Chipmunk stew?

Ever walk into the hunting camp, ready for a good, hot meal after a long, cold day afield, and find chipmunk stew in the pot?
Ervin Goodman never saw such a dish on the table of his parent’s upper Pine Prairie home, but squirrel was almost always on the menu when he was a child.
Goodman said, “Whenever daddy left to go hunting, momma would get everything else ready for supper because she knew he was going to come back with some squirrels to cook.
“He was a good hunter. He could walk so quiet, without making any noise.”
While cleaning out his late parent’s home, Goodman recently came across several of his father’s hunting licenses from 1942-1943, 1944-1945 and 1945-1946 and the receipt for the $1.00 he paid for his hunting license in 1945.
“My sisters were tickled to death to see the licenses,” Goodman said. “They were surprised to see they were still around.”
Long before the Deer Management Assistance Program and deer areas were a thing, the state’s hunting regulations were printed on the back of hunting licenses, and one of the regulations was for the state’s chipmunk season. The limit was 10 daily, and it was an open season from October 1 through February 1. Chipmunks and their furred friends, the squirrels, were 120 in the aggregate, per season.
Kenny Ribbeck, administrator and chief of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Wildlife Division, had to get in touch with former LDWF secretary Joe Herring, who worked from the department for many years and served as secretary from 1992 to 1996, to find out more about the chipmunk season that once was.
“Upon speaking with Mr. Joe, even though he remembered that we did have a season, he could not remember an exact reason for discontinuing such, but felt it was probably sentimental in nature more than anything,” Ribbeck said.
He continued, “That being the case, the chipmunk has very limited range in Louisiana, as it is primarily associated with those parishes that have the loessial soils in their topography — East and West Feliciana and East Baton Rouge. As such, I can understand why not many folks were probably even aware of the past season for chipmunks.”
Ribbeck said loess soils are deep, silty loam that are easily excavated for dens by chipmunks, and upland hardwoods also provide a key component of the chipmunk diet — heavy mast like acorns. 
“These are the two habitat characteristics that stand out when you look at the range of chipmunks in Louisiana,” Ribbeck added.
In researching the state’s chipmunk season, Ribbeck found a bag limit adjustment was made in the 1951-52 season, reducing the allowable bag from 10 to eight per day. Ribbeck also discovered the last season for chipmunks was the 1953-54 season, as in the regulations for 1954-55 season, only squirrels were listed.
While Goodman’s dad, Eddie E. Goodman, did not hunt chipmunks, he did occasionally hunt other game in addition to his favored squirrel.
“Dad was a squirrel hunter,” Goodman said. “He didn’t deer or duck hunt much. He killed rabbits in the winter, and ducks if he saw them on the creek.”
Goodman’s arrival into his family was likely a thrill to his hunter father since he arrived last, after five older sisters.
“I had six mamas growing up,” Goodman said, laughing. “They (his sisters) treated me like their baby doll.”
Goodman said he killed his first deer, a buck, at the age of 10 while squirrel hunting 300 yards from his house.
“I started out shooting BB guns,” Goodman said. “My first shotgun was an Ivory Johnson 16-gauge I got when I was eight years old.
“My dad traded some work for another gun. He and my mom helped a man move. The old man had a J.C. Higgins bolt action rifle he didn’t want, and daddy cleaned it up and traded it for the 16 gauge I killed my first deer with.”
As a child, Goodman said he and his father hunted in the woods that surrounded every side of the family home as well as areas around Pine Prairie and Turkey Creek.
“Back then, there were no hunting clubs,” he added.
Goodman continued, “My daddy didn’t waste shells. You could count his shots and that was how many squirrels he came back with.”
Goodman now belongs to a club, and he still hunts some of the same land he and his father hunted.
In addition to tracing he and his father’s old hunting trails, Goodman also has several hunting heirlooms, including a turn-of-the century, single shot 12-gauge shotgun stamped with A. Baldwin & Company Limited, New Orleans, LA.
“Someone ordered the gun at a store in Pine Prairie but they ended up not buying it,” Goodman said. “My great-grandfather, Andrew West, my mother’s grandfather, bought the gun for $3. When my mom and dad married in 1930, the stock was broken, and it wouldn’t stay cocked. My dad bought it from my great- grandfather for $1.50 and two barrels of corn, and corn was 75 cents a barrel. He made his $3 back.
“Daddy made a new stock for it — he was good with wood — and filed it to fix the cock.”
Goodman said the gun is likely more than 100 years old.
“My great-grandfather had the gun for 50 years, and my dad had it from 1930 to 1985,” he added.
Goodman also keeps the family tradition alive through he and his wife’s two children, a son and a daughter, and five grandchildren, who all hunt. The whole family spent the Thanksgiving holiday at Goodman’s camp near Boeuf Wildlife Management Area, located in Catahoula and Caldwell parishes. The family has owned the camp for almost 25 years.
Even though chipmunks are no longer on the state’s list of huntable game, Goodman still enjoys hunting deer, ducks and squirrels, but he said he loves hunting squirrels the most.
“All five of my sisters still love to eat squirrels, and I cook for them,” Goodman said.