By MARK TAYLOR OUTDOORS EDITOR

   I am not a morning person.

    Never have been. Never will be.

    Because I love the outdoors, however, I'm often up before dawn and heading out.

    Still, when my alarm went off on a recent morning at 3:15, I wondered if I was insane.

    A hard-core hunter might get up at 3:15 a.m. to get to a deep-woods stand during the peak of the whitetail rut. A fanatical fisherman might get rolling in the middle of the night to catch a perfect tide when giant striped bass invade the Chesapeake Bay. A masochistic mountain climber might start his summit push on Everest not long after midnight.

    Who gets up at 3:15 a.m. to hunt squirrels?

    Tom Caceci, that's who.

    Caceci makes his living teaching anatomy to veterinary science students at Virginia Tech. He likes to joke that he does so only because he hasn't figured out how to make a living as a professional squirrel hunter.

    Hunting from a canoe is a great way to take squirrels, Caceci says. The challenge is finding a big body of water surrounded by huntable land.

    You can't do better than Lake Moomaw. The large reservoir north of Covington features about 43 miles of shoreline, nearly all of it public land open to hunting.

    Our early start got us to the lake at the perfect time on the cool morning of Sept.6. Taking off from Coles Pointe, we piled into Caceci's trolling-motor-powered Old Town canoe and pointed toward the opposite side of the lake.

    We slipped into the Hughs Draft arm of the impoundment as first light was arriving. This wasn't to be only a hunting trip, so I grabbed a fishing rod rigged with a surface plug and started casting toward some standing timber.

    Then the calls of geese echoed across the water.

    The small flock was about 100 yards away. We hurried to ready our shotguns as the geese became more vocal. We heard splashing.

    "Here they come," Caceci said.

    I'd managed to get only one shell into my 12 gauge.

    Caceci shot and a goose fell. I shot and missed.

    The goose was a young one, maybe 6 pounds and a perfect roaster. Not a bad way to start the day.

    It was time for the squirrels.

    Easing quietly along the shoreline, we listened for rustling leaves and watched for movement in the oaks and hickories. I trolled a crankbait behind the boat as we moved along.

    No squirrels showed, but I did catch and release a 13-inch smallmouth bass.

    Caceci was perplexed. He said the area looked to have perfect habitat for squirrels. It appeared, however, that the hickories were still pretty green. It was also clear that the oaks carried few acorns. Maybe the squirrels weren't around because food was scarce.

    I directed Caceci toward a section of shoreline where I'd spotted a huge fox squirrel during a midsummer fishing trip. A doe and her fawn walked along the steep shoreline, but the big fox squirrel and its kin were nowhere to be seen.

    After an hour it became apparent we weren't going to get our limit of squirrels. So we started fishing in earnest, hoping to fill a cooler with panfish for the fry pan.

    Pitching worms, we managed to load up on fat bluegills, redear sunfish and yellow perch.

    We kept our eyes and ears open, though, still hoping to find a squirrel. It didn't happen, so we headed for the boat ramp in the early afternoon.

    With a cooler full of fish, and a nice goose to boot, we couldn't complain. The sight of a majestic bald eagle soaring overhead as we made our way to the boat ramp was another great consolation prize.

    Our gear loaded, we started the drive back to Roanoke. That's when we saw it.

    As we crested a rise in the road near the Morris Hill Campground, a small creature stood silhouetted in the road. Tom braked and his big 4x4 Ford creaked to a halt. The little gray squirrel stood not 20 feet away, looking at us.

    Casually, the rodent hopped to the side the road and jumped on a tree. On the tree was a little yellow sign that read: "Safety Zone. No Shooting. No Hunting."

    We may have been insane, but the squirrels knew exactly what they were doing.

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