Ron Moore
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Jan 2006
Location: WV
Posts: 821 |
Re: Larry Hall
quote: Originally posted by Dave Richards
There was not any hide hunting in these parts , coons were to scarce. We hunted in Northern Indiania, Ohio, and Eastern Virginia on week long hunting trips. Prices if the hides paid for our expenses and we enjoyed the coon hunting. Coon hunting was and still is just a hobby for me, hide prices meant nothing but paying for your trip, gas, motel and eats, you can't put a price on a hobby or we would all quit. I had several friends that made lots if hunting trips to coon hunt and actually made decent money doing so, they were the dyed in the wool coon hunters, I had a good job and made good money working, they made more money from coon hunting than their jobs paid. Dave
Dave, I saw first hand the hide hunters come through Northern Indiana when I lived up there in the late 70's and early 80's. But I saw some pretty sad sights. Saw one group come through where I was hunting one night with big bright lights and a pack of dogs that walked the back roads while they spotted coon. All the dogs did was retrieve any coon that wasn't shot out dead. They piled in on my little female one night and scarred her half to death while she was working a track. She came in to me and they didn't even attempt to run the track but came back out to the roads edge. They told me that they had killed 19 coon the night before. I lived out in the country and many times I would see their vehicles come by with the lights shining out of the vehicle windows to the woods line looking for coon setting up. I was just hunting one dog at the time. Like you said, most folks didn't want to shear the hide money plus when the fur was high, you didn't want too many dogs chewing on them. Where I lived back then in WV before moving to IN, the coon were extremely thin and we had a 2 coon per night and 20 per season and most were lucky to reach the season limit. Getting back to the original post, I always liked to keep dogs and still do, That will hunt alone or pack with honest dogs. If you have thin coon, a deep, independent dog will kill you if you want to have a good time with your hunting buddies, if you have any. I often wondered myself how one can judge a coon dog if it won't hunt with another hound. For instance, if you have one that trees coon that is a loner and one that does the same except it will hunt alone or with other dogs. The one that will pack will give a pretty good idea what you're leading compared to what you are hunting it against but the dead loner just trees a coon, so, what are you left with?? A coon dog that operates well in any instance and one that just trees coon alone. If you like hunting by yourself all the time with just one dog, that would be fine or if you competition hunt, in thick coon you will win some but how would a dog like this be able to help the breed if the only thing you have to judge it on is itself?
Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged
|