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A Close Call
A couple of months ago, I headed up to Ohio to do a little pleasure hunting with my Uncle. Also, to enter a competition hunt with my cousin. When I arrived, it was just about dark. I pulled into my uncle's house and let my dog out for a stretch to get ready for the night. My Uncle is a Redtick fan, and for all I've seen of them, they're right up there with every other breed. He's got a real good female redtick named "kate". She has no big title, but she'll tree along with the best of them. Being a "wholestien"(walker) hunter, I dragged my dog out and told everyone how fast he could run a deer and a fox. That is a superstition I have...Always assume your dog is running trash and no one will expect him to run as good as he does. Well, we loaded up after it had been dark an hour or so and headed down the ridge to find us a ringtail. We dropped about 3 miles from the house by an old cemetary and led the dogs in. As soon as we let our dogs go, I heard my walker open up. I yelled, "run that deer boy", and it wasn't 2 minutes after I said that my dog had that coon in the top of old oak tree. After about 10 minutes of spot lights and and coon squallers, it finally looked. My Uncle, being the excellent marksman that he is, tried his liberties at "popping" him out. Five or six shots later, that old coon came walking down the tree; all of us started getting real excited at the thought of seeing a good fight. That old sly coon walked all the way down that tree to the last branch which was roughly 20 feet up. It stopped in the fork. The coon was hung, looking straight at us with his tail end dangling underneath him. My Uncle decided to "graze" him in the rear and make him jump or else he would die in that fork and be stuck. The dogs would never get their mouths on him. I stood next to my Uncle. I held the light as he drew a bead on the coon. As the bullet grazed the coon's backside, he jumped directly toward the light...my light...the one that was on my head. I dropped everything I was holding and took off through the woods like a bolt of lightening. The coon, aware of my speed and agility, gave up chasing me. He decided to turn on my Uncle. Launching onto my Uncle's leg, the raccoon took the butt end of my Uncle's rifle before the animal was knocked to the ground. The coon took off through the woods until the dogs caught him...sure sounded like a good fight. From what everyone told me, it was. Meanwhile, after all this happened, I was still a couple hundred yards off trying to find my way back. I didn't care where I was running to while that coon was chasing me...as long as I was ahead of him was all that mattered. We finally got our dogs up and headed back for home. Everyone had a really good laugh totally at my expense, but that's what hunting is all about...good times and good stories! Matt Cline eus.eusmcli@memousa.exu.ericsson.se |
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This site seen 55846748 times since 3/1/00
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... Story by Matt Cline. Pictured is "Rene", his 3 yr old Treeing Walker.