It’s small game season in the Croom Wildlife Management Area and the squirrels have been providing lots of opportunities to bring some home to supper. This beautiful WMA is located in Hernando and Sumter counties northeast of Brooksville and encompasses more than 20,000 acres. One of the best features of this tract of the Withlacoochee State Forest is that it encompasses thirteen miles of the Withlacoochee River; including Silver Lake. Cypress and large expanses of oak hammocks line the river for miles, creating some of the best squirrel hunting to be found anywhere.
Now, I’ve spent half of a century bringing home squirrels for my family’s table. I love those delicious little varmints! But, I recently have been let in on a different way to cook them than my usual twenty or so ways. It sounds super simple and I’ll tell you about it in just a bit, but before you can cook them, you’ve got to go get them.
I don’t have any bias against any weapon you choose to hunt them with, but my go-to is a .410 shotgun. Lord knows I’ve hunted them with just about any other style of weapon, reasonable to the task. But, let’s face it…. I’m getting old and my eyesight isn’t what it used to be. That tiny shotgun is a big help to me once they get tree-top high.
I used to strictly still hunt, but lately, I prefer to stay mobile. I keep covering ground until one crosses the trail, or leaps for a tree trunk to climb up. Once I spot them, I move on to the tree they went up and often, all I have to do is sail my hat to the far side of the tree to flush the squirrel back to my side for a shot opportunity.
Once I’ve got my meds of squirrels, I clean and quarter them up, and putting them in a Ziplock bag, I’ll add Italian seasoning salad dressing; enough to cover the meat. I let that sit overnight in the refrigerator. Now here’s the part I was told to do…. After putting the meat fry with paper towels, you salt n’ pepper to taste, coat it liberally with yellow mustard, then roll it about in Jiffy cornbread mix, just the dry mix, right out of the box. Afterward, stick it in the oven and back it on 400⁰ until it’s done. Seemed like almost an hour, but just check on it.
I tried that simple method of squirrel cooking just this past Saturday and I have got to tell you; I was one happy fat man that I did. It was delicious!
As always, if you’ve any comments or questions about this week’s column, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]. God Bless, and good hunting!
Toby Benoit is a best-selling novelist and professional outdoorsman with thirty-five years of experience guiding and outfitting for big game all across America. Toby is a renowned archer and turkey hunting expert who manufactures custom game calls and is a regular judge at NWTF sanctioned turkey calling events across the Southeast.
