August 29, 2025 • 23 mins
Contrary to what you might think from the title, we’re not headed to the local drive through for coffee and pup cups. In this episode, Brent’s hauling Waylon the Wonder Hound in the truck going on a competition coon hunt. Brent’s giving a quick lesson on how those contests are held, and his and Waylon’s experiences competing in them. Grab your light, grab your boots, it’s time for MeatEater’s “This Country Life” podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to this Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trot lighting and just in general
country living. I want you to stay a while as
I share my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life
is presented by Case Knives from the store More Studio
on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor
(00:26):
podcast that airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab
a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stores
to share. Taking the Hounds to Town. Taking a hound
to town has in the circle of coon hunters meant
(00:46):
you were going to enter a competition. Coon hunt. It's
a contest rooted in history and celebrated to this very day.
I'm going to go into my experiences with it and
give you the scoop on what it's meant to me.
It's a story that took about twenty five minutes to
tell in four years to write. We got a hound
(01:08):
to cut loose, so let's get started. On Friday, April
the ninth, twenty twenty one, my friend Rex White and
called me early in the day and said, have your
stuff ready, We're going coon hunt tonight. Now that wasn't unusual.
(01:28):
Wasn't unusual? At all. We went coon hunting a lot
back then. My dog Whaling was a year old and
Rex had been helping me with his training. Rex was
the guy who wound up being my friend by being nosy.
He was driving by my house on his way to
town and saw me out in the driveway cleaning out
a dog box that I had in the back of
(01:48):
my truck. Since he was a hound hunter himself, he
took the opportunity to meet me. Pulled up and started
interrogating me on what kind of hunter I was. Was
a hauling duck dogs in that truck or coon dogs.
Being where Rex and I are from, it was a
safe bet I was one of the other. I was
(02:09):
actually both, but my old lab Anna passed away a
few years before and I had recently acquired a coonhound
named Whalen. Rex had lost his hunting partner a few
years prior, and after we visited for a while, we
decided we'd go together soon, and we did, and we
became friends. Rex was a competition hunter with lots of experience,
(02:32):
and I've talked about him many times on HISS. I'm
sure some of you may remember hearing me say his name,
so just to catch the new folks up. Rex became
my coon hunting coach A couple hours before he came
by the house to pick me up on that Friday night.
He called me back and said, we're taking whaling to
town tonight. I've got you and whalen regsted in a
(02:54):
UKC hunt at the Faulkner County Coon Club. Now, the
official name is of Faulkner County Coon Hunters Association, and
it's located near Conway and registered as an official club
with the United Kennel Club or uk C as that's
commonly referred to, headquartered in Kalamazoo, Michigan, all very official
(03:16):
and lofty sounding names of which I was only aware
of uk C as a dog registry and completely ignorant
of the Coon Club and most especially competition hunts. I
wasn't sure I knew the rules well enough to be
in the competition. Actually I was positive I didn't, but
my coach said we were taking a whale into town,
(03:37):
so that's what we did. Now. All the way over
from my house to the clubhouse, I was quizzing Wrex
on this and that about the rules, and more or
less adding more pressure to myself. Rex said just call
his name out of the judge when you hear him
strike a track, and call him tread when you hear
him treat a coon. You need any help, too bad.
(03:59):
You're on your own and I can't help you. This
competition is you and whaling against the world. Good luck,
We're counting on you. And with that, my bald headed
veteran coon hunting coach kicked me out of his truck
and drug me inside to meet the folks that was
running the contest. The clubhouse was a modest structure that
(04:19):
appeared well kept and well used. You could tell that
there were folks here that had been there for a
long time, folks that had regular spots on the furniture,
and folks who'd probably made some of them. The coffee
pot was in full swing, and there were two men
sitting at a table registering hunters for the drawout that
would come later. That's how it works. There are different
(04:43):
divisions for dogs at different levels of proficiency, and each
dog is entered into the category of registered dogs with
similar talent. Depending on how many dogs show up determines
how many groups or casts are sent out to hunt
dogs with little or no experiencing competition. Hunts are sent
out together in UK. It's hounds male or female that
(05:07):
have zero to four competition cast winds that are grouped
together no more than four hounds in no less than
two can officially make the United Kennel Club cast. I
was grouped with one other person, a man who had
a dog from Port Tobacco, Maryland. Now the man wasn't
from there, but the dog was. And Port Tobacco is
(05:30):
a town founded in seventeen twenty seven, one hundred and
nine years before Arkansas became a state. How that dog
wound up in Arkansas at the Faulkner County Coon Hunters
Association UKC hunt is beyond me. But there we were
two tree and walkers, mine a year and a half
old and his a pretty five year old female named Dixon.
