What’s the Secret to Getting Your First Squirrel? Time. Some lessons the author learned from taking his son squirrel hunting in the year of a pandemic SHARE Squirrels rarely leave the treetops to forage on the ground in August, but this one is scampering down the side of the hickory trunk, right toward the forest floor. My son, Anse, and I are sitting 25 yards away, him between my knees with his Savage Rascal .22 pointed ahead. He’s 6 years old, and he woke me up twice during the night, too excited to sleep. It’s opening morning of the 2020 squirrel season. Anse has been tagging along with me to the woods since he was 3. He doesn’t remember the early trips; he simply knows that he’s always gone squirrel hunting and that this year, he gets to shoot.