Woods Rats -Learning why ya'll hate em

[buckeye gold]

I,m beginning too understand why ya'll (those with tubing) hate squirrels. This is my first year with tubing and so far I have been very pleased with the 3/16th. This morning I expected a pretty good run, but when I went to collect I had about a third of what I expected. I couldn't figure out why so this afternoon I walked lines. I just tapped Saturday and already squirrels had chewed two of my lines. One was chewed completely in two and the other half way. I ended up collecting sap off my fall tubing which i had planned on dumping, but it was clear so I used it. So a large part of my run ended up on the ground and my vacuum essentially gone.:mad: Some critter is gonna die if this continues. There will be retribution!

[minehart gap]

Season on squirrels is still in here. I give young hunters $0.50 for every tail shot on or around my property as a donation to there ammunition fund. No shotguns allowed.

It’s crop damage or should be anyway!!!

[maple flats]

Good luck getting it. Woods with nut trees are the worst. At my sugar house woods I get very few chew issues, but my lease that is 7 miles away, has just a few nut trees, that is worse by far. I used to have another bush, with lots of hickory trees, that was real bad. Had to fix squirrel chews almost every day. In woods with lots of squirrels try keeping the T a few inches from the tree, it helps some. There is also a SS woven sleeve you can use if nothing else works. Shooting is always a way to reduce the problem. Every squirrel in the pot is 1 less to chew the tubing.

[mol1jb]

Ya I fixed quite a few chews on my 3/16 today from earlier this year. Currently most of the squirrels are dorment so I can hopefully get the rest of my lines in good shape this week

[JoeJ]

After I first put up gravity tubing my new woods in 2003 in quickly learned about red squirrels chewing tubing and mainline. I just kept repairing the holes for a year or two, then my son (24 years old) and a friend offered to hunt down the culprits. They had to use pellet guns because my sugar woods (29 acres) were in a no shooting zone. Two weeks later, the death toll was up to 93. That pretty much ended my squirrel chew problem. After that mass wipe out, I just put out a few rat traps baited with peanut butter in areas where the squirrels used to heavily populate and occasionally get one and once in a while, I get one with a pellet gun. However, I probably have not had any more than 2 or 3 chews on a 5/16 line in the past 5 years. But as usual, Mother Nature has a way of tormenting sugar makers and the squirrel problem turned into a fisher cat scourge. Starting about 6 or 7 years ago, the first fisher cat moved in and the damage was about 250 drop lines. That continued for 3 years until the fisher died a mysterious death. The next fisher cat that moved in is a little lazier and only chews up 125- 150 drops each year. This fisher is a little smarter and is still kicking.

[Woodsrover]

Grey Squirrel season is open in CT. I range-ride with a .22 on the ATV.

[johnpma]

Gut them out, skin them and quarter them Put them in a pressure cooker for 20 min after pressure cooking strip the meat dip in flour and pan fry in butter. Mix the meat with some streamed rice, and sauteed onion and garlic and enjoy a nice plate of "Rodent-a Roni"

[JoeJ]

Now that I pretty much wiped out the red squirrels, my woods have an abundance of grey squirrels. Luckily, they must not like the tubing taste because they don't chew my lines.

Joe