(05:54):
Now I'm glad we were all there, mainly glad Rex
was there. I was nervous as a fellow could be.
We drove a short distance to where we were going
to turn loose, Me and Rex, the man who owned
the dog from Maryland, and the hunt judge who would
also be our guide. Rex was allowed to go with
us as an observer, only he couldn't participate in the
(06:16):
hunt or assist me in any way. No questions, no suggestions,
no facial expressions, anything that could be construed as aid
in any form for his minor league dog handler that
he just called up to the majors. They gave us
the time to be back at the clubhouse to turn
the scorecards in after the hunt. The judge explained that
(06:37):
he wasn't putting up with any foolishness and would judge
each of us fairly and firmly. If we had questions,
we could address them in the field openly. If that
wasn't good enough, we could appeal anything to the Master
of hounds back at the clubhouse. It was in the
low sixties when we cut loose, and the wind was
blowing just hard enough to make it feel a few degrees.
(07:00):
He's cooler. They'd made it about fifty yards when Whaling
barked first and I called his name, strike Whaling. Rex
told me to say it where there was no doubt
in anyone's mind that I had called my dog. I
looked over at him and he nodded his approval, as
the judge repeated back to me, Whaling struck for a
hundred wasn't worked that track. In a short order, he
(07:22):
came treed with his loud booming chops that you can
hear forever, Tree Whaling. I heard the judge say Whaling
treed for one hundred and twenty five. Then Dixie opened
up and her handlet said strike Dixie. The judge answered,
Dixie for seventy five. The only problem was she wound
up running the same track that Whaling did, and when
(07:44):
she treated with Whalen, the only points available were for
a second tree, and that's seventy five points. That's what
the value was. He called Dixie treed and the judge
said strike points are avoided. Dixie treed for seven five. Now,
had she opened up before Whaling was declared tree, before
(08:05):
I called Tree Whaling, she would have had seventy five
second strike points and seventy five for a second tree.
But once a tree is declared there are no more
strike points available. I know that sounds confusing, but it's
really not if you think about it. It makes sense
to do that because it keeps dogs from just following
other dogs around, scoring points off their ears rather than
(08:29):
using their noses. Kind of like copying the answers on
a math test. You didn't do the work, but you're
going to get some of the credit if the answers
are right, that is. And on the scorecard, Whaling was
leading by one hundred and fifty points. He had two
hundred and twenty five to her seventy five. But those
points are only good if we find the coon. I
(08:55):
remember walking up to it, and it was a small
white oak tree about fourteen inches in diameter. Whalen was
standing there on his hind legs and had his front
paws on the trunk of the tree and his head
laid back, telling the world he'd found a coon. Dixie
was on the opposite side of the tree, barking in agreement.
About twenty five feet up in the air was the
(09:16):
prettiest pair of yellowish green eyes looking back at me.
I got him judge. He looked up, as did Rex
and Dixie's handler, and everyone agreed. Whaling now had two
hundred and twenty five plus points and Dixie had seventy
five of her own. Now, the judge told us to
(09:36):
walk her dog, so we walked about eighty yards away
and recast them. They both took off in different directions.
Then in the cool CHRISP. Berry I heard Dixie open up,
and her handler called her struck strike Dixie for a hundred.
The judge said, I got Dixie for a hundred. Then
she started a tree and tree Dixie Dixie for one
(09:58):
hundred and twenty five. Now hadn't made a peak since
leaving that tree. I was watching him on my garment tracker,
and he was working all over a drain that siphoned
down towards Lake Conway. I just knew at any moment
he would have opened up, but he didn't, And now
we were all walking to score Dixie's tree with very
(10:18):
little time left in the hunt. Now, if she'd have
had a coon in that tree, she'd have an additional
two hundred and twenty five point. She'd go with her
seventy five. And if Whaling the Wonder Hound didn't do
something pretty quick, the closest thing we were going to
be to win in our first competition hunt was being
the first loser. All of a sudden, I didn't feel
(10:40):
too good about our chances. For someone who had repeatedly
said I'm not sure I'd even want the competition coon hunt,
thought of losing this hunt was apparently more important than
I thought. We all got the Dixie's tree and began
searching for a coon, and in the vein of competition,
that man not being able to find that coon, even
(11:02):
if it was up there, would mean Whalen would win.
