First thanks for this post.
" Mothers squirrels are most vicious when defending their babies"
A customer of mine was attacked by a squirrel after shooting one squirrel from a tree. He said they was two squirrels in the tree, & he shot one, that fell dead to the ground. He said before he could shoot the second squirrel it attakced him, first frontal assault, then got on his back digging into his clothes and back. He said it went on for sometime , before he laid down on his back smashing the squirrel & it let loose and ran off.
I have used squirrel distress calls & they are really effective, especially early season with female fox squirrels. I have had to shoot them from the hip to prevent them from jumping on me. They think a hawk is attacting their young & really are deterimined to stop the attack. Nothing is as ferocious as pissed off mother protecting her young. While this call will locate grays & get them barking to reveal location, it works best on Fox Squirrels. They come running.
I have a shack in the mountains & a few years ago , stupidly I put t-111 on the bottom as underskirting. Everytime I go up there, I see two or three fox squirrels run off. They have nearly ate all the t-111 up. I am going to replace it with metal or cedar. I kind of think I deserve it as I have taken a lot of squirrels in over fifty years of hunting them,. I expect to be atttacked by one like my customer was. I will probably have a heart attack or at least poop my pants. Happy Huntin.