Father and sons share night-time woods, time-honored tradition
It’s not for everyone. But the small remnant corps for whom it is are fine with that. They get the night woods to themselves.
Hunting raccoons with treeing hounds, shortened to “‘coon hunting” in common parlance, is a rural American tradition with roots reaching back to colonial times. It’s always done at night because, well, a raccoon sleeps through the day in some hollow tree. At night, when raccoons are active, they leave scent for the hound to follow.
Ralph McClain of Lemont Furnace called me last month and asked me along on what would be one of his last hunts of the season. I couldn’t turn him down because I’d hinted endlessly over years for an invitation. Anyway, I wanted to go.
I had an idea what to expect but learned a lot about ‘coon hunting nuance. The first and most significant thing I learned is that ‘coon hunting is ideal to do with kids. Ralph picked me up after sunset with his two sons Jesse, 15 and Alex, 12 perched abreast on the pickup seat and their Treeing Walker hound, Daisy, stowed in the dog-box in the bed.
When we reached a spot where the McClains had permission to hunt, the boys pulled their gear from a locker and started adjusting helmets and headlamps with a professionally competent air, impressive when exhibited by ones so young.
“You wear a helmet because it holds your headlamp, which leaves your hands free to push aside the brush and briars,” Alex explained. “And sometimes branches fall from above.”
Jesse then pulled a battered little, open-sighted .22 out of the cab, worked the bolt twice to make sure it was unloaded and slung it across his back, where it remained all night. Coon hunters, satisfied to savor their hound’s skill at trailing and treeing, often let a raccoon go unscathed after a chase. But occasionally they’ll shoot one off the tree — “to keep the dog interested,” Ralph McClain observed. Raccoon pelts have cash value — although the price is down at present — and the meat is delectable when properly prepared.
While the boys prepared for the night’s hunt their dad let Daisy out of her box. She nosed around and was gone into the darkness before I noticed her absence. The McClains were not concerned.
After that our hunt traced a pattern forged over hundreds of years. The boys, their dad, and I walked along a ridgeline trail through dark woods in the direction Daisy had gone. I listened for the hound’s baying but the hunters were engaged in walking conversation. Three abreast in the path, the boys’ headlamps darting up and down, their dad’s light steadier and directed downward, they talked about past hunts they’d shared, kids in school who thought this pastime was weird, and others who envied it. After a while we stopped and huddled. Ralph cocked his head and nodded southeast.
“Hear her? She’s treed,” he said, grinning.
I listened hard but heard nothing over my breath.
“Let’s move out here a piece,” Ralph suggested.
We walked to a rise of higher ground and I could hear Daisy’s “chop, chop, chop” baying, insistent and sure, a long way out the ridge.
“She’ll stay right on that tree until we get there. Doesn’t matter how long it takes,” Jesse said.
We continued along the ridge, fending off eye-poking twigs in the darkness, as Daisy’s baying grew louder. Finally, we pushed through the brush to see her standing with front paws on the trunk of a huge chestnut oak, her head back and her muscular throat hurling bawls up the tree. Father and sons surrounded the oak and combed its branches with light-beams.
“Over here Dad,” Jesse offered.
I thought he’d spotted the raccoon but he’d located a yawning cavity in the oak’s tree’s bole, doubtless where the quarry had taken refuge.
“That happens. Late in the season like this ‘coons will tend to den,” Ralph explained.
The hunters pulled Daisy off the tree and we commenced another hunt. This time we walked to an inviting spot on the side of the ridge where Ralph signaled that we should sit down and wait. In some ways, this was the best part of the hunt. The night was mild and the stars were bright, more like stunning. It was the kind of lovely sky most of us miss almost always, watching television, sitting at a computer, but there it was — dark, soft and somehow reassuring. And the McClains were quietly marveling.
The boys pointed out stars and constellations, and at one point they noticed a distant car’s headlights cresting a hill.
“That’s over on _____ Road,” Alex opined, displaying an admirable knowledge of local topography.
Then we heard Daisy’s bawl down on the creek. I sat there watching father and sons take pleasure in her reporting her progress, gaining ground.
“Hear that?” Ralph beamed, pointing out that the pitch and intensity of Daisy’s baying changed when the raccoon climbed a tree and she had it pinned.
We picked our way down a dark, rocky ridge to the creek bottom where Daisy, this time, had treed on a big wild cherry.
But again the boys detected a cavity-den on the trunk, into which the raccoon had certainly entered.
They pulled Daisy off the tree and we began a round-about route back to the truck, which would moderate our climb up the ridge. But we hadn’t gone far before Daisy “struck” scent. We heard her dash across the stream and followed her bawling up a long ascent of the opposite ridge.
This trek was a long one, uphill through jumbled rocks. The boys moved carefully, feeling no need to risk a fall.
“She’ll be right there when we get there,” Alex reassured.
At the top Daisy again indicated the appropriate tree with her barks. And again the tree harbored a den hole.
“Three ‘coons run and three in the den,” Ralph wondered. “I don’t know if that’s ever happened to us before.”
None of my companions, though, seemed disappointed; except Daisy, who didn’t want to abandon the tree.
But it was late. Jesse leashed Daisy and we picked our way down the ridge, across the shin-deep creek and slogged up the other side to the truck.
“Call your mom and let her know we’re okay,” Ralph instructed. Alex made the call, Daisy climbed into her box and we shared a cold drink of water.
We tend to believe — because we are told it every day — that we must buy a lot of gadgets or go to faraway places to be fulfilled or inspired. But I have three friends who know that all you need is a dark night, some deep woods, a good dog, and each other. And, oh yeah, once in a while a furry masked mammal that climbs big trees.