Trees that are scored where a coon isn't found but
could possibly be there, hidden in the vegetation or in
a hole big enough for them to seek refuge in,
will have the points circle, meaning the coon may have
been in there, but we couldn't prove it, and we
(11:23):
couldn't prove it wasn't. They're called circle points, and a
million circle points won't be one plus point because as
in Whalen's tree, everyone heard him bark pretty bark burst,
and they heard it, they saw him the coon in
the trees that he had treated on. Those are plus points.
(11:43):
We searched and searched Dixie's tree, and I tried to
find her coon. Had she had one, and I was
the only person who have seen it, I would have
pointed it out to the handler and the judge, and
I would have lost the competition, but I would have
done the right thing. In the UKC Handbook of rules
that are not referred to simply as rules, they're called
(12:05):
honor rules. And there's a reason for that, and the
main reason is just for situations like that one. She
treed on a big water oak and it was a
huge old tree with lots of leaves that had come on,
and we searched and searched that tree right up aunt
the time that the hunt was over, but we couldn't
(12:28):
find it, just declared the point circled and with time
up Whalen had won his first and my first UK
sea hunt we ever entered. Dixie's handler shook my hand
the sick congratulations. I was excited and happy with how
we'd done us, proud of how Whaling had performed, and
relieved of how I hadn't messed up this competition. Coon
(12:52):
hunting is fun and apparently pretty easy. I'd entered and
won my first UK sea hunt against a more experienced
dog and handler. I must be a natural of this,
I was not. Over the course of a year twenty
twenty one into twenty twenty two, I entered three more
(13:13):
competition hunts and got my tail whipped all three times.
I could have easily entered ten times that many in
that span of time, and took a lot of chastising
by Rex Whiting and my other coon hunting coach, Michael Roseman,
both of them telling me, you got a good dog,
you ought to be hunting him in these hunts to
(13:34):
get a title. It just didn't matter much to me.
Even though I enjoyed meeting new folks who liked the
same things as I did, coon hounds and all the
things that go with them. I just never really got
stoked up about hunting in an official contest. Case in point,
our fifth and final contests that happened a year later.
(13:55):
On May the seventh, twenty twenty two, Michael and I
had gone to Saint Charles, Arkansas to hunt a UK
sensationed event sponsored by the East Arkansas Coon Hunters Association.
I would be hunting with folks that I didn't know
and had met only that night. One fellow was hunting
(14:16):
the black and tan and one was hunting a blue tick.
Our guide, who was also serving as a judge, which
is the official scorekeeper of the hunt, was hunting the
tree and a walker like I was. I had my
work cut out for me. I could tell these guys
were veterans of competition hunts. After we drove to where
we were going to be turned loose, set around to talk.
(14:38):
Before we did, I told the other three that if
y'all want to practice taking advantage of someone who doesn't
know the rules, very well, tonight's your night. Gents. I
have no idea what I'm doing. And they all laughed,
and I laughed with them. Whaling, who I was holding
by the leaves he'd taken all the slack out of
and was raring to go, looked back at me and
(15:00):
the rest of us as if to say, he ain't
kidding men, he ain't got a clue, but let's get
on with it. And with me being thankful dogs couldn't
talk to, Judge said all right, y'all ready cut them loose.
Four hounds each trying to get in the lead, left
in a cloud of dust down the edge of a
stand of hardwood timber bordered by a big soybean filled
(15:24):
They didn't go eighty yards before the barking started, and
Whalen was thirty in line to start making racket. That's
not a good way to start, considering that only gave
him fifty points to start out with in a hunt
that was only going to last ninety minutes. That's why
a few episodes ago, when I talked about dogs being
(15:44):
quick to get gone, strike a track and begin barking
and come treated. So imported, you only have so much
time to score plus points, and plus points are what
mattered most in a competition. Huh. The dogs treating Whalen
was last start barking out of the group. The coon
was found and seen by all of us. We cut
(16:05):
him loose after that tree was scored, and me and
my four licked little buddy were in the last place.
