Registered: Mar 2020
Location: E North Carolina
Posts: 134

I was thinkin about them old school coon hunters that hunted before tracking systems..shock collars...
4wd trucks..high powered lights...quality dog food ...dog medications...

I mean dam...they must have been some gritty tough jokers to wanna coon hunt without all the luxuries of today...


I wanna hear some old guys chime in on this...
Tell us young fellas how it was back when it wont soo easy...

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Registered: Mar 2016
Location: Central,illinois
Posts: 569

Naw, most of us were just poor, wanted to hunt real bad and had a touch of dumb going on lol 55 years later I still got the touch of dumb ! Lol

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Registered: Mar 2008
Location: cary,mississippi
Posts: 621

I started hunting with my dad he had a nitelite but that’s about it the tracking systems was his ears but I have to admit I didn’t get my first tracking system till about 2008 or so up until then I was pretty much doin it the same way daddy did

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she is treed

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Registered: Dec 2012
Location: columbus ms.
Posts: 201

I started with a hound , a compass, a carbide light, and a single shot 22 … You could go hunting with Grandpaw or stay home and watch Grandmaw spit snuff juice in the fire-place … The day when I finally saved enough money to buy a used coal-miners wheat light will NEVER be forgotten … and I never developed a taste for the Snuff ...

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Registered: Feb 2010
Location: off the res.
Posts: 3416

I started with a cross bred hound , a compass, a carbide light, and a single shot 22. One of my horse lead ropes and a 3 ft. piece of garden hose for thrash breaking.
Times have sure changed.

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Registered: May 2016
Location: Palatka, FL
Posts: 5106

When I started back in the 60's. You couldn't even carry a gun at night in the part of the state I hunted. You climbed the cypress trees with tree climbers on and you had a telescoping aluminum pole you knocked them out with.

Thing is I would not hunt without the equipment I have today. Back then your never missed it. The dogs were pack dogs and they hunted and stated together. The crazy ones you lost and never missed.

Probably 15 years ago I went to a night hunt on a Friday night. Got there and had left everything at home. Boots, Light, tracking equip. I went to the store and brought a 2 cell light. Hunted in my tennis shoes I was wearing. I picked up a night champion win.
Next night I took my stuff but used the 2 cell light, tennis shoes but did put wildlife tracking collar on. Picked up another win and granted him out. Wet feet both nights but heck I did that for years. It is all what you are use to.

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Registered: Jul 2003
Location: PA
Posts: 2154

Equipment List 1:
Value of your dog = ???

Equipment List 2:
Value of accessories to hunt your dog:
(1) Dog Box To Haul Him in = ???
(2) Tracking System for Him = ???
(3) Light to Get Through the woods to follow him = ???
(4) Hunting Clothes/Boots = ???
(5) Gun to shoot coon = ???


Think about this before complaining about the price of a good dog (the most important ingredient for successful hunting).

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Registered: Feb 2015
Location: NW Arkansas
Posts: 1110

I am 70 years old and started hunting with my dad when I was about 6. Had my own dog at 8. Yes things have changed a lot. The biggest difference to me is that we had to have dogs that hunted with us. Just no way to keep up with the deep deep dogs. Those dogs made you spend the night hunting dogs and not coon. I can think of several that I would love to have to today that I hated back then. GPS has changed coon hunting more than anything. Our equipment back then was carbide light (my dad got me a real small one and I wish I had it today), Hand held 4 battery flash light (only used to look at trees). I remember many times putting the dogs in the trunk of a car to go hunting. Also it was in western Oklahoma and coon were not real plentiful. Now coon are much thicker. I remember the older guys bringing in coon and turning them loose to try to get a better population.

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Tom Wood

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Registered: Jan 2013
Location: Marietta
Posts: 10790

If you seen us with a pair of sneakers on ( anybody remember keds ) we either had a deer dog or deep water or both.


