So, tell me a coon hunting story..

HideHunter

New member
I know some of you guys are getting after them. We've been really warm here I have decidedly better luck when it's cold. But, been going some - haven't had any big days but killing some 2s and 3s. Fox came in to check on the "distressed baby coon" this morning. I hadn't shot one for years but they've made a decided comeback here the past several seasons. And, I had a request for one. Mission accomplished.
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Quite a few years ago I was hunting coons with my brother and a friend Louie. We were hunting with my brother's dog, who was a cross between a lab and Springer Spaniel named Buddy. Buddy would go track a coon to a tree, then come get us and sit under the tree looking up. ONe time he treed a gray fox in an apple tree. He never barked. So we were standing under the tree, but couldn't see the coon good, and Louie and I decided to climb up the tree. Louie had some .22 revolver that was older than the hills. We got around ten feet below the coon and Louie started shooting. The cylinder was wobbly, so lead was splaying and hitting me in the face. After a few shots Louie hit the coon, then the coon hit him on the way to the ground.

Another time we were hunting coon and had shot quite a few and hung them in trees. We planned on getting them on the way out. All of a sudden Buddy ran back between us snarling, with the hair standing up on his neck. Buddy wasn't usually scared of anything. Then there was a loud snarl in the woods above us. In those days we didn't have much for lights, and the one we had was almost dead. And we were carrying an old single shot .22 rifle. Whatever that was it stayed a little ways away from us a good way off the hill. I think it might have snarled once or twice more. We pretty much backed off the hill and forgot about the coons hanging in the trees. We always thought it was a mountain lion, even though there aren't supposed to be any around here according to my friends at the DEC. But I don't think a bobcat would have ever done that.
 
Hidehunter...we went out today calling for the first time this season. Made some coyote sets in the morning and then worked our way back home and made 3 sets for coon. I shot a big boar on the first set and that was it for the day.

Still haven't hit some of our better spots yet. I'm saving them for later in the year. Seems like late December/early January the calling works about twice as well for us. Early like this we seem to get way more peekers than we do chargers.

I'm pondering buying a decoy to add to the mix. Wondering if it might draw a few more of the peek-a-boo coon out onto the limbs for a shot.
 
Centurion..
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I think everyone who has hunted dogs at night has had one come in all hackled up and get under your feet.
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Makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. I always figured it was "ghosts".
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Ducks.. I'm kind of doing the same thing and largely for the same reasons. Mostly been scouting new territory. I'm about tired of this hot weather. Man just as well live in Florida or some other gawdforsaken place.
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Way back when I was just a pup, on my first hunt, I had a little lever action .22lr. I was walkin round a lake and I see this coon just walkin on bye. Being a begginer, I was not a great shot at this time. I hit him high in the back, be he did not seem to care! I shot him again behind the shoulder and he just hissed at me, then kept on walkin. Well, I got to about 25 yards to put one in his head,when it ran at me. Had to shoot it twice more in the head to before it went down. Was this coon on steroids? (You did ask for a coon hunting story!)
 
AW.. Coons can be amazingly tough. I shot one right through the boiler works with a .22 mag HP last year. He jumped out of the tree and ran off. I have followed arrow shot deer that didn't leave as good a trail as he did. He went a hundred yards and went to ground. I had to crawl in to my waist and shoot the danged thing again.
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Ducks, I just noticed again your mention of a decoy. I've been using a MOJO since the start and they definitely will key on it. I try to get it where they can have to come out to get a good look at it. I definitely think it helps at least part of the time.

Took a heck of a walk yesterday looking at new dirt. We got 4 and saw a couple more. It's still too warm here.

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Jeanne and I spent hundreds of dollars and many weekends trying to proof our orchard trees, coons had broken peach limbs heavy with fruit and it was pissin me off.

So we ended up with the orchard having horse fence topped with backwards barbed wire, and chicken wire around the base. Still broken branches.

I stepped out on the deck at 1:00am and turned on a spot light to see what looked like a frigging coon revival meeting, there were at least 30 coons inside the fence.

I grabbed an Anschutz .17hmr that had an 8-32x Elite 4200 on it and went back out on the deck, rested the rifle on the railing and turned the light back on. Cross hairs right between the eyes when they are lookin right at you makes a horrible mess. I have never seen a coon do as much flopping around as that one did, all the time flinging blood everywhere.

Jeanne asked me in the morning what I had killed, said it looked like a mass murder site with solid blood over a 15 foot area.

But you know what? It kept other coons away for two weeks.
 
Hello all,

This is my first year hunting coon. I built a MP3 caller for coyote and reloaded it with coon sounds. Haven't been as successful as many of the other members but learn something new every time out.

