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-- How did you get started coon hunting ? (http://forums.ukcdogs.com/showthread.php?threadid=928415786)

I grew up on the outskirts of Chicago, as a true 'city slicker,' and my only concept of any form of hunting was exactly what we (city folk) were all raised to believe--that it was barbaric. There was no reason to question that because it was just a given belief in the community. I have full-blown animal-rights activists in my family, and as a kid I went to a PETA protest with them. I couldn't help how I was raised.

I got my first coonhound at the local pound, only because I thought she was pretty. It never occurred to me to hunt her, but the next one I did. I didn't know anyone who hunted, only posts on the Coondawgs.com website. I thought that I knew all about hunting and training because I let a dog loose in the woods from time to time--and if you search my name (especially on the UKC site), you'll see a clueles know-it-all telling everyone else what to do. You will also see me accused/attacked of being an animal rights activist and things of that nature.

In spite of everything, I kept hunting. It took years for me to break those childhood beliefs, but I have and that's why I hunt today.

On a side note--I recently found pictures I'd drawn in grade school of dogs chasing raccoons and a crazy drawing of what I THOUGHT a deer looked like.

Mine is a little like yours Kevin, A friend and I watched where the red fern grows and decided we wanted to coon hunt. I guess we where about 10. A month or so later we was setting on the porch and a Bluetick come walking up with no collar on. We knew what he was and tied him up. We started hunting that night by our self's. We was scared that if we turned him loose he would run off. So we hunted him on the end of a 10ft horse lead. We were cut up from one end to the other. We did that almost every night for 6 months. He run everything from armadillo to deer, drug us through every thicket in the county and only ever made one tree. It was a house cat. We decided that we had all we could take and turned him off the lead to go hunting . We never seen him again.

I'll never forget how excited we would get when that dog would start opening on a track. That was 29 years ago and I still laugh about it. My friend still goes with me now and again when he is in town.

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quote:

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Originally posted by joey
Mine is a little like yours Kevin, A friend and I watched where the red fern grows and decided we wanted to coon hunt. I guess we where about 10. A month or so later we was setting on the porch and a Bluetick come walking up with no collar on. We knew what he was and tied him up. We started hunting that night by our self's. We was scared that if we turned him loose he would run off. So we hunted him on the end of a 10ft horse lead. We were cut up from one end to the other. We did that almost every night for 6 months. He run everything from armadillo to deer, drug us through every thicket in the county and only ever made one tree. It was a house cat. We decided that we had all we could take and turned him off the lead to go hunting . We never seen him again.

I'll never forget how excited we would get when that dog would start opening on a track. That was 29 years ago and I still laugh about it. My friend still goes with me now and again when he is in town.

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quote:

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Originally posted by joey
Mine is a little like yours Kevin, A friend and I watched where the red fern grows and decided we wanted to coon hunt. I guess we where about 10. A month or so later we was setting on the porch and a Bluetick come walking up with no collar on. We knew what he was and tied him up. We started hunting that night by our self's. We was scared that if we turned him loose he would run off. So we hunted him on the end of a 10ft horse lead. We were cut up from one end to the other. We did that almost every night for 6 months. He run everything from armadillo to deer, drug us through every thicket in the county and only ever made one tree. It was a house cat. We decided that we had all we could take and turned him off the lead to go hunting . We never seen him again.

I'll never forget how excited we would get when that dog would start opening on a track. That was 29 years ago and I still laugh about it. My friend still goes with me now and again when he is in town.

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It was looking back. We used 1 two cell flash light between us and we ran to every tree after we got a dog that would tree. We hunted harder than most grown men and didn't meet another coonhunter for the first 2 years. Those dang flash lights would go out when we were running through the woods and you would have to beat it on the side of your hand to get it to come back on. After we got a dog that would tree we put a car battery in a back pack with a spot light hooked to it. We walked from the house every night with that thing, one would lead the dog and use the flash light. The other would have the gun and the car battery. In the summer and winter we hunted in tennis shoes. In the summer we wrapped rags soaked in kerosene around our ankles to keep ticks and chiggers off. We lived in rice field country and become immune to mosquitoes. Every animal in a 5 mile radius learned not to stick its head out of the bushes or it was going in the cook pot! Between the cotton mouths, mosquito and kerosene we are luck to be alive. We learned a lot about hunting and toting a car battery to every tree will make you demand a little more out of your dog. Thats a fact!

__________________
Michael Rosamond
Sunspot Lights
936-827-6309
http://www.sunspotlights.com/
When brightness matters!!

Home Of:
PKC Ch, Grch Grnch 2008 Tx state champion They call me Crazy Betty

PKC SCh CH Grnch They call me Howler too

joey, we used to make a torch for light at night to get around. we would take a coke bottle, fill it with cool oil, stuff the opening with a rag and we'd use that to go to the barn or where ever we had to go at night.

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