Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Rieves
Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share
Speaker 1: my stories and the country skills that will help you
Speaker 1: beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as
Speaker 1: part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best
Speaker 1: outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I
Speaker 1: think I got a thing or two and teach you
Speaker 1: My journey is a Coon Hunter Part one. It was
Speaker 1: a children's story published in nineteen sixty one that smoldered
Speaker 1: old bookshelves with moderate sales until nineteen seventy four. That's
Speaker 1: when they made a movie telling the story of a
Speaker 1: grown man's perspective and memory of coonhound in his life
Speaker 1: with him as a child. I saw the movie Where
Speaker 1: the Red Fern Grows when I was eight, and before
Speaker 1: the movie ended, I knew I was a coon hunter.
Speaker 1: And just like Billy Coleman starting out in the story,
Speaker 1: I didn't have a dog. It would be a few
Speaker 1: years before I got one. And let me tell you
Speaker 1: what I did. I never looked back. We're talking about
Speaker 1: all things coon hunting. From what I looked for and
Speaker 1: picking out a puppy to getting them to treat. It's
Speaker 1: a coon hunting Juwilee. This week on This Country Life podcast,
Speaker 1: the first I'm going to tell you a story. This
Speaker 1: story I'm about to tell you could have come straight
Speaker 1: out of where the red fern grows. The only difference
Speaker 1: is this one is true. And while Billy Coleba was
Speaker 1: desired to have a coon dog was fictional, it was
Speaker 1: very real in the heart of my father and would
Speaker 1: eventually be passed down to me. This is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite stories of all time, and it's the one
Speaker 1: where my dad and his friend Raymond stole a coon dog.
Speaker 1: Nobody Barney lived less than a half a mile from
Speaker 1: the house where my dad grew up. He had been
Speaker 1: his neighbor since the moment my dad first saw the
Speaker 1: light of day on April sixteenth, nineteen thirty seven, in
Speaker 1: that very same house. This would have been in the
Speaker 1: late forties, when my dad was ten or twelve years old.
Speaker 1: Nobody had a good dog, a really good dog, and
Speaker 1: one that he guarded like it was a child. During
Speaker 1: this time, coon hides were bringing top dollar and having
Speaker 1: a good coonown was just like having a second income,
Speaker 1: and most of the time it paid more than being
Speaker 1: a hand at the saw meal. Dad and Raymond would
Speaker 1: go hunting with him, and like anyone I've ever taken
Speaker 1: with me that liked it, they liked it a lot.
Speaker 1: And anytime Nobody was leaving the house to go there,
Speaker 1: there stood Dad and Raymond on the porch waiting to
Speaker 1: go with him. Thirty plus years later, and at about
Speaker 1: the same age as my dad in this story, Miss
Speaker 1: Alay Barnett, Nobody's sister, lived there with him, and she'd
Speaker 1: fixed me cookies and a glass of sweet milk anytime
Speaker 1: I just happened to be walking by and ambled up
Speaker 1: in their yard, which was just about any time I
Speaker 1: could smell her bacon cookies. I'd sat on the same
Speaker 1: porch by Dad and Raymond waited on me, eating cookies
Speaker 1: and listening to nobody in Miss Ali tell me how
Speaker 1: much I looked like my dad and walked like my grandpa,
Speaker 1: except there was no coon hunt afterwards, just a heart
Speaker 1: full of old stories and a belly full of warm
Speaker 1: cookies and coal milk. They were good folks, They were
Speaker 1: real good folks. Nobody's dog was a tree and walker,
Speaker 1: and his name was Tiger, and as far as my
Speaker 1: dad knew, he was the best coon dog in the country,
Speaker 1: and not having many dogs to compare him to may
Speaker 1: have elevated his status to a kid. But he said
Speaker 1: if they went hunting, they nearly always brought coons home.
Speaker 1: Now that's the solid of a testimony for a coon
Speaker 1: hound that you can get. There was only one problem.