And I only knew that when the judge, who's now
my friend, Barry McEwan from d w At, Arkansas, called
out the places we all held and our scores fourth
place out of fourth. We had nowhere to go but
(16:27):
up from right there. But I wasn't upset. Whaling had
done everything I'd ask him to do. He's not a
follower or a run with the crowd dog. He's independent
to a fault and was only striking in treating with
the other dogs because they'd all smelt the same coon
when we turned them loose. He was there with them
purely out of coincidence. I had nothing to be upset
(16:50):
about when I saw him hunt, carefree and unbothered by
the other dogs. I felt like I'd already won. Rex
and Michael have some Rainman type math skills when it
comes to keeping up with everyone else's score and what
their dog needs to do to get ahead and what
they don't need to do to get behind. And there's
(17:11):
as much strategy that goes into the competition that the
best dog doesn't always win. Some might say that that
takes the fun out of it and that the handler
really doesn't have anything to do with the outcome or
of the performance of the dog, and that is far
from the truth. The handler is the head coach. He
(17:34):
practices and works on corrected minor faults all through the
training time and in between competitions to correct and improve performance.
There are a ton of rules in hunting competitions, and
a well versed, knowledgeable handler with a decent dog will
have the advantage over a better dog with a poor handler.
(17:56):
Clock management is key and knowing where everyone stands on
the scorecard is paramount. There are grace periods and time
limits to be considered for individual parts of the hunt that,
when called too soon or too late, can have direct
results on who wins and who loses. Now, my knowledge
(18:17):
of the rules or lack of them, and coon hunting
competitions could be rendered down to football terms. Now, I
figure there's probably more folks listening to this that can
relate to those than the ones I barely even know.
And I've been in competition hunts, but kind of break
it down like this, run left, run right, throw the ball,
(18:40):
and punt on fourth down if you don't get a
first or score. And coon hunting, it's Carl Whalen's name
when he strikes, call his name when he trees. It's
my own fault for not knowing any more than that.
I had two of the best competition coaches of my
own that I hunted with weekly. I just didn't care,
(19:00):
but not in a non caring way, if that makes
any sense. I was having such a great time being
out there with those men and their dogs that I
couldn't have begun to even guess the score or how
much time was left in the hunt. Some dogs had
treed and no coons were found. Others had done good
here and there, but there was none of them, including
my own, that was doing anything exceptional except Old Whaling
(19:24):
hadn't done anything wrong. Some of the others had. One
in particular, was actually withdrawn from the competition by his hand,
and there was just no way he could catch up
with the rest of us after making a fault and
getting a minus point, so he chose to throw in
the towel. I was listening to them talk about his
(19:45):
withdrawal and trying to follow along and figure out how
the rules all played out when Whaling started barking, so
I just called him struck. And then he started treating
a few moments after, and I treat him. No idea
how much time was left in the hunt, what anyone's
score was, or what mine was for that matter. I
(20:06):
just knew my dog could treat a coon, or it
sounded like he had, and was within seventy five yards
of where we were standing. We all walked over and
someone said, I got him. Now, that's the universal call
out of someone seeing the coon. We all walked to
where he was, and sure enough, about twenty feet off
the ground was a coon looking back at the four
(20:27):
of us, and my barking hound dog, Barry said, waiting
two twenty five plus for striking tree. Time up, men,
that's the hunt. He then took out his scorecard and
commenced to doing some figure. He added readded and added again.
A and the other two men were busy visiting about
how much fun we'd had and that how much we'd
(20:49):
enjoyed hunting together. When Barry said, congratulations, mister Reeves, sir, congratulations,
you won? Are you kidding me? He looked at the
scorecard again, as if doubt in his calculations after my
less than enthusiastic response. Then, with everyone looking over his shoulder,
(21:12):
he went through the hunt and did a play by
play of the hunt as it played out in the
woods and on paper. Sweet Jesus, I did win, but
I learned more than I won. I learned that while
competition coon hunting is fun, I didn't embrace it enough
(21:32):
as a competition handler to keep up with it. While
I was doing it, I enjoyed the community of the endeavor,
the heritage and the legacy of the participants, in the
stories of the dogs present, and passed far beyond the
arena of competition. I Barry mcute could have told me,
I came in last place, and I have never known
(21:52):
the difference or been affected negatively by the outcome. My
dog had done what I asked him to do and
had a him by believing what he told me. While
I fully support all the registries that carry on the
legacy of coon hunting and follow us enthusiasm a lot
of the big competitions, engaging in them beyond being a spectator.
