It was the first weekend in February 1967 when I went on my first coon hunt with hounds .
Our high school basketball season had just ended , and our new basketball coach asked if any of us were hunters , and 3 of us ( players and athletes from other sports ) immediately answered yes . Well , Coach Harry L. asked if we would like to go on a coon hunt with him , a friend of his , and their dogs . Of course we replied yes , and Harry said that we would be "sacking" coons , to which we had no idea that he was talking about catching them alive . He said to be sure to bring a gun , just in case he and his friend might call-in a varmint . So we departed the school parking lot on Friday evening after baseball practice , Coach and his friend Lonnie in Harry's pickup with his dog kennels , and the 3 of us ( all 16 years old ) in my Dad's pickup following behind . We had driven 60 miles , finally leaving the highway onto a dirt road when Harry stopped his truck , turned of his lights and engine , and jumped out telling me to shut-off the engine and lights , and get our .22's out , and be quiet . He pulled a predator call out of his pocket , and gave a few squeals , and then flipped on the headlamp on his hard-hat , turned his head until he illuminated a Kit Fox coming to the call . I waited until he gave me a signal , and then I shot the fox , my 1st and ONLY Fox that I have ever bagged .
What a way to begin a hunt ! From there , the night of hunting only got better .
We got back into the vehicles and drove less than 1/2 mile and then turned through a gate into the property that we were going to hunt coons .
Coach Harry and Lonnie told us to leave the rifles in the truck and get our flashlights , as they donned their hard-hat helmets with headlamps , pulled out 6 dogs and put them on leashes , handed out 6 empty burlap feed sacks to the three of us , and then said that if I had a .22 pistol , to be sure and bring it also , and then he said " Try to keep up with us " .
They unleashed the dogs , and all 6 dogs moved out in different directions , noses to the ground , trying to pick up scent . In less than a minute , Harry's best dog , Tough , began running and baying , with 5 other dogs , Harry and Lonnie , and 3 boys in hot pursuit . It did not take long before the 3 of us learned why they wore helmets , when we ran under unseen low-hanging tree limbs , nearly knocking our heads off . In just a few minutes the dogs had treed the first coon of the night . We were mesmerized , watching the dogs standing with front paws on the tree , wildly barking and baying at the coon , and I asked the coach if he wanted me to shoot the coon out of the tree-top . His reply was that we were going to catch the raccoons alive , and that was the reason that we were carrying the bags .
Coach Harry then began making a squalling noise with his mouth that sounded like coons fighting , and that raccoon in the tree began squalling back , then ran to the end of the limb and jumped-off . When the coon hit the ground , Harry was on him faster than the dogs , and grabbed it by the tail and began swinging it around like a windmill . Lonnie grabbed a bag from us and held it open and Harry threw the coon into the bag , which Lonnie then twisted and tied the open end closed . We had our 1st coon of the night !!!
We 3 boys were ecstatic and dumbfounded at the same time , as we had never seen or participated in anything like this , but we were hooked !
By the end of the night , we had caught and sacked 8 live raccoons . The coach had squalled all of them out of the treetops . I asked if the pistol was to be used if he could not "talk" them down , and he said no shooting raccoons , that the pistol was for other critters that might cross our path . Harry said that if he could not squall one out of the tree , then his friend Lonnie would climb the tree and toss the coon out . We did not get to experience the tree climbing and coon-tossing event that night , that occurred in other hunts that we accompanied them at later dates .
The .22 pistol did get called to duty about halfway through our night of coon hunting when a large skunk happened to cross our path during one of our dog following runs . Harry told me to shoot the skunk "In the head" to which I missed the head and hit the body , which did not kill the skunk . The skunk tumbled , got back on his feet and just before he raised his tail to spray , Harry ran over and kicked the skunk in the butt , sending it about 15 feet ahead of us with Harry in hot pursuit . Each time that the skunk would get back on it's feet , Harry would boot it in the butt again before it could raise the tail to spray . On the 5th kick to the skunk's butt , this time Harry kicked it too far , the tail came up , and the spraying began . Coach Harry dodged behind a tree and said "Alright boys , get some sticks and beat it to death . No shooting , we are too close to the dogs ."
We finished the night of hunting and drove home on Saturday morning , very much inundated with the smell of the great outdoors .
On Monday morning at school we were still sporting the "Essence of Skunk after-shave fragrance".
But boy , did we have a story to tell .