Speaker 1: Nobody had a job and could only go hunting on
Speaker 1: the weekends, which really wasn't a problem until school was
Speaker 1: let out for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Dad and Raymond's hunting
Speaker 1: had been limited to weekends only, just like nobody's. But
Speaker 1: now that school was out Friday night and Saturday night,
Speaker 1: that wasn't nearly enough time for two aspiring young houndsmen
Speaker 1: to get their fix on hunting, and no amount of
Speaker 1: begging to persuade Nobody to sacrifice a good night's rest
Speaker 1: when he had to be at work so early in
Speaker 1: the morning. Now, Dad said it was absolute torture to
Speaker 1: walk by and see Tiger tied out by his doghouse,
Speaker 1: knowing they weren't going to be able to go hunt
Speaker 1: that night. This is when the innocence of my father's
Speaker 1: youth took a dark turn. Dad said he he told
Speaker 1: his friend, well, if he won't take us hunting, we'll
Speaker 1: just take his dog. The plan was formulated when nobody
Speaker 1: went to bed, Dad and Raymond would slip up to
Speaker 1: the edge of the yard, remove Tiger's collar and fashion
Speaker 1: it back like he pulled lookes from him, and then
Speaker 1: they'd go up. The first night they did it, Dad said,
Speaker 1: they slipped up to the woods at the edge of
Speaker 1: the yard and waited for the lights to go out.
Speaker 1: When they did, they waited for a little bit, and
Speaker 1: he left Raymond to watch the house, and Belly crawled
Speaker 1: across that yard like he was sneaking up on the
Speaker 1: enemy bunk, hoping old Tiger didn't start barking, all the
Speaker 1: while watching the house for any signs of movement. He
Speaker 1: made it up to Tiger, who'd been watching him the
Speaker 1: whole time, wagging his tail. Dad took his collar off,
Speaker 1: fastened it back, and they led him a long way
Speaker 1: from the house with the lead rope he'd made from
Speaker 1: some haystring. He got out of the bum, and once
Speaker 1: they were far enough away they figured nobody couldn't hear
Speaker 1: Tiger barking. They cut him loose and the hunt was on.
Speaker 1: They treated a coon or two and as happy as
Speaker 1: they could be. They're planning to workship perfection. They'd gotten
Speaker 1: away with it, and when they were done, they walked
Speaker 1: Tiger back to within side of the house and let
Speaker 1: him go, knowing full well that he'd go back home,
Speaker 1: and he did. They hid their coons up in the
Speaker 1: barn that night and skin them later the next day,
Speaker 1: after nobody and everybody else had gone to work up
Speaker 1: in the day. They walked by and checking, sure enough,
Speaker 1: they're laid Tiger back on the chain, sleeping the day
Speaker 1: away mission accomplished. That was easy, so easy that they
Speaker 1: decided to do it again. They did this several nights
Speaker 1: over the winter school break, each taking turns doing the
Speaker 1: belly crawling while the other one was the lookout. Dad
Speaker 1: said they did it so much the tiger would be
Speaker 1: sitting outside his doghouse looking for him to slip into
Speaker 1: their hiding spot, waiting on him to go hunting. They
Speaker 1: did it. It was the same hide out till dark,
Speaker 1: crawl across the yard, hitched Tiger up to the homemade
Speaker 1: lead rope and fix his collar back exactly as it
Speaker 1: had been leaving nobody eating. No other answer for him
Speaker 1: to being off the chain other than he pulled out
Speaker 1: of it on his own. Now, Tiger always went home.
Speaker 1: It was the perfect victimless crime and one that they
Speaker 1: had no intention of stopping. One school started back, he said,
Speaker 1: if they could borrow a man's prize coon now without
Speaker 1: him knowing about it, and then they could surely slip
Speaker 1: out of the house and go hunting, because not only
Speaker 1: were they hiding their actions from Nobdee, but the Reeves
Speaker 1: family too. My great grandpa would not have approved of
Speaker 1: him borrowed someone's dog, especially one is valuable as that one.
Speaker 1: Folks didn't have a lot of pets back then, and
Speaker 1: you can bet if they were feeding a dog, he
Speaker 1: was serving a purpose, and one that could put food
Speaker 1: on the table and money in your pocket was more
Speaker 1: valuable than any. Dad told me he didn't know how
Speaker 1: many times they pulled that off, but it was a lot,
Speaker 1: he said. It all came to a screeching hault one
Speaker 1: night when it was Raymond's turn to fetch Tiger. He said,
Speaker 1: Tiger wasn't setting up waiting for him like he normally was,
Speaker 1: and they could see him under the night light, still
Speaker 1: in his house. They guessed him to still be sleeping,
Speaker 1: and deservedly so, after all, he had been hunting quite
Speaker 1: a lot during the weekends, not to mention all the
Speaker 1: times Dad and Raymond had him out during the week
Speaker 1: Dad said it was Raymond's turn to get Tiger, and
Speaker 1: he washed him crawl off toward the doghouse, ready to
Speaker 1: hit the woods and tree some coons. Then Raymond came
Speaker 1: crawling back and said, Buddy, something wrong with Tiger. It's breathing. Funny.
