bowhunter7
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Feb 2007
Location: Elkview, WV
Posts: 134 |
I had to look for this on another site. I written it several times on different boards and didn't want to type all this again so I copied it over.
My favorite hound was a redbone unimaginatively named Red. Kind of a big houndy looking dog with a bawl mouth. He wasn't mine, but was owned by a friend of mine, Tom Lane. The local sheriff lived nearby and happened to be a coonhunter and breeder of redbones. Tom's dad was at his house one evening while the sheriff was showing off his newest litter of pups. Mr. Lane wasn't a coonhunter and, at the time, didn't even know what a coonhound was, but he liked the looks of the dogs and commented to the sheriff how he wouldn't mind having one if he thought his wife wouldn't divorce him. Most of the pups were spoken for before the mating had even taken place and he ended up selling all but one male. He couldn't find anyone to buy him so, remembering Mr. Lane's fondness for the pup, he showed up at my buddies doorstep with pup in hand. The Mrs. fell in love with him at first glance, as most do when they see a redbone pup, or any pup for that matter. They let Red sleep in what they called the mud room. It was a room with a dirt floor downstairs from the kitchen where they hung their coats and kept their shoes. They left the door open and Red came and went as he pleased. Anyway one morning when Red was about a year old Tom couldn't find him. He gathered the rest of the family and they started looking and calling. After a while they heard something behind the barn down by the creek and soon figured out it was Red barking. They called to him, but he would not come. They were worried something was wrong so Tom and his Dad hiked down to the creek and found Red with his feet on an old oak barking like they had never seen before. They looked up to find a coon staring down at them from a fork in the tree. That was all it took. Red was a coondog, a self-made coondog at that. I started hunting with Tom and Red when I was about 11 or 12 years old and Red was about 3 or 4 at the time. We hunted him all through middle school and high school with great pleasure and success. I had never coonhunted before and we had a ball. My mom let me stay out late, sometimes all night, as long as we were hunting. That was a big deal for a 12 year old, but if I wasn't hunting I had to be in at dark no other reason was good enough to be out late. One early winter night in the mid 80's, I want to say '85 but I'm not sure, we turned Red out about 9:00 pm and didn't get back until well after sun up. We actually tried to go home several times, but the dog kept treeing coon after coon. We had a cotton sack we used as a game bag and it got so heavy we couldn't drag it and had to make two trips to get them out, 18 in all. That was back when fur prices were high and Tom's Dad used to make us buy a bag of dog food every time we took Red out. That night he made us buy two bags, but we didn't care. If I remember correctly we got well over $300 for those coons without skinning them out. A lot of money for a couple of kids. Three times that night the dog treed two coons in two different trees at the same time. The first time he did it I thought he had lost his mind as I watched him running back and forth between the two trees, but Tom knew his dog and he knew if Red put his feet on a tree there was a coon in it and he was right. I've never hunted with another dog that has even done that once. I've been searching for a dog half that good ever since. We hunted that dog until he just couldn't go anymore. The last time we took him out was my senior year in high school and Red couldn't even get through a 3 strand barb wire fence by himself. When he ran a track up to a fence he would stand there and bark. One of us had to jump the fence while the other picked him up and handed him to the person on the other side. We put him down and off he went, a little slower than he used to, but he went. He treed two coons for us that night, a small one in an apple tree that we let go and big boar in an oak that we shot out, and I believe those were the last coons Red ever treed and I'm proud to say I was there with him at the finish line. I wish more than anything I could turn Red out one more time. The really bad part was that Red was the first dog I ever coon hunted with and didn't have anything to compare him to so I never realized just how special he was until several years and a few worthless dogs later. Red handled like a house pet. He never even left the yard, unless we were hunting. He never even messed with the feral cats the patrolled the barn. I remember him laying there in the sun as cats walked within a few feet of him and he wouldn't even pick up his head. He looked like one of those lazy bloodhounds from Hee Haw until you said, "C'mon Red let's go" and he would come barreling like a freight train with his head low and his ears back. We never had use a lead he stayed right with us. Hell, he never even had a collar to clip one to, but once Tom gave the command to find a coon he was gone. He wasn't my dog, but I spent so much time with him and have so many great memories associated with that dog I feel like he was. I've since gave up coon hunting, concentrating on bears, but Red is the dog that started it all for me. Sorry about the rambling, but I love talking about that dog.
Jim
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02-29-2008 05:47 AM
