cmbluetick www.coonhunterssupply.com
When I started coon hunting at age 6 years old the only person in my part of Pennsylvania that hunted was Sig Bregison. Sig was a very old man with a bad heart. My folks let me hunt with him because the old man liked to hunt our corn fields and help control the coon population. Dad went to work at 5 a.m. And needed his sleep. Sig`s wife did not want old Sig. to hunt alone so I was sent along to hunt with him. I handled the dogs and helped spot the coon when the dogs treed him.
Sig had a couple of true coon hounds of good breeding. As Sig. would say their tother was a great coon hound and the father was from a good neighbor hood. Both hounds looked like the English hounds of today. The female had a kind of blueticking and the male had some blue and redticking. They hunted as a real team and we never left the corn fields with out a coon or two.
When I was 8 Years I got my first hound from an add in Outdoor Life Magazine from a man in Mississippi. I paid for the hound with the money I earned mowing some lawns around the area. She was a Bluetick and registration papers from some of the great dogs of the day. I Paid $35.00 for her and $35.00 for the shipping by train.
She would arrive on a day my dad worked so he said he would pick us up at the train station when he got off work. When the big day arrived I was at the train station long before the train and had to wait for it. I waited until the Station Master unloaded her and took her out of the crate. She was the best looking hound I had ever seem and the note on the crate said her name was Blue Bell 1.
Of course I could not wait for dad. It only about three miles to my home and I just wanted to walk those three miles with my new hound. I kept her on a lead for part of the way, but after a while I turned her loose to run with me. At a small swamp near the local Golf Course Bell Opened up on trail. I held my breath, because we had deer every where in the area. Bell ran with a full bawl for about 100 yards and opened into a full chop. She had stopped and just made the woods ring with that chop.
I rushed to her and found her treeing on a small Red Oak Tree. The coon was only eight or ten feet from the ground, that is as high the small tree could be climbed. I never had a coon tree in broad daylight before, but there he sat looking down at Blue And Me. My new hound just treed our first coon. I was sure she was the greatest hound in the world and she was all mine.
I ran the rest of the way home. I told my Mom, called Sig at work, and waited for dad to get home. Bell had more food and water than any dog could ever eat. Bell got at least 2 baths and I started a dog house just for her.
At that time Sig. and I had the only coon hounds in about 3 counties. The farmers loved us and they would call to get us to hunt their farms. We did help control the coon damage in their corn fields.
As time went on more and more farmers got their own coon hounds and you could find hunters every night around the area. We had folks come from Ohio, New York, and other states. We and others formed coon hunting clubs and held competition hunts almost every week end.
After a few years the sport slowed down. People thought anyone who hunted after dark were poaching Deer. The Fish and Game people followed us every where tying to charge the Coon Hunter with anything they could thing of, the price of hides bottomed out. The younger folks just were not interested in coon hunting. The sport of Coon Hunting went down in popularity.
Then out of no where the younger folks found the sport. They took there wives and kids with them. They worked hard to train great dogs. These folks started new Coon Hunting Clubs. Revived the old clubs, Started more competition hunts. The families are a big part of coon hunting today.
As an old coon hunter I am thrilled to see the sport in vogue again. Look on the internet there are more Coon Hunting sites, E-stores, Good Information, and some Bad Information sites than you can count. Coon Hunting today most often does not include a kill. We are just thrilled to see a good hound tree a coon and leave him for the next time.
Coon Hunting is a family sport. Our young coon hunters don`t do drugs, get better grades, complete more schooling, work harder and are able to solve problems better than any other sport.
Have fun cmbluetick http://www.coonhunterssupply.com/
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