Speaker 1: Dad told there ain't nothing wrong with that dog. We
Speaker 1: hunt him every night this week, including last night. Was
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with him then, And when we checked on
Speaker 1: him this afternoon, I bet he's just sleeping in his house.
Speaker 1: I'll go get him, And off he went, crawling across
Speaker 1: the yard like an aggravated Gi Joe. To find that.
Speaker 1: Raymond was right, he said. He stopped right before he
Speaker 1: got to the doghouse and listen, and he can hear
Speaker 1: him in there breathing, kind of laboring to do it.
Speaker 1: He said it It sounded to kind of like he
Speaker 1: was snoring in and out. That's he didn't know what
Speaker 1: it was, but he whispered, come on, Tiger. Tiger got
Speaker 1: up walked out of the doghouse. He said. He reached
Speaker 1: up to grab his collar, and he said it was
Speaker 1: so tight that he could barely get a finger under
Speaker 1: it to take it home. Nobody had apparently grown tired
Speaker 1: of time. Nobody had apparently grown tired of Tiger slipping
Speaker 1: out of his collar and had been slowly tightening it
Speaker 1: up every morning when he'd leave for work, he'd come
Speaker 1: home and there was Tiger on the chamberside his doghouse.
Speaker 1: He'd go to bed and wake up only discover his
Speaker 1: prize coon dog was loose once again the next morning
Speaker 1: from slipping out of his collar. Dad said, if we
Speaker 1: would have took Tiger out one more night, when nobody
Speaker 1: found him loose again the next morning, that he would
Speaker 1: have tightened his collar up so much it would have
Speaker 1: choked him to death. Before nobody got home from work
Speaker 1: that day, Dad loosened his collar and they never barred
Speaker 1: him again. And that's just how that happened. My journey
Speaker 1: as a coon hunter. Coon hunting has always been a
Speaker 1: part of my life since I was a kid. I
Speaker 1: got my first hound when I was fifteen. He was
Speaker 1: a registered tree and walker and I got him from
Speaker 1: mister Lloyd Corker, who on Corker's feed store in Warren, Arkansas.
Speaker 1: He cost me seventy five dollars is an eight week
Speaker 1: old puppy. I had a job working at the local
Speaker 1: sail barn, pushing cows from one end to the other.
Speaker 1: As the sale progressed every Saturday and a little trapline
Speaker 1: money left, but I was still twenty five dollar short.
Speaker 1: Dad told me he loaned to me, and we paid him,
Speaker 1: and mister Corker gave me a bag of feed before
Speaker 1: we left. I named him Tom. Want to know what
Speaker 1: you do with a night week old coonhound? Absolutely nothing
Speaker 1: as far as training the coon dog goes anyway. They're
Speaker 1: too young. The brains are like jello, and some of them, well,
Speaker 1: some of them never grow out of it their infants,
Speaker 1: and they don't know the buds from fifteen since. When
Speaker 1: it comes to anything about what their purpose in life is,
Speaker 1: that's gonna come later. But there's lots of things to
Speaker 1: do before you ever turned that rascal loose in search
Speaker 1: of a coon. Now, this was my approach and the
Speaker 1: methods that I used to train My first one was
Speaker 1: from what my dad taught me later on, and as
Speaker 1: recently as right now. I'd ask my uncle Jim Ray,
Speaker 1: whose favorite dog he had many years ago was a
Speaker 1: tree and walker named Willie Nelson. I thought it kind
Speaker 1: of ironic that now I have one named Whalen. Anyway,
Speaker 1: some of what I learned is from friends like Rex Whiting,
Speaker 1: Michael Roseman. But the best lessons I got was from
Speaker 1: cutting that hound loose in the woods. But only after
Speaker 1: I'd made sure of one thing that he'd mind me. Remember,
Speaker 1: I said, this is how I do it, what works
Speaker 1: for me. I ain't looking to defend this as a
Speaker 1: doctoral thesis. Everybody has an opinion this one. It just
Speaker 1: happens to be mine. Dad told me it does me
Speaker 1: no good to have a dog with no way to
Speaker 1: control him. So from day one he has to learn
Speaker 1: that I am his boss and he's safe with me.
