Rick Ennen
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Jul 2006
Location: Turtle Mountains, ND
Posts: 1023 |
Frito’s spring training started Friday night. I shot him into the woods along the river and he ran upstream about 750 yards before opening. I thought he struggled a little on the track and when I got near his tree saw he had worked the track across a flooded creek with 1-3 feet of water on top of 2 feet of snow. I guess that would slow me down too. His first night in the woods after spending winter in a heated kennel and he goes for a dip in icy water first drop. Found him on a 200+ year old cottonwood I’ve looked up before, and fired him again into the woods. 200 yards distant he struck, tapped a den tree and then settled on another big den tree. No coon on the outside again! Sent him toward another flooded area and he crossed it, hit another track and fell treed. This time he had a coon in an ash.
Saturday night was the exact same pattern of good tracks, 2 dens and a coon on the outside. After a couple hours I didn’t think he was using his mouth right and he started making mistakes (he went back to a tree) and I figured he was being pushed too hard for being out of condition, so I loaded him and went home. Next morning, I knew how he felt. Walking with boots and chaps on snowshoes up and down the bluff over deep snow, sinking through rotted snow and ice into water flowing underneath and trying to pull your snowshoes back out through the whole they made in the ice is about too much for this old guy. But it was great to be back in the woods! I don’t care how bad it is we are going every night.
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02-04-2011 12:49 PM
