If in doubt...

The evidence: osage orange cuttings.

If you wait until conditions are perfect, you'll rarely hunt. I know that.

Still...

Tueday before Thanksgiving, I'd put in a good day at the word processor and had a couple hours to hunt. Wind was howling in out of the west. Treetops were whipping. A bad time to squirrel hunt, but it was the time I had.

We hunted for an hour or so without a strike. Then Cate treed a bowhunter. Fortunately, he turned out to be friendly, but I felt bad about disturbing him. Yes, we were hunting public land and I had as much right to be there as he did, but he'd picked an excellent spot overlooking a stretch of dry creek lined with oaks. Acorns covered the creekbed. I had seen several deer in the area on previous hunts. And he'd obviously lugged his portable tree stand a long way.

Then the wind really picked up so that I doubted I could hear Cate if she treed more than fifty yards away. Feeling low, I decided to call it a day.

I started to unload my shotgun as we started to head up the trail to the truck. Then Cate raised her nose and bolted into a thick stand of cedars. Since she usually yelps when she strikes hot scent, I assumed she was either cold trailing or smelling distant air scent. Moments later she treed.

I found her on an unuually large bois d'arc (osage orange or, in local parlance,"bodark"). The whipping branches revealed a fox squirrel hidden near the top.

I let her carry that one back to the truck.

Just go.