Speaker 1: Wherever I am is always a good place. That's the
Speaker 1: only way that a dog will leave what he's doing
Speaker 1: or is interested in and come to where you are
Speaker 1: is if he recognizes your authority and feel safe and
Speaker 1: secure there. How do I get him to come to me? Well,
Speaker 1: that for me starts when I'm picking him out of
Speaker 1: the litter. You can't tell what a dog was gonna
Speaker 1: make when they're two months old. Old time coon hunters
Speaker 1: wouldn't even start messing with a coon dog until he
Speaker 1: was like a year more older. So here's a few
Speaker 1: cues that I've found to be helpful. I'm looking for
Speaker 1: a puppy that looks at me. Michael Rosevean will tell you,
Speaker 1: and I believe it that a dog that will make
Speaker 1: eye contact with you has some potential to take direction
Speaker 1: he's paying attention. That doesn't mean to tell tree coons
Speaker 1: and not chase deer. It's just a starting point. Dogs
Speaker 1: are like people and that they have personalities. There is
Speaker 1: different as night and day. There's no one size fits all,
Speaker 1: just traits to look for. Genetics are important up to
Speaker 1: a point, and to me, it's just a baseline of
Speaker 1: skills that a dog should inherently possess. Notice I said
Speaker 1: should possess just like Mama, Daddy, Grandma, grandpa, and aunts
Speaker 1: and uncles can do it. It don't mean Junior can
Speaker 1: or any of his litter mates. I've got to teach
Speaker 1: this joker to come to me when I call him,
Speaker 1: and one of the easiest ways is to use food.
Speaker 1: Call the name when you put down some food or
Speaker 1: a treating, praise him when they get there. But that's
Speaker 1: not the way I like to do it. That'll condition
Speaker 1: a dog to look for food every time that they
Speaker 1: come to you, and it won't take many times if
Speaker 1: you forgetting to bring any or running out, and soon
Speaker 1: that dog might say, ah, I hear you calling, but
Speaker 1: you don't ever really have anything to eat. I think
Speaker 1: I'll just stay here. Well, I'd rather have that dog
Speaker 1: come to me from the rapport that we've developed together
Speaker 1: through socialization. I'm the guy that feeds him. I'm the
Speaker 1: guy that waters him. I'm the guy that makes sure
Speaker 1: his dog bed is cleaning, his kennels are washed out,
Speaker 1: and in Whalen's case, I'm the guy that cleans the
Speaker 1: filter in his air conditioned doghouse. I spend time with
Speaker 1: my hound. But Dad always said that a dog that
Speaker 1: gets messed with and hunted will make the best tree dog.
Speaker 1: So I don't look at him as a tool. He's
Speaker 1: not a hammer in his doghouse, ain't a toolbox. I
Speaker 1: don't just pull him out of the kennel every time
Speaker 1: I want him to go a coon. He's a member
Speaker 1: of this family, and he got there by doing what
Speaker 1: I wanted him to do, or he be a member
Speaker 1: of somebody else's family. I wasn't looking for a pet
Speaker 1: when I got him. I was looking for a coon dog,
Speaker 1: and it was my responsibility to give him every chance
Speaker 1: to be one. It goes back to that looking at
Speaker 1: you thing. If they're looking at you, they're paying attention.
Speaker 1: If they're paying attention, they're teachable. And that's half the battle.
Speaker 1: If you got an intelligent dog who's inherent desires to
Speaker 1: please you, they're boss. And you can't convey what you
Speaker 1: want that dog to do. That ain't the dog's fault.
Speaker 1: That's all on you. They say dogs can learn close
Speaker 1: to like two hundred and fifty words, go tree a coon,
Speaker 1: that's only four. So how hard could it really be
Speaker 1: to get one to do that? Well, they got to
Speaker 1: be exposed. You can't teach a dog desire. That's got
Speaker 1: to come naturally. They have to have the will to
Speaker 1: leave the safety of your presence and go into the
Speaker 1: dark unknown, specifically looking for the sin of a coon.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you about Old Tom. His registered
Speaker 1: name was Reeves Sea Creek Tom. That name come from
Speaker 1: obviously my last name, and the creek that ran through
Speaker 1: our farm that I only a few weeks ago learned
Speaker 1: The actual name wasn't Sea Creek, it was Walker Creek.
