The idea for this gun came to me on a deer hunting trip in November 1985, while canoeing down the flooded Muscata­tuck River in southern Indiana in pursuit of whitetail. I had seen several does, but no bucks. It seemed, however, that in every other tree there was a squirrel. Normally, our gray and fox squirrels are very shy, but a week of being trapped by floodwaters had made them careless.