If you care to hear another story about my jaded youth, here goes...
As I've said in previous posts, I loved to spend summers on the farm, there are certain activities on the farm that can be very fun. One of these activities was coon hunting. Typically this would happen on Friday or Saturday nights. You would have to wait until "pure" dark before even thinking about headin out.
Now, for you people that have never been coon hunting, or know little about coon dogs, it is a very rich tradition in the south, and it can also be a very rich hobby to your wallet. A well bread black & tan coon dog can go for upwards of 2 or 3 thousand dollars. Not all but a lot of pickups you see in Georgia have dog boxes in the back, these are generally used to transport your hounds. Coon dogs don't really make good pets, don't ask me why, but they seem to do better outside with a pack than laying curled by your chair inside. There are all kinds of ways to train these dogs to hate coons, and I wont go into them, but needless to say its not always an enjoyable experience for the coons themselves.
One night we took off hunting, there were 3 or 4 trucks loaded with dogs, hunters, rifles, beer & beachnut (tobacco) and everybody was in the mood for fun. One spot isn't really any better than another to hunt, because coons are pretty much everywhere done here, proof being roadkill every mile or so along the highways. What your basically looking for in a hunting area is seclusion to be as loud as you want and not disturb anyone as to get the law called after you. However, in our case, it didn't really matter because the sheriff was with us, and I swear to god he gave all of my cousins "posse" badges. What you worried about was the gamewarden. When you arrive at your desired location the proper method to begin the hunt consists of hollering as loud as you can to get the dogs riled up, release them, watch the run off & open a beer. Now, if I had to be a hunter, this would be one of the methods I would prefer the most. A expert coon hunter knows his dogs well and can tell exactly when their barking changes from running around in the woods raising hell, to treeing a coon and going crazy trying to climb the tree itself.
At this point its no longer fun, you grap your gun and strat trudging through the woods. At midnight it really isn't all that fun, and trust me, deep in the Georgia woods, there are plenty of things besides coons in the woods. The worst part is stepping in springs, wading through streams, and getting slpped in the face by branches. The company and excitement somewhat numbs the soreness of your cold feet and red welps on your face. At some point, right when your mood starts to take a noise dive, you finally reach the dogs. By some means, and I don't know how, they follow the coon from tree to tree as he is trying to escape the pack. Coon hunters not only invest a lot of money on their dogs, but own some of the most powerful flashlights you would ever need to land a 747. These things can illuminate the tree well enough to knock a coon out of it with a .22 rifle.
The trick after that is getting the coon when he falls before the dogs do. Every once in a while you let them fight the coon a bit to further increase their hate for the damn things, but some coons can really tear up a hounds face pretty good. Also, if you let the dogs go at it too long a theory is that they will grow tired of chasing them and not want them as badly, I don't really know. A lot of farms around the south sport coon skinds hanging to dry, tacked to the side of the buildings. Farm hands are given the meat, and most if not all like it.
On one particular hunt, my brother and I were in the back of one of the trucks and the driver spotted a possum running across the peanut field we were crossing. Of course the thing to do was try and run over it, only natural right? Not only did he manage to hit the damn thing, he actually stopped, and threw it in the back of the truck with us. Off we go again, and I hear this hissing, what sounds like a huge snake in the back of the truck with us, I turn on my flashlight and I see this possum backed into the corner with his mouth open showing very sharp teeth, looking like his plans including those sharp teeth and my leg. I almost put a sunroof in that truck beating on the roof, and everyone got a kick out of me and the possum that was playing possum...