I was out the other night and turned the caller on and after about 30 seconds I could hear movement in the woods. I thought maybe it was a coyote coming full bore. After another 20 seconds I could hear a coon growling at the caller. I headed towards him and waited. Turned the light on and there he was in the tree. I was able to harvest this coon. He had to weigh around 25 lbs. This is my second coon. I am now addicted.

Thanks to all the members of this site who contribute as it is a great help.
 
Originally Posted By: HideHunterAW.. Coons can be amazingly tough. I shot one right through the boiler works with a .22 mag HP last year. He jumped out of the tree and ran off. I have followed arrow shot deer that didn't leave as good a trail as he did. He went a hundred yards and went to ground. I had to crawl in to my waist and shoot the danged thing again.
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Ducks, I just noticed again your mention of a decoy. I've been using a MOJO since the start and they definitely will key on it. I try to get it where they can have to come out to get a good look at it. I definitely think it helps at least part of the time.

Took a heck of a walk yesterday looking at new dirt. We got 4 and saw a couple more. It's still too warm here.

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That sure is a beautiful skin on the one with the stripe, I'd love to have a coonskin cap out of an extraordinarily nice looking one. There's a guy that lives in this area that has one of the prettiest caps you'd ever want to see.
 
From the time I saw this topic, "tell me a coon story" one of the heaviest stories I've ever heard comes to mind.

So here goes

When I was in eighth grade I had a friend that lived in the hills and had the whole 20 mile stretch of hills outside of Vacaville we could hunt from his house. He had a pack of very nice Black and Tans.

So my parents finally started letting me hunt with him, we'd go out at about midnite and hunt sometimes until sunup, go back to the house and sleep until breakfast time. It was one of the funnest summers in my life.

I was so into the coon and bobcat hunting that I didn't even want to go with my family camping, didn't want to miss out on any hunts. My parents made me go though.

So we get back and I call Bill to see what I'd missed, he was very subdued and told me I didn't miss anything I wanted any part of, he'd taken Ray P... who was sort of a low life that we didn't really like very much, and Ray accidentally got shot. Bill was saying he couldn't really talk about it as it was under a serious degree of pressure as to what happened. Ray took a shotgun blast from within a few feet that took out his half his jaw on one side and part of his neck, lived though.

The official story that Bill always stuck to never sounded right, that they were crossing a fence and Bill's shotgun went off. We were religious about putting our guns down when crossing. The closest Bill would ever come to acknowledging my position that something else happened was to say that whatever happened it was between Ray and him and that was the end of it.

Except for the fact that I was never allowed to go hunting again with them. Brought it a bit too close to home for my parents.
 
Thanks guru.. our fur is finally starting to get truely prime. I had one yesterday - really black and just "glistened". It would make a pretty hat.
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Even the small coon look good.

Unfortunately, "Ma Nature" is doing her thing here. We were absolutely *polluted* with coon for a couple/three years. Looks like distemper went through them. Everything we are taking are L to XXXXL or smalls. She can be a harsh mistress. Animal rights folks who tout "the balance of nature" should take a good look at the carcasses. Ain't pretty.
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Years ago my Brother inlaw and I would coon hunt together just about every night. Dogs had a coon up a tree next to a corn field descent coon 20-25 lbs. Any way Dennis takes the shot that coon dropped like a ton of bricks didn`t hit the ground and went flying back up into the tree. WE both stood there dumfounded until we realized he landed on the fence just right, the fence threw him back up into the tree where he got hung up, we never did get that coon down.

I do miss those days of running dogs.....everytime yea dropped the tailgate something would happen right or wrong.
 
My daughter started coon hunting with me when she was probably around 4 yrs old. At first was just a quick walk around a small cornfield or bluffed creek bottom , kept getting longer and longer the older she got. Rode behind me on our mule some but was warmer to walk . We usually had one good hound , a mixed breed cur kill dog and about half a dozen rat terriers running around. When we would stop for a break the would all line up in front of her cause she had the treats. I wished I had video of some of our hunts , she would climb into a crack in the bluff shot them with a pistol and pull them out by the tail till the dogs could get them.Hung her over a bluff with a dog leash with a stick in her hand to flip a coon off a cedar tree it got caught in after we shot it out .When we got one treed she would rummage around find a stick and go stand under the tree and thump them after I shot them out, if a dog got hit she would tell him she was sorry and love up on it. We still tell stories about hunts when we are riding horses/mules and go by a place that a good tree or fight took place.
I could put a picture of us and our mule,dogs and a weeks worth of hides up if someone could tell me how to do it.
 
lol... Great stuff Windy. Sounds a *bunch* like some of my childhood friends. I'd love to see those pics.

I store everything on Photobucket or Flicker. I'm *not* a techie so maybe someone will help us out here with a good explanation.
 
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