ELKINS, W.Va. — Across West Virginia the woods will be shaking this weekend as hunters peer through the thick foliage in search of a twitching tail. The squirrel hunting season will open statewide.
Historically, squirrel season was one of the most anticipated hunting seasons of the year in West Virginia. Those were the days before the wide abundance of deer, bear, and turkey in the state.
“It’s still popular, they just don’t spend as much time and effort as they once did,” said Keith Krantz, small game biologist for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources in Elkins. “Research is pretty clear after the first week, most people hang it up because they’re doing something else.”
Those who stick around after the first week will have abounding opportunities. Krantz said the squirrel numbers will vary across the state this fall, largely dependent on where you hunt.
“We don’t specifically count squirrels so you have to pretty much go on what last year’s mast crop was and it was spotty,” Krantz said. “I would suspect in some areas you’re going to have quite a few and in other areas they’ll be just a little less than normal.”
The DNR moved the opening day of squirrel season back a month last season. The change in opening date also changes the dynamics hunters will deal with. Foliage is still thick, making squirrels more difficult to spot in the high trees. However, hunters will find more abundant hickory nuts which are the squirrels’ preferred forage.
“The hickory typically isn’t cut out at this time,” said Krantz. “My advice is to find a stand of hickory and hang out for a while because the hunting will probably be quite fun.”
One other factor which is incidental to the early days of squirrel season is the possible presence of bot fly larvae in squirrels. Often known as warbles, hunters for years have developed a phobia of the parasites, fearing their presence will ruin the meet. Krantz said it’s a myth.
“During the 50’s we did some pretty serious squirrel research. They discovered about 11 percent of the squirrels in the southern part of the state had warbles,” he said. “It by no means hurts the meat.”
Krantz stressed warbles are present under the animals skin, but do not infect the muscle tissue. He admits they look gross, but can easily be discarded when the squirrel is skinned and the game shouldn’t be considered ruined.
“We’ve done necropsy on deer and pulled bot fly larvae out of their sinus passages,” Krantz added. “Hunters have just grabbed onto this one parasite without recognizing all of our wildlife when you kill it has parasites. Many are just blissfully unaware.”