Friday 13th Coon Hunt

My friend Gordie Schroeder and I decided to tempt fate and venture out into the central Florida swamps to tree a raccoon last night. The dogs we chose to accomplish the task were Gordie's NiteCH Bayou Banana, my Bear Pen Horse With No Name (Ole Hoss) and my Pup. No. 4, Bear Pen Tennessee Waltz (Dancer). Each of these are purebred Plott dogs.

The signs looked good as we pulled up to the first drop and saw a real live raccoon at about 12 feet up the side of a live oak from which hangs a deer feeder. We figured the coon had climbed when we pulled up and would provide a hot track for Dancer the pup. Wrong. Nana and Hoss checked the area repeatedly with nary a bark. The coon must have been up all day and was just venturing down when we pulled up. Friday 13th luck.

On our second drop we saw headlights coming down the lane and Tim, the brother of our host on whose land we were hunting asked if we had seen a Walker and a Black and Tan hound that he had not recovered from the day's deer hunt. He had no tracking collars on the dogs and asked that if we saw them would we please catch them and call. Of course we would.

We cut the hounds a total of four times. I believe it was after the second or third drop that we returned to the truck to find the Walker dog there. What we saw was very disturbing. The dog had somehow snagged his penis on a barbwire fence or some such and was bleeding pretty badly. I immediately called Tim who said it would be there right away and he was. I had placed pressure on the area with a wad of paper towels and Tim had some vet wrap to keep the pressure on to stop further breeding. Tim said this was his best deer dog and he was sure hopeful the dog would make it. We were too. Friday 13th luck.

We made four trees. Two were legitimate dens. Many of the cypress trees in the south are hollow. One was obviously devoid of a coon and one was a thick cypress that could have certainly hidden a coon but no coon was seen. Friday 13th luck.

We did get home with all the dogs, something that would repeatedly invoke my dad to say, "We had a good hunt. We got home with all the dogs."

Dancer, the Plott pup sired by Ole Hoss is progressing right along at the rate I like. She is hunting with the dogs and making the trees. Her interest level seems to kick up a notch or two with each trip, just as her daddy did at this age. She's never seen a caged coon and I don't plan to show her one until I can cut it loose for her to run. So far we haven't had anything hot enough for her to run but she's very tree minded as this photo shows. She gets excited around the trees but hasn't tree barked yet. Her brother is up in South Carolina with a trainer so I can concentrate on her. We have to hurry down here because before we know it, the temperature will be unbearable and everything imaginable will be trying to eat us and our dogs.

Although we didn't knock a coon out to the dogs, they hunted well, finished the tracks they started and we headed home with all the dogs in the box. I guess we beat Friday 13th luck after all.

Note: Gordie's Nana preferred to climb into the fork of this hollow den. Dancer really got a nose full of scent and can be seen licking the tree.