(22:14):
Just me, this ain't who I am, and I learned
that four years ago in Saint Charles, Arkansas, beneath a
big red oak tree on a cool spring deep I'm
a coon hunter and proud to be recognized as one,
but for me, it's not as far as it goes.
(22:37):
On September sixth, from nine am to four pm, I'll
be at the Shepherd Hills Cutlery Celebration in the Ozarks
in Levenon, Missouri. If you get there and pronounce it elevenone,
you will be identified as a spy and thrown into
the stony lownesome. It's Levennont. I learned that the hard way.
(22:58):
Alexis and Bailey will be with me, and we'll have
some this country life merch available along with some of
my signature case mini trappers. Bring the whole family. It's
gonna be a great time. Thank y'all so much for listening.
Share your stories with us at my TCL stories at
the Meat Eater dot com and until next week. This
(23:20):
is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful.
Welcome to this Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trot lighting and just in general
country living. I want you to stay a while as
I share my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life
is presented by Case Knives from the store More Studio
on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor
(00:26):
podcast that airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab
a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stores
to share. Taking the Hounds to Town. Taking a hound
to town has in the circle of coon hunters meant
(00:46):
you were going to enter a competition. Coon hunt. It's
a contest rooted in history and celebrated to this very day.
I'm going to go into my experiences with it and
give you the scoop on what it's meant to me.
It's a story that took about twenty five minutes to
tell in four years to write. We got a hound
(01:08):
to cut loose, so let's get started. On Friday, April
the ninth, twenty twenty one, my friend Rex White and
called me early in the day and said, have your
stuff ready, We're going coon hunt tonight. Now that wasn't unusual.
(01:28):
Wasn't unusual? At all. We went coon hunting a lot
back then. My dog Whaling was a year old and
Rex had been helping me with his training. Rex was
the guy who wound up being my friend by being nosy.
He was driving by my house on his way to
town and saw me out in the driveway cleaning out
a dog box that I had in the back of
(01:48):
my truck. Since he was a hound hunter himself, he
took the opportunity to meet me. Pulled up and started
interrogating me on what kind of hunter I was. Was
a hauling duck dogs in that truck or coon dogs.
Being where Rex and I are from, it was a
safe bet I was one of the other. I was
(02:09):
actually both, but my old lab Anna passed away a
few years before and I had recently acquired a coonhound
named Whalen. Rex had lost his hunting partner a few
years prior, and after we visited for a while, we
decided we'd go together soon, and we did, and we
became friends. Rex was a competition hunter with lots of experience,
(02:32):
and I've talked about him many times on HISS. I'm
sure some of you may remember hearing me say his name,
so just to catch the new folks up. Rex became
my coon hunting coach A couple hours before he came
by the house to pick me up on that Friday night.
He called me back and said, we're taking whaling to
town tonight. I've got you and whalen regsted in a
(02:54):
UKC hunt at the Faulkner County Coon Club. Now, the
official name is of Faulkner County Coon Hunters Association, and
it's located near Conway and registered as an official club
with the United Kennel Club or uk C as that's
commonly referred to, headquartered in Kalamazoo, Michigan, all very official
(03:16):
and lofty sounding names of which I was only aware
of uk C as a dog registry and completely ignorant
of the Coon Club and most especially competition hunts. I
wasn't sure I knew the rules well enough to be
in the competition. Actually I was positive I didn't, but
my coach said we were taking a whale into town,
(03:37):
so that's what we did. Now. All the way over
from my house to the clubhouse, I was quizzing Wrex
on this and that about the rules, and more or
less adding more pressure to myself. Rex said just call
his name out of the judge when you hear him
strike a track, and call him tread when you hear
him treat a coon. You need any help, too bad.
