Squirrels and paw paws a delightful combo for Elk County hunter

Greg Pickett pulled a long shadow early Wednesday morning as he crossed a lush meadow, heading for his pickup. After barely an hour in the woods, he was leaving with a limit of one of his favorite hunting quarries. He also had a fresh breakfast of some of his favorite fruit, with more in his pockets.

He may have been the only person in Kansas that morning to have done what he loves doing – hunting squirrels and picking paw paws.

“There just aren’t squirrel hunters around here anymore, just me and an old guy over in Elk Falls,” Pickett said of the southern half of Elk County. “Most people don’t know anything about paw paws. That includes people who should because they’re real outdoorsmen. I can’t explain it.”

Pickett, 45, is a rancher born and raised amid the wild places of the Elk River valley. Squirrel hunting was a big deal as a kid. Many people took a .22 or small-gauge shotgun for a walk in the autumn woods. Many had dogs trained for the sport.

“I know these things about helped me flunk out of high school,” Pickett joked. Since then, he thinks people have become far more interested in whitetails and waterfowl, letting other things slide. The squirrel hunting sub-culture, he said, is still alive in other places.

Pickett has many friends from Louisiana come to hunt deer with him. Most enjoy a good squirrel hunt, too.

“I don’t know why people are different up here,” he said. “It’s certainly not because of a lack of squirrels.”

No, indeed.

At sunrise Wednesday, Pickett eased into a section of timbered creek bottom that’s been in his family for more than 50 years.

He stopped at the edge to look and listen. The sound of rustling leaves in the tree tops drew his attention to where a squirrel was at the tip of an oak limb, grabbing an acorn. Pickett eased over and played a game of ring around the red oak with one fox squirrel and two gray squirrels. He eventually got a shot with his .22, but missed.

That’s rare for a man who shoots CZ bolt-action with a heavy target barrel and scope. His personal best is 26 squirrels in a row. All head shots.

About 100 yards down the stream, Pickett heard a gray squirrel barking. He slipped closer and made a perfect shot. Ten minutes later, he shot another as it rummaged through the tree tops for acorns. A few minutes after that, he got another doing the same.

“You can’t hardly pick a more perfect morning, with the rain last night making the woods quiet for walking,” Pickett said, “but when the squirrels move through the trees you can hear the water dropping off the leaves as they go. Perfect.”

Adding to the perfection was the ripening of the local crop of red oak acorns, nuts a little bigger than gumdrops that must taste as sweet to the squirrels. Pickett said most mast trees have had bumper nut crops this fall.

Pickett soon shot his third young gray squirrel of the morning. He commented on how good the squirrels would be fried and served with mashed potatoes and gravy. He said they don’t taste like chicken – they taste better. He shot the last two grays at the top of the same oak, filling his limit of five nearly a minute apart.

With his squirrels secured to his belt, Pickett grabbed his rifle and headed to another of his favorite foods – paw paws.

Decades of hunting squirrels means Pickett knows of every paw paw thicket for miles. They normally grow only in thick woodlands, usually close to streams in eastern Kansas, as far west as Butler County. They must have been thick in Elk County historically, because there is a Paw Paw township.

Trees are recognizable because of foot-long leaves. It’s a rare paw paw tree with a three-inch diameter. Some are so spindly, they remind you of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, as the fruit bows the thin trees.

Pickett crossed a small stream, smiled and said, “Look at all of them. It’s just a danged-good year.”

Green fruit that averaged the size of large chicken eggs hung anywhere from a few feet off the ground to eight feet in the air. Pickett lightly squeezed the ones he could reach, saying they had to be soft to be ripe. He moved through the paw paw trees giving each a few shakes. Most times only ripe fruit fell.

After picking a few from that thicket, he headed to another where the trees and the fruit were abnormally large. Some of the trees had five-inch trunks. Most of the fruit were the size of large baking potatoes.

For at least three generations, the Picketts have used paw paws in place of bananas for baking dessert breads. Pickett compares the taste of paw paws to sweet bananas, only better.

“There’s no doubt in my mind paw paws are more flavorful than any banana,” Pickett said as he broke open a paw paw, revealing a yellow, custard-like filling. He squeezed the fruit’s skin, pushing the fruit’s flesh into his mouth. He smiled wide and his eyes got big.

“If you don’t like the taste of this, there’s just something wrong with you,” he said. “I still can’t believe more people don’t get out and pick these things. They’re so danged good!”

This story was originally published September 26, 2014 at 6:16 PM with the headline "Squirrels and paw paws a delightful combo for Elk County hunter."