Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1957-10-24
Roy Lee Yinger's
Beauty at Your Back Door

makes-any hound that can unerringly follow him
across creeks, rivers and swamps and find him
up one tree in a woods where a thousand trees
grow-should "get his mouth on the game" he's
most certainly earned this right There are few
really good coon dogs-a straight" cooner will
not bark on any track but that of the raccoon;
he, and he alone must completely disregard and
ignore the tracks of the rabbit mink fox squirrel
and deer; only full" hound, usually the long
cared, seepylooking pot-lickng variety ever be-
come good coon dogs. And they're five or six
years old, too before they've learned their job
we'll The truth about 'coonhunting is really this:
the odds, far and away, favor the coon in getting
away.
Years ago my dog freed a coon at eight
o'clock-he jumped out of the tree-at ten o'clock
they freed him again-he jumped out again and
eluded the dogs-at midnight on the dot the dogs
finally freed him his home den tree, tree
ten feet across the stump, an old weatherbeaten
chestnut, as impregnable to the hunter as stone
and concrete fortress. How thankful that raccoon
must have been that he had gotten away-how
very, very glad was to let him live.
Let's go out on a typical coon hunt You
turn the hounds loose about 7:30. For the sake
of local color we'll say you're hunting the huge
waterfilled Seneca swamp. At 8 o'clock one of the
HOuIluS opens up. lou nSIen IOr Wnle ana
you say to yourself-"Thats a cold trail" You
know it's cold trail because the bark is not
strident. And it's more or less desultory About
the time you've arrived at this conclusion you
hear the unmistakable change in the hounds bark
its no longer cold, trail bark-its an "up'
bark tree bark. But you're an experienced
hunter-you don't encourage the dog to keep
freeing by whooping to him, you let him alone
And it's good you do because the dog is Just as
insure of the tree as you are--he makes wide
circle around the tree (all good dogs dol and
he finds out that there is trail leaving the tree
So then you again hear his trail bark, and you
know exactly what's happened-the coon was up
the tree feeding on grapes or acorns, has come
down the tree and gone on. This may happen sew
eral times but after the trail warns up and there
is the "tree"-and then the circle by the hound
you can be reasonably certain that you can go to
your dog and get the game.
One could write a book explaining coon
hunting. 1t is science in ITSELF it's ramficationS
are endless. Every coon chase is a challenge to
dog and man. and will go on record as saying
that the odds favor the hunted.
Due to the enormous increase in the raccoon
population "a raccoon pelt is worth very little in
today's markeD Maryland has legalized an extra
month October, in which to pursue this willy little
creature of the hills and swamps. So in October
November, December and January you wait for
the dark, damp nights when you're sure he'll be
out, you head for the widest country there is Ia
coon stays as far he can get from civilization
you turn the dogs loose, light up the lantern and
walk slowly through the woods Almost every
things now is up to the dogs What a tremendous
ly difficult job is theirs!