Squirrel hunting

Funny story... Now but not when it happened.

My older brother and I used to go squirrel hunting together and take our hunting dog with us.  When the dog treed a squirrel we would go to the tree and try to find the squirrel in the tree so we could kill it. The best way to spot the squirrel in the tree was for one of us to get on one side of the tree and one on the other side.  One of us would make a lot of noise (for example, shake a bush really hard) and since the squirrel will normally try to stay on the opposite side of the tree from all the noise the person on the other side would normally be able to see the squirrel move around to their side of the tree where they could get a shot at it.

Once in a while the dog would tree a squirrel and the tree would be hollow at the bottom.  We had two ways to try and get the squirrel out of the hollow tree. One way was to get a lot of smoke up in the hollow part and the squirrel would come running out.  We typically carried a bunch of rags with us to  put on a pole and set on fire and then put the fire out leaving a smoking rag which we would put up in the tree. Another way (and this is where the funny part comes into play) was to cut and trim a small bush leaving us with a slender pole.  We would stick that pole up the hollow part of the tree and when we felt the squirrel we would start turning the pole.  A lot of times you could wrap their tails around the pole and then you just pulled them out. Well guess what happened..... One time we did that and when we pulled the squirrel out I acted like a fool and grabbed at the squirrel to keep it from getting away. Well that old squirrel just locked his teeth into the part between my thumb and index finger.  About that time the dog grabbed the squirrel and started shaking it.  Of course I was yelling to get that %$^#% squirrel off of me. :)  He (the squirrel) finally let go because the dog had him and he had to defend himself against the dog but not before he left his imprint on my hand. :)

The funny thing is that I knew better but in all the excitement I forgot and grabbed at it.  You can bet your sweet life that I never, ever did that again.