Page 125 - South Mississippi Living - May, 2026

Mississippi sportsmen get another chance to hit the forests for outdoor adventures when the spring squirrel season opens on May 15. The season lasts through June 1 with a limit of four per day.
The spring season offers an excellent opportunity to bring novice hunters into the woods. At this time, they can usually hunt even the most popular public areas with little competition.
In many ways, hunting squirrels in the spring closely resembles pursuing them in the fall. Either spring or fall, sportsmen must learn to spot squirrels. Walk through the forest slowly looking and listening. To give young children or other novice sportsmen practice spotting squirrels, stroll through a city park with a healthy squirrel population. See how many squirrels they can spot and how far away.
Of course, hunting squirrels in a vast forest requires much more skill than simply walking through a city park. In the spring, trees grow thick with fresh new foliage, making squirrels more difficult to see. However, those leafy branches make a lot of
noise and movement when a squirrel jumps from branch to branch.
Squirrels feed on different things in the spring. In the fall, they primarily eat acorns and other nuts, but in the spring, squirrels mostly eat green buds, flowers, shoots, bulbs, fruits and berries like blackberries. They will also eat some crops, especially corn among other things.
Many hunters work as teams to bag more squirrels. The Gray Ghosts of the Forests can easily disappear in any tree, even from the most experienced hunters. When a squirrel hides in a tree, one person can walk around the tree making noise while the child or novice sportsman remains still and silent. Keying on that
moving person, the squirrel might jump or move around to the other side. The standing person might spot it.
In the spring, sportsmen must contend with heat, stinging insects and especially mosquitoes. Bring lots of bug spray during the spring season. Some companies make excellent bug suits lined with anti-mosquito mesh to keep the little blood suckers away. Dress cool. Carry plenty of water and high-energy snacks. Snakes also come out when the weather warms. Look carefully before sitting or stepping anywhere.
Small game hunters in South Mississippi can find many
places to bag some squirrels. The Pascagoula River Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in George and Jackson counties holds a good squirrel population. The 37,000-acre property between Lucedale and Wade consists mostly of swamps and lowland hardwood forests. People can only reach many places by boat.
“Pascagoula WMA is always a popular squirrel hunting area,” says Rick Hamrick, a Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries & Parks game biologist. “It has a large amount of hardwoods. On some of the national forest lands people can find some creek bottoms that hold squirrels.”
Sportsmen could also hunt the DeSoto and Homochitto National Forests. DeSoto National Forest covers 518,587 acres near Hattiesburg. Homochitto National Forest spreads across 191,839 acres near Brookhaven. In South Mississippi, sportsmen might also consider Leaf River, Little Biloxi, Old River, Red Creek, Ward Bayou and Wolf River WMAs among others.
For Mississippi hunting information, see www.mdwfp.com/ wildlife-hunting/hunting-seasons-and-bag-limits.
SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living | www.smliving.net
May 2026 | 125