I've been tempted to hit a tree rat with a 30-06 before while hunting forest rats. It's amazing how much noise squirrels make for their size. You'll be in the stand ... that's got to be a deer. It sounds huge. Nope. Squirrel. Then when you actually see deer this huge animal doesn't make a sound. Like how does a 120lb animal walk through dry leaves without making a sound - I'll never know. But they do.
N8 its funny you say that. Where i deer hunt in upstate NY there are a ton of little red squirrels that drive me nuts up in my stand. Not much bigger than a chipmunk but louder than 3 deer walking by. So now i go a few weeks before deer season if possible and take out as many as possible.
My property extends 85 feet beyond the fence. Then it just other 1 family homes my house is on 100 ft x 285 ft piece of land which is typical of neighborhood. since my house is on a hill the woods behind my fence is a wild strip about 1 mile by 150 ft with a small stream, that can never be built on the land is owned by the homes that border it. I had used the zoom on camera in picture which somewhat distorted the view that construction you can see is just a house beside mine about 200 ft from my fence which is 5 ft tall.
Hunting is permitted via air rifle or bow only due to local regs. I also need permission from neighbors if I hunt within 500 ft of house. Most of neighbors allow me as we have coyotes living in woods and they have small dogs. I've only shot squirrel, rabbit and crows. But there are many wild turkeys but air rifles are not allowed on them in NY. So I'll stick to small stuff in backyard.
Normaly I go hunting in Sullivan County NY where my gun club owns 26 acres that is adjacent to a 10000 acre state preserve that is surrounded by private land so legally only people who have permission to be on surrounding land have access to hunt.