(03:59):
You're on your own and I can't help you. This
competition is you and whaling against the world. Good luck,
We're counting on you. And with that, my bald headed
veteran coon hunting coach kicked me out of his truck
and drug me inside to meet the folks that was
running the contest. The clubhouse was a modest structure that
(04:19):
appeared well kept and well used. You could tell that
there were folks here that had been there for a
long time, folks that had regular spots on the furniture,
and folks who'd probably made some of them. The coffee
pot was in full swing, and there were two men
sitting at a table registering hunters for the drawout that
would come later. That's how it works. There are different
(04:43):
divisions for dogs at different levels of proficiency, and each
dog is entered into the category of registered dogs with
similar talent. Depending on how many dogs show up determines
how many groups or casts are sent out to hunt
dogs with little or no experiencing competition. Hunts are sent
out together in UK. It's hounds male or female that
(05:07):
have zero to four competition cast winds that are grouped
together no more than four hounds in no less than
two can officially make the United Kennel Club cast. I
was grouped with one other person, a man who had
a dog from Port Tobacco, Maryland. Now the man wasn't
from there, but the dog was. And Port Tobacco is
(05:30):
a town founded in seventeen twenty seven, one hundred and
nine years before Arkansas became a state. How that dog
wound up in Arkansas at the Faulkner County Coon Hunters
Association UKC hunt is beyond me. But there we were
two tree and walkers, mine a year and a half
old and his a pretty five year old female named Dixon.
(05:54):
Now I'm glad we were all there, mainly glad Rex
was there. I was nervous as a fellow could be.
We drove a short distance to where we were going
to turn loose, Me and Rex, the man who owned
the dog from Maryland, and the hunt judge who would
also be our guide. Rex was allowed to go with
us as an observer, only he couldn't participate in the
(06:16):
hunt or assist me in any way. No questions, no suggestions,
no facial expressions, anything that could be construed as aid
in any form for his minor league dog handler that
he just called up to the majors. They gave us
the time to be back at the clubhouse to turn
the scorecards in after the hunt. The judge explained that
(06:37):
he wasn't putting up with any foolishness and would judge
each of us fairly and firmly. If we had questions,
we could address them in the field openly. If that
wasn't good enough, we could appeal anything to the Master
of hounds back at the clubhouse. It was in the
low sixties when we cut loose, and the wind was
blowing just hard enough to make it feel a few degrees.
(07:00):
He's cooler. They'd made it about fifty yards when Whaling
barked first and I called his name, strike Whaling. Rex
told me to say it where there was no doubt
in anyone's mind that I had called my dog. I
looked over at him and he nodded his approval, as
the judge repeated back to me, Whaling struck for a
hundred wasn't worked that track. In a short order, he
(07:22):
came treed with his loud booming chops that you can
hear forever, Tree Whaling. I heard the judge say Whaling
treed for one hundred and twenty five. Then Dixie opened
up and her handlet said strike Dixie. The judge answered,
Dixie for seventy five. The only problem was she wound
up running the same track that Whaling did, and when
(07:44):
she treated with Whalen, the only points available were for
a second tree, and that's seventy five points. That's what
the value was. He called Dixie treed and the judge
said strike points are avoided. Dixie treed for seven five. Now,
had she opened up before Whaling was declared tree, before
(08:05):
I called Tree Whaling, she would have had seventy five
second strike points and seventy five for a second tree.
But once a tree is declared there are no more
strike points available. I know that sounds confusing, but it's
really not if you think about it. It makes sense
to do that because it keeps dogs from just following
other dogs around, scoring points off their ears rather than
(08:29):
using their noses. Kind of like copying the answers on
a math test. You didn't do the work, but you're
going to get some of the credit if the answers
are right, that is. And on the scorecard, Whaling was
leading by one hundred and fifty points. He had two
hundred and twenty five to her seventy five. But those
points are only good if we find the coon. I
(08:55):
remember walking up to it, and it was a small
white oak tree about fourteen inches in diameter. Whalen was
standing there on his hind legs and had his front
paws on the trunk of the tree and his head
laid back, telling the world he'd found a coon. Dixie
was on the opposite side of the tree, barking in agreement.
About twenty five feet up in the air was the
(09:16):
prettiest pair of yellowish green eyes looking back at me.
I got him judge. He looked up, as did Rex
and Dixie's handler, and everyone agreed. Whaling now had two
hundred and twenty five plus points and Dixie had seventy
five of her own. Now, the judge told us to
(09:36):
walk her dog, so we walked about eighty yards away
and recast them. They both took off in different directions.
Then in the cool CHRISP. Berry I heard Dixie open up,
and her handler called her struck strike Dixie for a hundred.
