Like most of you I have worked my entire adult life. That makes my time in the woods very limited. I have hunted every year, some years more than others. During my early hunting career it was dependent on my dads schedule. Since he was a truck driver and was gone a lot my Grandad would take me some. He lived in Forsyth county and we lived in Clayton county so the distance kept us from going hunting a lot.
I really got into hunting and learning about hunting when Paul came into my life. Paul was a man that my Mom was dating and he would take me hunting every chance we had. During that time in my life he was the male role model in my life. He taught me the delicate balance between hunting and just being in the woods. Hunting is a skill that comes naturally to some and is learned by years of mentoring and practice. No one way is the correct way to learn these skills, however there are some skills that need to be in the beginning of your hunting life. Paul taught me that the most important skill in his eyes was not leaving a heavy footprint in the woods. His main point was walk lightly, leave no trace, try to make it like you were never there. This was important one, to be good land stewards and two, you don’t spook the game using the area. Walking quietly in the woods, picking your steps and taking you time were monumental in developing the skills needed to be a good hunter. Paul also taught me the importance of scouting for sign and what to look for and where. Find the sign quickly and leave little trace you were there. He was important in my young hunting life because he took the time to teach me and answer my questions. Mostly we hunted deer, his brother Johnny had some coon dogs and we would hunt coons when deer season was not in. I instantly fell in love with coon hunting.
The first time I went coon hunting was a very cold night, I recall the temperature was below 20 degrees. My mom told me later that she thought that this hunting trip would either make me love the sport or make me hate it. At this time I had some rubber boots that came up my shins about half way, and tied at the top with laces. We left the house and went to Johnny’s house in Coweta county. About 9pm, after we would have some dinner, we would load up the dogs in the truck. The dogs were Ole Blue, he was a Bluetick and he had a deep voice. His sidekick and probably one of the best cold trailing dogs around was Dynamite. She was a Treeing Walker, and her name was a reflection of her personality. She was small but she did not lack any grit. The two of them together were a winning combination. Now Ole blue was the toughest dog I had ever seen. It did not matter to him if he had any help or not and he would jump on a big ole coon anytime anywhere. So we get to the drop spot and let the tailgate down and Blue and Dynamite go to work cold trailing around trying to pick up the scent of a good track. It wasn’t long and Dynamite picked up a good trail and down trough the woods they went. For those of you that have never heard a chase it is something to experience.
For a nine year old boy this was awesome. I was running around in the woods in the middle of the night with an old Wheatlight that Johnny gave me to wear listening for the dogs to tree. We listened and they treed way off down in the swamp. Johnny and Paul thought they knew where they were, so we jumped in the truck and drove around to the other side to get closer to them. When we got there we got out of the truck and grabbed the dog leads and Paul’s old .410 over and under shotgun out of the truck. We listened for a minute to make sure we knew where they were, then struck off to find them.
We were in the swamps around Bear Creek so we were walking in water most of the time. It was only ankle deep for the most part. We walked a few hundred yards into the swamp and we stopped to listen. As we stopped, Johnny hollered to the dogs to keep them treeing . WOOOOOOO, HUNT EM UP, COME ON NOW , GET EM BLUE, SPEAK TO EM DYNA. To Quote Jerry Clower, “AWWW it was Beautiful”. By this time I am fired up, I am thinking to myself, this is the coolest thing ever! We start off down the branch and get to where two branches had come together. We call small creeks “branches” around these parts. The area that we were in was a flat that was about 20 or 30 feet wide and emptied into Bear Creek. In the middle of the Flat was an Oak tree that was normally on dry ground, but it was in about 10 or 12 inches of water now because of the rain we had. The dogs were treed in the big oak tree on this flat. We are wading in water that was up to the bottom hole on my boot laces. We hollered to the dogs to reinforce that they had done a good job, as we were shining our lights up in the tree to try to find the coon. As we are looking the dogs are barking up the tree, and we are shining trying to find the coon. Finally we spotted it way up in the top of the tree. Paul handed me the .410 and said shoot the limb right under him lets try to make him come down the tree some. I took the gun, loaded a shell in it. This over and under shotgun was one Paul has had since he was my age. Johnny and Paul were shining there lights on the coon, I took aim at the limb under the coon, BOOM! The gun went off and the dogs went crazy. They were running around under the tree and barking and whining wanting to get the coon. The coon ran down the limb he was on and started down the tree on the back side. I opened the breech on the gun and the shell popped out, I jammed another one in the chamber and closed the breech. That coon ran down the back of the tree until he was about 15 feet off the ground and ran out on a limb. The dogs can see the coon at this point and they are losing there minds. Johnny said when you get around here where you can see him bust him with that shotgun. Before I could move around to see the coon, it leapt from the limb it was on and was trying to make it to the next tree and missed. It hit the water like a rock, about the time the coon made dry land Ole Blue was on him and the fight was on. They were all over each other. That night I learned how tough a coon is. They fought for at least 10 minutes. That coon had Blue by the side of his face and his ear and was not letting up. I had all but for gotten how cold it was with all of this excitement. Finally the coon could not fight any more and Blue was bleeding from his ear and the side of his face. Blue was wagging his tail the entire time. I was hooked on Coon hunting from that point on.
By this time it was coming up on 2 or 3 in the morning, once the excitement died down the cold night came creeping back in. It was a cold one too. By the time we hiked back to the truck and loaded the dogs up it was 4 am and we were freezing, I could not feel my toes anymore and my nose was running off my face. We pulled up to the house about 430 am and got the dogs to the kennel and got us in the house. I went to take my boots off and the shoe laces where I had been standing in that water so long were frozen in the position they would have been floating on the water. Johnny stoked the fireplace up and we sat there and warmed up for a little bit. We all had a bowl of cereal and called it a night as the sun was coming up. We slept a few hours and were up and going again. Down the road was a family that Johnny knew was struggling, we took the coon and a couple deer roasts down to them the next day. I didn’t realize it at the time but those roasts and that coon was a blessing to that family. When we got home and my Mom asked how it went, I started telling her the story, She said I will never get you out of the woods now. She was right!
I haven’t coon hunted since My grandad got rid of his coon dogs. I miss the chase and even considered getting my own dogs but life and work happens. Maybe one day I will live in a place where I can have some coon dogs and I will get to be 9 years old again.
Comments
Best thing ol Paul ever did.