Larry Atherton
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Central Michigan
Posts: 6544 |
Great to get out!!!!!!!
Man, i swear nothing goes slower than April 15th to July 8th! Well, July 8th finally made it here, and to make it even better the weather man is forecasting a cool down.
So last night finds me driving west into a beautiful sunset at 9:45 pm. The dog is in the back of the Jeep. I have extra water and a 5 hour energy drink plus lots of mosquito dope. I turn into the State Game Area headed north. The sun has set and the sky is filling up with stars fighting a pretty bright moon. Up a head I see a deer stick its head out of the ditch and look in my direction. I started to slow down, and the deer popped out onto the road. It stood square in the middle of the road looking at me. I was still about 100 yards from the doe, but I stopped the Jeep anyway. This doe starts trotting towards me. Then she starts to swing her head back and forth as she hits a fast lope. That dang deer came straight at me, and didn't slow down until she suddenly turned a mere 10 feet from the Jeep. I didn't see a little one any where, but suspect the strange behavior was probably due to a little one near by. Just the same it was pretty cool.
Anyway, just a few minutes later I cut Rain into the woods. She didn't go 30 seconds before opening, and 30 more seconds before she treed. I could hear a flying squirrel whistling at her, and was getting ready to refresh her on some previous training sessions. I get to the tree that isn't 8" thick. A quick look shows a tiny coon with eyes less than 1 inch a part and a ring tail that was at least as big as the rest of the coon. I pulled Rain off the tree and patted her a couple of times on the side an told her good girl.
Next drop, I simply walk down the road about 200 yards and cut her to the west. She went in and did about a 150 yard loop, and came back to the road and crossed to the east side. I could hear her running through quite a bit of water in the woods. Rain opened up once at the 2 minute mark. She then headed south east about another 100 yards and opened one more time. After that she started making smaller loops back towards me. She opened 3 more times while making the loops. Then she threw a locate, and then went about 15 yards and located again. She repeated the last sequence, but the last locate rolled over into a chop. The entire time since I cut her was 11 minutes. I go into her, and she is treed on a large white pine that has all kinds of dead tree trash all around the bottom. I have to admit my faith in Rain wasn't great. So I leashed her and went out to a clearing on the north side of the tree. I was pleasantly surprised when i quickly found a rather large coon laying on a large branch 3/4 of the way up the ole pine.
So I praised her some more with a couple of healthy pats on the side. We got back to the jeep and I got her a drink of water and decided to move. About half a mile down the road, i passed another local hunter, and stopped to b.s. for about 20 minutes. After wishing each other well, we went to what was probably going to be our last drop.
I just cut Rain straight from the box. She went to the southeast only about 150 feet and made a quick loop back to the road. I told her to get into the woods, and she headed south down a rather poor walking path. She went 300 yards deep, and then turned west and went another 300 yards. Again, she looped her way back to the road, and straight down the same path she took the first time. This time at the 250 yard mark she turned east. After a bit she turned south east and struck a track it had been 11 minutes since I cut her. Rain was only barking about 1 time every 100 yards. She was well past a 1/4 mile to the east so I headed down the road. I was only about half way to her when she heated the track up to a hot running track. Four minutes later she threw a locate and rolled it over treed.
I was surprised at how much water was in the woods. One step almost got me over my hip boots. I got to Rain, and she was treeing on a 2 ft thick swamp oak in standing ankle deep water. Typically, I rarely find a coon in these trees when the leaves are on. I made my way around the tree and only could see in one spot about 15 feet wide. I gave a single squaw, and I couldn't believe the coon looked at me. As we walked back to the jeep I praised Rain a couple more times. I poured her some more water and patted her on the head. It was 12:05 am, and I had to call it quits for the night.
As I crawled into bed and lay my head in my pillow, I felt very satisfied. Man, I love the night and a good dog!
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Larry Atherton
Aim small miss small
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07-09-2014 03:55 PM
