Rick Ennen
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Jul 2006
Location: Turtle Mountains, ND
Posts: 1023 |
quote:
Originally posted by jay brademeyer
I had know idea I owned such a jam up good moose hound.. Lol that big bull looked like a Percheron draft horse with horns busting out of that timber with ole Oil Can Sam on his tail... that could have been real hairy. Lol I have said ole sam would go down in history one way or the other.. well I think he just did cause we will remember that forever.. Lol thanks again Rick
Ha, ha… just when you think you’ve seen it all in coon hunting, young Sam shows up on a Monday night and reset the bar! Lol.
Our Monday night hunt was exciting all the way through. Our first cast was Frito and Fargo (Sloopy x Frito) fired at the same time at a 90 degree angle between the dogs. These boys did not disappoint and both sunk deep through the country looking for their own coon. Each dog has its own style of hunting with Fargo heading uphill for the oak ridges, and Frito going downhill toward the swamps and lakes.
Both dogs opened at slightly different times and in different directions each about a ½ mile away. The Alphas showed Frito trailing around a lake and Fargo on an oak ridge. Fargo’s mouth was strong with lots of Frito’s sound in it, and his track was fairly short as is his style quickly treeing coons. We made our way with the Jeep up to Fargo’s tree and found a nice coon sitting in an oak.
A quick glance at the Alpha now showed Frito had covered roughly ¾ of a mile driving his track hard in one direction almost entirely around a lake and into a swampy area made up of a network of beaver dams and flooded timber. It gives me a knot in my stomach to see him do this in the fall with water temperatures somewhere around 40 F. As we listened to him driving the track I heard his mouth change, and declared he’s swimming!
Another look at the Alpha confirmed his location and the knot in my stomach was growing by the moment. All I could do was pray he didn’t catch the coon out in the lake. He has killed many coons in deep water but there are some big ones up here on the international border that even a pair of good hounds cannot take in cold water. From where we stood there was no possible way to get to him if he got into trouble. Jay asked for a photo of his crossing so I took one:
The base map photo on my Alpha is old and doesn’t do justice to the amount of water currently out there so I got a current one off Google Earth that shows he swam a span of about 375 feet across the lake.
For persons not familiar with coon hunting in this area, many coons refuse to tree. This far north the trees do not get large enough to produce good dens, and as a result the coons do not see trees as places of refuge. The big ones will only tree after this old dog flat runs them down (which is one heck of a chore in these beaver ponds) or when they decide to swim out into deep water and wait for the dog! I’ve yet to see another dog so willing and skilled at swimming after these northern swamp coons even when the water is frigid.
Eventually, Frito drove this coon through the swamp and was fast closing in on him, while from the opposite end of the ridge, Fargo was moving in Frito’s direction. This old coon couldn’t take the “squeeze” from both directions and the dogs hit the tree from opposite sides almost simultaneously. Wow! What a chase.
Before the night was over we ended up with another long chase through a big oak pasture that ended with the coon swimming out into a deep, gravel bottom lake. A beautiful spot, with the bank lined with a mix of oaks and aspens creating a concert hall effect for the big mouths of these dogs. We made our way as quickly as possible over the 700 yards to the lake listening to the fight going on in the water. It lasted several minutes and I could tell by the sounds the dogs were not winning this one. It’s just too cold for the dogs this time of the year whereas the short legs, heavy coat, and stout, cobby body of the coon prevents him from getting hypothermia. We called the dogs off when we arrived and got no complaints. The wide set eyes of the big coon made him look about like a gator skimming along the water.
Jay and I had another great night Tuesday hunting a chain of lakes among oaks in an area measuring six miles across between the roads around it. When you’re love is for adventure and extreme coon hunting it gets no better, and you feel like you’ve been blessed directly by God with your heart’s wildest desire. Amen.
Long live Frito. He still is my primary hunting dog, and If he dies young it will be while doing what we both love. He's my definition for the word "coondog" and the only coondog I've ever respected and admired.
Last edited by Rick Ennen on 10-19-2014 at 04:22 PM
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10-18-2014 07:01 PM
