the time and effort to build a breeding system,” Rodgers said. “Faith was my main dog, and I started breeding naturals, dogs that start treeing on their own and just have that ability deep inside. I just put them out there, and then we breed the best to the best.”
Rodgers once had a man travel from South Carolina to breed with another of Rodgers’s dogs, but he wanted to check him out before sealing the deal. The first squirrel was treed only minutes after the dogs were released, and they made four successful trees in the first 25 minutes. Needless to say, the South Carolina hunter was sold, and the breeding took place shortly after they returned to Rodgers’s kennel.
“When you have a dog with more desire to tree than breed, then he’s pretty special,” said Rodgers.
You can’t teach desire; that’s something that comes from the dog, and Rodgers has been fortunate to recognize which ones have it and work them into his breeding line and rotation. Coz, one of his prized Mountain curs, was well known around the country and was as close to a sure bet as they come. His puppies started treeing around the yard from 3 to 6 months on their own, and most were treeing regularly by one year.
Take a kid squirrel hunting
Faith and Coz were special dogs, fun to hunt with and watch. They were really good for kids, because they hunted hard and kept the action going when Rodgers was introducing children and new hunters to the great tradition of squirrel hunting with dogs.
Once upon a time, almost every country boy in Mississippi had a squirrel dog, but times have changed, and many don’t know the joy of hunting squirrels with dogs or the fast-paced action you can have while chasing squirrels with top-notch dogs. But it’s still the same thrill every time you go on a good hunt.
“It’s all about the camaraderie with friends, and I enjoy seeing a pup get started and watching them get better every time out,” Rodgers said. “One year, I shot over 100 squirrels while training Digger, one of my younger dogs at the time. There’s just no substitute for spending time in the woods with your dogs or kids.”
These days, Rodgers spends most of his time in the woods, taking kids and others squirrel hunting. There’s no need to sit still and be quiet like you have to in a deer stand. You can have a great time following the dogs and get in on the action when they tree. Kids can burn up some of that excess energy while learning about the outdoors, hunting and getting in on the fast-paced action when the dogs tree. There’s nothing more exciting than watching some young hunters trying to shoot squirrels flying through the treetops.
“Kids, the more the merrier,” Rodgers said. “I love to introduce kids to squirrel hunting with dogs and watch them have fun learning how to hunt and shoot squirrels. It’s definitely not like sitting in a deer stand being quiet and not experiencing much action.
“My uncle, Lavoid Rascoe, took me hunting when I was 6 or 7 years old; he’s the reason I love it to this day. I didn’t know it then, but that was his main reason for hunting — to take me and get me interested in the outdoors. He had a friend by the name of Houston who picked me up every time we got to a mudhole to keep me from getting wet and muddy and in trouble with my grandmother.
“Uncle Lavoid stayed with my grandmother in Stonewall after my grandfather died, and he would pick me up from Scott Mountain, Ala., on Fridays; I’d stay the weekend and hunt with him during the fall and winter.”
Best time to go
Rodgers typically waits under after cold weather arrives and tree limbs are bare of leaves before hunting with his dogs.
“I wait until the rattlesnakes have gone into their dens,” Rodgers said. “It’s not worth losing a dog or getting a child bit, so we wait until its cold and the squirrels are more visible in the trees, too. It’s not about numbers anymore, although we’ve killed lots of squirrels over the years, it’s about having a good time and taking others who will enjoy it too.”
Best places to hunt
Rodgers prefers finding areas with hardwoods and pines mixed for variety. If squirrels are there, he’ll hunt them, but some areas just hold more squirrels and present more opportunities to tree and harvest those squirrels.
“I like to hunt in areas that have some ground cover,” he said. “I prefer hunting in short timber when training a young dog and taking kids, because you can see the squirrels easier, and the kids can find them and get some shooting in, too.”
Some of the best areas of Mississippi that he’s hunted had palmettos. If you have palmettos or bushes, it gives squirrels some ground cover to hide from owls and hawks. They’re bad on squirrels if the woods are open and clean, which makes it a good area for predators — not necessarily for the squirrels.
Contrary to popular belief, old-growth, mature hardwood timber is not the perfect place to hunt squirrels with dogs.
“The old-growth timber usually has a lot of den trees, hollow trees and holes where the squirrels can hide after the dogs have treed,” Rodgers said. “One time we hunted up at Panther Swamp in some really good-looking hardwood swamp bottoms. We got some action, and most of the guys killed four or five squirrels, but we left a lot in the trees because the squirrels went to the dens.”
After spending a day in those woods, Rodgers asked his host whether he had any areas with palmettos. The man said yes, but he didn’t understand why Rodgers wanted to hunt in a place like that. The next morning, they hunted an area of Panther swamp that was full of palmettos.
“We almost melted our gun barrels,” said Rodgers. “We treed so many squirrels in there it was almost unbelievable. The squirrels were plentiful, and we just about shot so many that we got tired. Our host for the hunt just couldn’t believe we’d found so many squirrels in that area he’d never squirrel hunted in much before.”
Kids in the Palmetto Bottom
“We took a couple of kids near a hardwood bottom filled with palmettos on a hunt, and they had a ball,” Rodgers said. “They got in plenty of shooting, with fast-paced action and just had a great time, too. That’s why I do it these days: to get kids started and to introduce them to a different type of hunting where they can have fun and see some action, too. You’ve got to put the odds in their favor or they’ll get bored, and you will lose the opportunity to get them hooked on hunting.”
Rodgers loves hunting thick woods or areas that have thickets, since it also gives the squirrels a better chance at surviving owls, hawks and other predators. Some of the best hunts he’s had over the years were in areas that were thick and had ground cover. Streamside management zones usually have a concentration of hardwoods and thickets in cutover areas along creek bottoms; those are good places to find squirrels concentrated, and it makes for some really good hunting if plenty of mast-producing trees are present.
“First and foremost, you want to make sure the kids have a good time when you go,” Rodger said. “That’s really what this is all about. So remember to save your best places and best efforts for them. The future of hunting is now, and it depends on what you and I do right now to pass it on to the next generation.”
Public land hunting
Mississippi has many Wildlife Management Areas and national wildlife refuges around the state that are home to many large squirrel populations. While many of the best areas are in the Delta region and along the Mississippi River, there are opportunities to hunt squirrels somewhere near your home if you reside in the state. Check out the MDWFP website for squirrel-hunting opportunities near you. And take a kid hunting, you’ll be passing on our outdoors heritage and you might change a kid’s life in the process.
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