Tar

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Registered: Dec 2019
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 246

My dad bought me a Texas flashlight back in the 70s that thing held like 10 D batteries. I had 3 mutts that would run and tree anything that would move. All I had to do was walk out the back door and I was in the woods. I was around 9 years old hunting right by myself imagine that happening now of days. No one taught me anything about coon hunting my dad didn't hunt. Dad lives next door to me to this day and still thinks I'm crazy for running around in the woods at night. But if it wasn't for the 4 wheeler and all the expensive things that go with coonhunting I don't believe I would coonhunt. Back when I was a kid knocking out a possum after wading 2 sloughs wearing tennis shoes was fun. Now walking 200 yards on dry ground I start complaining.

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Registered: May 2015
Location: IN
Posts: 2760

1980 or 81, most of the hunters were using wheat or nite lites but not all. I watched and waited for a 70+ year old man walk 1/2 mile across a very muddy freshly plowed field. When he reached the road I seen he had 2 walker dogs one he said could track the other to tree, he had his rifle, a lantern and two 15 lb unskinned coon and a seven cell flash light. I don't think he was even winded

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Registered: Mar 2020
Location: E North Carolina
Posts: 134

MAN THESE REPLIES ARE COOL TO READ..


YALL THINK DOGS WERE ANY BETTER/ WORSE THEN DOGS NOWADAY??

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Registered: Jan 2013
Location: Marietta
Posts: 10790

quote:

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Originally posted by FLYbyNIGHT
MAN THESE REPLIES ARE COOL TO READ..


YALL THINK DOGS WERE ANY BETTER/ WORSE THEN DOGS NOWADAY??

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Registered: Aug 2004
Location: Chattanooga, Tn
Posts: 22462

When I first started hunting, I didn't have a compass. A lot of nights I spent more time trying to find the truck than I did trying to find my dogs. And we never hunted 1 dog by itself. I always turned 2 or 3 loose together. Most nights I only made it home with 1 or 2. A lot of mornings I would have to stop and get one on my way to work. Coonhunting back then was a lot different than it is now. Every time that you turned your dogs loose, you knew that you were in for an adventure. We only got to make one drop back then. When you saw your buddies the next day, you talked about your adventure and not how many coons you treed. And you didn't do it over the telephone, you had to go by and see them.

Last edited by Richard Lambert on 03-24-2020 at 02:08 PM

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Registered: Mar 2016
Location: Central,illinois
Posts: 569

quote:

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Originally posted by FLYbyNIGHT
MAN THESE REPLIES ARE COOL TO READ..


YALL THINK DOGS WERE ANY BETTER/ WORSE THEN DOGS NOWADAY??

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Registered: Feb 2012
Location: airville,pa
Posts: 2072

Unfortunately I had deep hunting dogs even back in the 80's with out any tracking equipment so I did a lot of dog hunting and laying the coat out. I don't miss them days at all.

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Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Minnesota
Posts: 1542

First hound bought as a pup for $3 from a cousin, 1/4 Walker 3/4 Bluetick. Turned out to be a heck of a tree hound with good nose BUT loved a deer if she hit them first. Hunted with the milkman who picked up our cans off the farm and many a morning my mom would have to drive me where I left my jacket and she would be laying on it the next morning. Did break her by getting some breaking scent from Bill Boatman and pouring a little on the inside of the bottom of her ears and a little down her face and locking her in her house. Left her out to eat and go to the bathroom and on the 3rd day she rolled her lips up and growled at me and she never ran another. We had hogs and would “slop” them by mixing ground oats and skim milk in a barrel overnight and that’s what she got along with table craps. Later a foxhunter gave me a “recipe” he had the local feed mill mix and we would bring water to a boil and add tallow then the feed and let it set overnight to cool.
Hunted with a Single 22 and a hand held flashlight
Really glad I got my start that way:
Taught me how to shine a tree.
Taught me you don’t need to buy high price dog food.
Taught me you don’t need to pay big money to have a coonhound.
Taught me that a big price light will not show you a coon if your hound didn’t put it there.
Taught me to know what a hound is doing by their voice and not by a “screen”.
But the best is it taught me to have fun and be happy.

