Coon Hunting

In 1975, we were living in Wilmore, Kentucky, where I was a seminary student.  I accepted an appointment as 'Student Pastor' to the Tunnel Hill Free Methodist Church in English, Indiana.  On weekends, we lived in a 70' mobile home beside the church.

Gene and Betty Conrad sort of adopted us.  They often opened their home for meals and simply a place to hang out.  Gene invited me to go coon hunting with him on Saturday nights.  It was a new experience for me.

After dark, dressed appropriately for late-fall or early-winter, we loaded Rock and Sue-Sue into the back of Gene's truck and headed out.  When he dropped the gate of his truck, those dogs took off into the dark. They clearly understood their mission.

Gene lighted his carbide lamp, strapped on his 22-caliber pistol, grabbed his rifle and took off after the dogs. At first, we would just walk casually with our ears tuned for the first bark.  Once it sounded, Gene took off faster than I thought he could move.  Without a lamp, I learned to stay pretty close to him! The problem was that we were not on a trail;  rather, we were bush-whacking through the woods.  He would push branches out of the way which would then slap me in the face!  I quickly learned that it was best to stay about six feet behind him.

The barking would be consistent and when he heard Sue-Sue's higher pitched bark, he would holler to me: "They've got one treed!"

Eventually, we would arrive at the spot where the dogs had treed the coon. Rock would be desperately trying to climb the tree!  Sue-Sue would be sitting six feet from the tree barking consistently;  with every bark, her rear-end would come off the ground!

Now, Gene would pull out his spotlight and train it on the scared coon.  After rewarding the dogs, Gene would train one of his guns on the animal and drop it.  We had to rush to the coon before the dogs could get it!  Gene would let the dogs smell the animal and then put it in a sack.

After a few minutes of excitement, we'd start walking away and the dogs would take off again!

The most exciting night was when the dogs started barking and we started running.  Simultaneously, a train was coming through the valley toward 'Tunnel Hill'.  As we raced through the woods, Gene desperately wanted to get across the tracks before the train!  It was a panicky few minutes and we leaped across the tracks with the train so close I could feel the heat of its headlights!  Whew!  That was close!

I asked lots of questions and Gene was always patient to answer.  Some nights we got several coon;  other nights we came home with an empty sack.  One night the dogs treed three coon in one tree - that was exciting!  Either way, we had fun together.  It's a sport that's all about the dogs.  A good coon-hound could be worth a lot of money!  Gene was always worried that someone would steal his dogs.

On one occasion, Betty cooked up a coon for us to eat.  She did it with potatoes, onions and carrots.  I'm not sure Debbie tried it, but I did.  As I recall, it was kind of greasy and I didn't really like it that much. Typically, they didn't eat coon - I think they just did it as a novelty.

When we moved to McClellandtown, Pennsylvania, I got a coon-hound of my own.  I also named him Rock.  He was half 'blood-hound' and half 'black and tan'.  He had a hard time keeping his long ears off the ground!  I took him into the woods across from our home one night to hunt. When I released him, I sat with my back against a tree to wait for him to bark.  I sat for over an hour with no barking.  I was cold!  Finally, I called him but he never came.  I dragged myself up the hill and back to the house.  I figured I'd leave my coat at the door of his house so he'd stay if he came home. When I did, there was Rock - sound asleep in his house!

I guess neither of us were very good hunters!

By the way, in my personal experience I've found two groups of men who are by far the best story-tellers: coon-hunters and coal-miners.  When I moved to McClellandtown I found a few men who were both!  I'm still trying to figure out how much of their stories I should believe!