Speaker 1: So I guess you can teach an old dog a
Speaker 1: new trick. At least you can teach him a little
Speaker 1: bit about the geography. But Tom was his call name,
Speaker 1: and that's what it was going to be. Steve McQueen
Speaker 1: played a cowboy named Tom Horn in a movie by
Speaker 1: the same name. I liked that movie and Steve McQueen,
Speaker 1: so I named him Tom. When you register a dog,
Speaker 1: a pure bred dog, he has to have a unique
Speaker 1: name that separates him from the other dogs in the registration.
Speaker 1: There are some real creative names in the registrie in
Speaker 1: some of which make absolutely no sense. It may not
Speaker 1: even be what the dog is called. His registered name
Speaker 1: could be Buffalo Bill, Cody's Trycolored Tornado, but his call
Speaker 1: name might be Carl. That's a whole, whole other show.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna go on with the story. Old Tom
Speaker 1: gets to be about eight months old, and I'm about
Speaker 1: to have a fit to take him hunting. Dad finally says,
Speaker 1: come on, let's load him up and go see what
Speaker 1: he'll do. Finally, it's Coon hunting time. After six months
Speaker 1: of working with this dog and leading him and teaching
Speaker 1: him to load, to come to me when I called,
Speaker 1: and getting him to do everything under the sun that
Speaker 1: I wanted to do except split wood and paint the
Speaker 1: barn or anything related to coon hunting, We're finally finn
Speaker 1: to get this dog in the woods. I was about
Speaker 1: to pee in my briches from excitement. Philly Coleman, you
Speaker 1: ain't got nothing on me, because I'm fitna do this
Speaker 1: for real. We loaded Tom up and Dad's dog crate,
Speaker 1: and off we went to the neighbor's chicken farm. Dad said,
Speaker 1: there was a big persimon tree on the side of
Speaker 1: the road that goes down to the chicken house. It's
Speaker 1: probably got some persimmons on it. If it does it
Speaker 1: order to have some coons in it or close by,
Speaker 1: we'll cut him loose and see what he does. Now.
Speaker 1: I should probably mention in this point of the story
Speaker 1: that I had recently had my appendix removed, like eight
Speaker 1: days ago. I was still sporting a handful of staples
Speaker 1: in the incision. Anyone that's ever had an appendectomy will
Speaker 1: tell you they're not fun. Believe them when they say this.
Speaker 1: On with the story. I was sitting on the edge
Speaker 1: of the seat for the two mile ride down the
Speaker 1: gravel road. We made the curve in twenty yards off
Speaker 1: the road, and a hundred from that chicken house stood
Speaker 1: the persimmon tree, and it looked like it was decorated
Speaker 1: for Christmas. When all those coons looked at the truck
Speaker 1: and their eyes glowed in the dark, Dad said, well,
Speaker 1: Tom's fixing to get his test. I was ready to
Speaker 1: bail out of that truck before it stopped. I did
Speaker 1: that ten years prior to this night, and my dad
Speaker 1: ran over me on a accident. Six years prior to
Speaker 1: this night, I ran over him. But those are two
Speaker 1: different stories. Back to the coons, that tree was over
Speaker 1: twenty feet tall and as big around as a cantalog.
Speaker 1: The first limb was about eight feet off the ground.
Speaker 1: It was loaded with for simmons and coons. I counted
Speaker 1: six sets of eyes of what I could see. Dad,
Speaker 1: what I do? He said, Get Tom out and cut
Speaker 1: him loose. We'll just see what he does. He needs
Speaker 1: to find him on his own. Well I did just
Speaker 1: as he said. Old Tom walked around in front of
Speaker 1: the truck, wagging his tail and looking happy just to
Speaker 1: be hanging out with the boys at night for once,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden he caught a whiff of
Speaker 1: scent from the coons, and his whole demeanor change. He
Speaker 1: started moving with a purpose over toward that tree. His
Speaker 1: nose was going from above his shoulders back to the ground.
Speaker 1: Dad said, he's winding them coon, son, and that means
Speaker 1: he was catching their sin as it flowed through the air.
Speaker 1: And then he put his nose to the ground and
Speaker 1: smell where they'd been walking around. Now, you think that
Speaker 1: would be an ideal scenario to train a dog in,
Speaker 1: but it really ain't. Dogs don't smell like we do.