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OLD TIMER

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Registered: Aug 2004
Location: Chattanooga, Tn
Posts: 22462

All of the highest priced lights, boots, trackers, trucks and dog boxes won't make you happy but a really nice hound sure will.

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Registered: Jan 2004
Location: North MO
Posts: 2347

quote:

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Originally posted by Cotton 1927
Different kind of dog altogether, back then dogs hunted with you, check in turn go up another holler cross over come back down the other side,like others have said deep n lonely would have stayed deep and alone....

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Registered: May 2019
Location: Ohio
Posts: 45

My 1st coon hunt was Thanksgiving Eve in 1957. We treed a coon hanging over a creek and it landed in the water. The dogs jumped in the creek and the fight was on. Sadly I have been hooked since that night 63 years ago. My feet were froze and I still remember the warm pumpkin pie when we got home.
We had nothing but a six cell light and a kerosene lantern. Most hounds were hauled in the trunk of a car. Dad always had a hard hunting dog and we had many late nights. Without tracking equipment, it was a different situation. We would climb to the top of a ridge and listen. If you did not hear the dogs, you would climb to the next ridge. Sometimes you would not get the dogs until the next morning, they would be laying on dad"s hunting coat.
Coon were scarce because they had a priced on their back. Back then you could hunt anywhere. In the early 70"s, the deer came into our area and everything changed. Now we have posted land and trail cameras.
Coonhounds were entirely different from our hounds today. Do not want to open that can of worms today.

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Registered: Jan 2006
Location:
Posts: 417

Other than a good tracking system you don't need all the fancy stuff anyway a better than average dog helps more than anything

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Registered: Jun 2014
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 958

quote:

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Originally posted by Clovis A Nailor
My dad bought me a Texas flashlight back in the 70s that thing held like 10 D batteries. I had 3 mutts that would run and tree anything that would move. All I had to do was walk out the back door and I was in the woods. I was around 9 years old hunting right by myself imagine that happening now of days. No one taught me anything about coon hunting my dad didn't hunt. Dad lives next door to me to this day and still thinks I'm crazy for running around in the woods at night. But if it wasn't for the 4 wheeler and all the expensive things that go with coonhunting I don't believe I would coonhunt. Back when I was a kid knocking out a possum after wading 2 sloughs wearing tennis shoes was fun. Now walking 200 yards on dry ground I start complaining.

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Registered: Jun 2003
Location: AUBURN, IN.
Posts: 1706

I can remember RUSS BELLAR was at a hunt-- came in a car with old STRIKER in the truck with a binder twin hold the trunk lid down--it was more fun back in the days --LOL LOL

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Registered: Mar 2016
Location: Central,illinois
Posts: 569

quote:

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Originally posted by Josh Michaelis
I don't know how far back then is, but I started 35 years ago and our dogs were just as big a hunting dogs as they are now. Spent a lot of nights hunting dogs more than we did coon. Only difference today from 30 years ago is the independence.

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Registered: Mar 2009
Location: OKLA
Posts: 1132

I am 73, my brother and I started with a crippled running walker female that our milk man, guy who picked our milk up, we milked eight cows morning and evening year round, gave us. She would tree lots of possums, we left the house using a two cell flashlight for a walking light and carried a seal beam light slung on our braided bailer twine lead to shine with. We hunted any where within walking distance, all the neighbors knew us and we could hunt any where. Then a skinned possum was worth from fifty cents to a dollar, the first year old Spot treed one coon, we'd never seen one before, took it to the co op and weighed it and showed it off. The coon brought $4.00, not bad when you consider wages was a $1.00 an hour. We hunted in our regular chore clothes, but we wore old worn out brogan boots with holes in them to let the water out, we tried to keep them dry in the winter too cold to get wet. We hunted that way until the old female passed and we trained a young dog. We stopped hunting when high school sports and going to the service got in the way. I came home from Viet Nam the last time in January 1970, in short order I accumulated a wife, a mortgage, and a full time job, so I didn't get back to hunting with hounds for several years.

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