Module 2 of 8 Foundations
Food & The Mast Calendar
Learn what squirrels eat through the SC Piedmont fall and winter and how their location tracks the mast crop, the single biggest predictor of where to hunt.
Best after: Know Your Quarry: Squirrel ID, Biology & Behavior
Lessons
5 lessons in this module · 41 across the path
- Mast Dependence & The Food Calendar The big idea: squirrel location tracks the season's mast, green/cutting hickory and soft mast early, acorns mid, dens and caches late. Assumes primer: woodsmanship-foundations.
- Hickory Nuts (Prime Mast) Why cut hickory is the SC squirrel hunter's #1 sign: the loud cutting, the rain of hulls, and how to find producing hickories.
- Acorns & The Oak Drop (Hard Mast) White-oak vs. red-oak preference and timing, and how the acorn drop reorganizes the woods each fall.
- Beechnuts, Pine & Other Mast Secondary Piedmont mast (beech, pine seed, dogwood, black gum, mulberry, maple samaras) that fills the gaps.
- Caching & Scatter-Hoarding How squirrels bury and relocate nuts, what fresh digging tells you, and how caching drives late-season ground feeding.