Speaker 1: If you walked in a house and you smelled someone
Speaker 1: cooking homemade soup, you think I smell soup, let's eat. Well,
Speaker 1: the dogs never don't work that way. They walk in
Speaker 1: the door right beside you, and while you're smelling soup,
Speaker 1: they're smelling tomatoes, salt, pepper, potatoes, garlic, celery, thyme, corn beans,
Speaker 1: whatever you got in the pot, plus and everything else
Speaker 1: in the house, including you. In an area where coons
Speaker 1: have been frequenting, it could turn into sensory overload. Literally
Speaker 1: everything around it smells like coons, and when everything smells
Speaker 1: like a coon, it's hard to discern where the source
Speaker 1: of the smell is coming from. That'll mess up a
Speaker 1: finished dog just as quick as it is will a
Speaker 1: young one. I've seen it. We watched old Tom as
Speaker 1: he went back and forth around that tree, left and right, front,
Speaker 1: and back over to a big corner post on the
Speaker 1: fence ten yards away, and back to the tree again.
Speaker 1: He was confused. He was also still a baby as
Speaker 1: far as coon dogs go. Now, you coon hunters out there,
Speaker 1: save your message just telling me about how your dog
Speaker 1: was tring coons by there by theirself when they was
Speaker 1: two months old or before they had their eyes open.
Speaker 1: I know y'all are out there. It goes for you too, Clay,
Speaker 1: Michael Rex, Toby Neemeyer Ain't. Nobody got time for that.
Speaker 1: Tom needed some help. So I had to plan, and
Speaker 1: I knew if I didn't, if I didn't just do
Speaker 1: it on my own, that I'd never get it approved
Speaker 1: by my dad. So when Daddy walked back to his
Speaker 1: truck to get a light, I saw the opportunity I
Speaker 1: was waiting for. I could feel the staples pulling against
Speaker 1: my incision as I reached up and I grabbed that
Speaker 1: bottom limb of that for Simme tree. It felt like
Speaker 1: my guts were about to pop out of that cut
Speaker 1: when I finally hooked my leg over the limb and
Speaker 1: stood up on it. I was fixing to shake some
Speaker 1: coons out of that tree. And if that didn't get
Speaker 1: Tom more focused on what we were doing there, I
Speaker 1: didn't know what would son get out of that tree.
Speaker 1: You feny, tear your staples out now, Just so y'all
Speaker 1: know and to adhere to the Beggrease policy manually in
Speaker 1: reference to truth and storytelling. That is not an exact
Speaker 1: quote of what my father said when he turned around
Speaker 1: and saw me eight days out of surgery and my
Speaker 1: feet eight feet off the ground. It ain't even close.
Speaker 1: I remember it verbatim, and it contained all those words
Speaker 1: I just quoted, but it was also sprinkled with a
Speaker 1: string of agitty that were not approved for all agents.
Speaker 1: Having kids and grandkids of my own, I get where
Speaker 1: he was coming from. Dad. I'm all right, and it
Speaker 1: don't hurt. I'm fixing the I'm finna shake these coons out.
Speaker 1: Get ready now. I should have paid attention to that warning, aboy,
Speaker 1: getting ready I looked up and I could see coons
Speaker 1: sitting everywhere in that tree. They were on the limbs
Speaker 1: I was holding on to. They were sitting just above
Speaker 1: my head. They were sitting on the limbs on the
Speaker 1: other side of the tree, And without much effort, I
Speaker 1: could have reached and touched every one of them. But
Speaker 1: what I did was test the tensile strength of that tree.
Speaker 1: Like hurricane reeves that just blowed into town. I was
Speaker 1: shaking that tree with every bit of strength I could must.
Speaker 1: My side was hurting, but I was making it rain
Speaker 1: coons on Dad and Tom. They were dropping out of
Speaker 1: that tree as fast as as the precipitons were. My
Speaker 1: plan was perfect, almost perfect. The tree was one hundred
Speaker 1: yards from that chicken house, ten yards from that big
Speaker 1: corner post on the fence, and two hundred yards from
Speaker 1: the next tree. In my mind, those coons had two choices.
Speaker 1: They could head toward the woods across that pasture or
Speaker 1: climb that fence post. Either way, Tom was bound to
Speaker 1: get after him. Six coons hit the ground. One made
Speaker 1: three jumps and was sitting on top of that big
Speaker 1: corner post matter than a mashed cat. Tom was right
Speaker 1: behind him. Barking. Now, this was good, But only one
Speaker 1: of them went up that post. No problem, on, I'll
Speaker 1: climb down. We'll let him tree on that post for
Speaker 1: a little bit. Then i'll put Tom on the leash.
