Registered: Nov 2009
Location: Near Owen Sound Ont.
Posts: 154

This happened 47 years ago and I know you all have a story or two to tell, big or small. So lets entertain ourselves on these wet windy nights.

Vic’s “Ring” Tales

One night a friend of mine phoned and asked if I would like to go for a coon hunt with him. Being somewhat of an outdoors enthusiast, (actually I was a devoted fisherman at the time) I accepted his invitation and said I was free Saturday all day. Ron was a little taken back by that statement but was quick to explain to me that coon hunting was after dark, and he was intending to leave shortly, not on Saturday .Ron told me to wear boots and bring a flashlight. After I hung up the phone, I rounded up my boots and light. I was ready to go, but still not too sure whether we could find any coon, as my light wasn’t very good and I certainly didn’t know where to look for them. Before long Ron had picked me up and we were on our way.
This was entirely new to me so I really didn’t know what to expect. By the time we had arrived at the first turn out, Ron had briefed me in and I had an Idea of what would take place. He let the hound go and we waited for a while. Old Ranger was a silent trailer and when he opened, Ron said, “that’s it he’s treed.” We went into him and sure enough there was a coon. Right then and there I was hooked. “coon fever” big time. We treed two more coons that night and my destiny was pretty well sealed.
A couple of nights later, I asked Ron where I could get me a coon dog of my own. He said he knew a place in Goderich that sometimes (always) had coon dogs for sale so off we went. It was 85 miles from home so we got an early start. I came home that night with my first hound. She had cost me $15 and was supposed to be registered, but nobody seemed to know where the papers were. She was a bag of bones covered with black and tan skin, but she was all mine.
I made a doghouse for her and fed old Queenie for a few weeks hoping that she would pull through her bad state of malnutrition. Sure enough the food and love I gave her paid off. She was ready for the woods.
I phoned Ron and twisted his arm to go for a hunt. (Like he ever needed it twisted.) We were soon in the woods and me with my very own coon dog. Ranger being dead silent on track, and not knowing what Queenie was capable of, the tension mounted as we unleashed the dogs. Then it happened. We heard Queenie open. My heart went straight to my throat and I swear I was floating about six inches above ground level. I even managed to squeak out the words “that’s my dog”. It wasn’t long until she changed her voice completely. No, it wasn’t a tree change up, it was a frightening scream. Then I heard her crashing through the fence coming back to me. She jumped up and nestled her head under my chin. That was when Ron backed up about twenty-five feet from us. Man did she stink! Obviously she hadn’t been told that the raccoon has rings, not stripes on its’ tail. I wasn’t to be discouraged, so we loaded the dogs up in Ron’s’ car. That would be Ron and me in the front seat, Ranger in the back seat, and all of us with our heads out the window. Oh yea, Queenie was in the trunk by herself. The dogs were turned loose again and Queenie soon opened. I looked at Ron but he had a Clint Eastwood look on his face and he didn’t say a word. Then all of the sudden, she rolled up into a beautiful loud ringing chop. Ron broke the silence and mumbled, “Well I’ll be go to h—l if she ain’t treed.” As usual Ron was right. She was treed, as a matter of fact, her nose even looked like a tree with little tiny branches sticking out of it all over the place. When we got back to the car, Ron got a pair of pliers out of the glove box and we pulled all of the quills out.
Why she never lit right out of the country that night I’ll never know, I guess it was just our lucky night.
To make a long story short, Queenie did run and tree a coon with Ranger a few nights later and I kept her around for a while. Eventually I persuaded an old timer to take her (for free) and that was the last I ever saw or heard of my first coon dog.
If you guys and gals ever have an opportunity to introduce someone to the wonderful sport of coon hunting, I hope that you will have the understanding and patience that Ron Turner displayed with Queenie and me. I say to him openly, God bless you and thanks Ron.
As for Black and Tans, in our area we have some of the finest anywhere. Yes even Queenie in her own way.


Not everyone is as long winded as me lol so write a few sentences and lets all enjoy this thread.
Vic McMillan

__________________
“Two people can look at the exact same
Thing and see something totally different.”

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Registered: Feb 2012
Location: airville,pa
Posts: 2078

a young fellow took me hunting (on our family farm ) and i dont think that dog treed a coon that nite but we saw a coon setting up n him being a hide hunter he decided to shoot that coon out so he called his dog over n talked it into treeing n we shot that coon out. lol!
a couple weeks later we went hunting again on his grand pas farm and after we had been out there hunting awhile someone started shooting a high powered rifle at us you could hear the bullets comeing though the trees we hit the ground n turned our lites out n crawled out of that hollow. come to find out he didnt have permission to hunt but he new his grand pa was going to be away for the nite. he retuned home a little earlier then he expected. we didnt tree any that nite either.
the next time i went hunting i found someone else to take me.

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