Speaker 1: I'll get me a stick and poke that coon off
Speaker 1: the post and let him run off. I'll turn Tom
Speaker 1: loose and let him tree him again. This was gonna
Speaker 1: be some good schooling. But I'd made two mistakes that night.
Speaker 1: One was climbing that tree so soon after my surgery.
Speaker 1: My side was killing me. Two was thinking those coons
Speaker 1: only had two choices once they hit the ground, because
Speaker 1: the other five came right back up that p cemetery.
Speaker 1: It was chaos, absolute chaos. Tom was barking and jumping
Speaker 1: at that coon. That coon was growling and fussing and
Speaker 1: taking swipes at him every time he jumped. Dad was hollering,
Speaker 1: get him, Tom, so be careful. Get him tom Son.
Speaker 1: Look out, the coons are coming back out of the tree.
Speaker 1: Get him Tom, hold on Son. I looked down that
Speaker 1: tree truck, and I saw that squad of coons and
Speaker 1: a coggle lin coming up so fast that all I
Speaker 1: could do was watch. I couldn't jump all my guts
Speaker 1: would have come out when I hit the ground, and
Speaker 1: I'd have died, never knowing how good that coon dog
Speaker 1: was gonna be. I just had to ride the storm out.
Speaker 1: Two of them ran across my arms as I bare
Speaker 1: hugged that tree. The other three ran across my left
Speaker 1: leg in rapid succession and between my knees as they
Speaker 1: cork screwed up that tree. They were circling it like
Speaker 1: a coon barber pole. I just stood there watching the show.
Speaker 1: All five of them looked me right in the eyes
Speaker 1: as they passed my head going to the butt of
Speaker 1: that pre cemetery, and I could smell them, and they
Speaker 1: didn't smell like homemade soup. They smelled like rav's and hate.
Speaker 1: And I was stuck in that tree with them. I
Speaker 1: had made an egregious mistake by not factoring in the
Speaker 1: precimetery as their alternate route of travel. Now Tom was
Speaker 1: still barking at that coon on the fence post, but
Speaker 1: he was starting to lose interest for everything else that
Speaker 1: was going on. My dad was begging me to get
Speaker 1: out of the tree, and I was scared to move. Finally,
Speaker 1: I started easing down and my dad grabbed my legs
Speaker 1: and put me on his shoulders. He walked to the
Speaker 1: truck and I stepped off on the dog crate. He
Speaker 1: checked my staples and they were all still good. I
Speaker 1: hadn't pulled anything loose. But while he was checking me over,
Speaker 1: Tom made a dash over where we were, and in
Speaker 1: that instant that coon bailed off that corner post and disappeared.
Speaker 1: I don't know where he went. Dad pulled the plug
Speaker 1: on that hunt and we called it a night. We'd
Speaker 1: accomplished what we'd set out to do with Tom and
Speaker 1: had one heck of a tale to tell folks. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I never got to see what that hound would have
Speaker 1: made he got stolen. He was bad to wander off
Speaker 1: and visit the neighbors, and during that time, you could
Speaker 1: run deer dogs during deer season, and lots of folks did.
Speaker 1: Out of towners were bad about picking up hunting dogs
Speaker 1: that didn't belong to them and trade them off to
Speaker 1: other deer camps to run deer, and we're pretty sure
Speaker 1: that that's what happened to him. I hated that, but man,
Speaker 1: what a wonderful memory we shared with our friends and
Speaker 1: family over the years telling that story, and that old
Speaker 1: pup made it all possible, Dad Gum, I've been telling
Speaker 1: these tales about my journey as a coon hunter, and
Speaker 1: we about to run out of time. I guess we'll
Speaker 1: just make this part one. If that works for y'all,
Speaker 1: that works for me. There's plenty more stories my old
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you, and me and old Whalen
Speaker 1: were making them just about every time we go. You
Speaker 1: folks have been mighty good to me. All of us
Speaker 1: in my family and my meat eater family appreciate so
Speaker 1: much all the wonderful feedback in the reviews that y'all
Speaker 1: have taken the time to send in. There's lots of
Speaker 1: folks that work on this thing. It's not just me,
Speaker 1: not even close. Hey, if y'all can share it with
Speaker 1: others you think might enjoy it. And until next week,
Speaker 1: this is Bred Reeves. Sign it all. Y'all be careful