The judge said, I got Dixie for a hundred. Then
she started a tree and tree Dixie Dixie for one
(09:58):
hundred and twenty five. Now hadn't made a peak since
leaving that tree. I was watching him on my garment tracker,
and he was working all over a drain that siphoned
down towards Lake Conway. I just knew at any moment
he would have opened up, but he didn't, And now
we were all walking to score Dixie's tree with very
(10:18):
little time left in the hunt. Now, if she'd have
had a coon in that tree, she'd have an additional
two hundred and twenty five point. She'd go with her
seventy five. And if Whaling the Wonder Hound didn't do
something pretty quick, the closest thing we were going to
be to win in our first competition hunt was being
the first loser. All of a sudden, I didn't feel
(10:40):
too good about our chances. For someone who had repeatedly
said I'm not sure I'd even want the competition coon hunt,
thought of losing this hunt was apparently more important than
I thought. We all got the Dixie's tree and began
searching for a coon, and in the vein of competition,
that man not being able to find that coon, even
(11:02):
if it was up there, would mean Whalen would win.
Trees that are scored where a coon isn't found but
could possibly be there, hidden in the vegetation or in
a hole big enough for them to seek refuge in,
will have the points circle, meaning the coon may have
been in there, but we couldn't prove it, and we
(11:23):
couldn't prove it wasn't. They're called circle points, and a
million circle points won't be one plus point because as
in Whalen's tree, everyone heard him bark pretty bark burst,
and they heard it, they saw him the coon in
the trees that he had treated on. Those are plus points.
(11:43):
We searched and searched Dixie's tree, and I tried to
find her coon. Had she had one, and I was
the only person who have seen it, I would have
pointed it out to the handler and the judge, and
I would have lost the competition, but I would have
done the right thing. In the UKC Handbook of rules
that are not referred to simply as rules, they're called
(12:05):
honor rules. And there's a reason for that, and the
main reason is just for situations like that one. She
treed on a big water oak and it was a
huge old tree with lots of leaves that had come on,
and we searched and searched that tree right up aunt
the time that the hunt was over, but we couldn't
(12:28):
find it, just declared the point circled and with time
up Whalen had won his first and my first UK
sea hunt we ever entered. Dixie's handler shook my hand
the sick congratulations. I was excited and happy with how
we'd done us, proud of how Whaling had performed, and
relieved of how I hadn't messed up this competition. Coon
(12:52):
hunting is fun and apparently pretty easy. I'd entered and
won my first UK sea hunt against a more experienced
dog and handler. I must be a natural of this,
I was not. Over the course of a year twenty
twenty one into twenty twenty two, I entered three more
(13:13):
competition hunts and got my tail whipped all three times.
I could have easily entered ten times that many in
that span of time, and took a lot of chastising
by Rex Whiting and my other coon hunting coach, Michael Roseman,
both of them telling me, you got a good dog,
you ought to be hunting him in these hunts to
(13:34):
get a title. It just didn't matter much to me.
Even though I enjoyed meeting new folks who liked the
same things as I did, coon hounds and all the
things that go with them. I just never really got
stoked up about hunting in an official contest. Case in point,
our fifth and final contests that happened a year later.
(13:55):
On May the seventh, twenty twenty two, Michael and I
had gone to Saint Charles, Arkansas to hunt a UK
sensationed event sponsored by the East Arkansas Coon Hunters Association.
I would be hunting with folks that I didn't know
and had met only that night. One fellow was hunting
(14:16):
the black and tan and one was hunting a blue tick.
Our guide, who was also serving as a judge, which
is the official scorekeeper of the hunt, was hunting the
tree and a walker like I was. I had my
work cut out for me. I could tell these guys
were veterans of competition hunts. After we drove to where
we were going to be turned loose, set around to talk.
(14:38):
Before we did, I told the other three that if
y'all want to practice taking advantage of someone who doesn't
know the rules, very well, tonight's your night. Gents. I
have no idea what I'm doing. And they all laughed,
and I laughed with them. Whaling, who I was holding
by the leaves he'd taken all the slack out of
and was raring to go, looked back at me and
(15:00):
the rest of us as if to say, he ain't
kidding men, he ain't got a clue, but let's get
on with it. And with me being thankful dogs couldn't
talk to, Judge said all right, y'all ready cut them loose.
Four hounds each trying to get in the lead, left
in a cloud of dust down the edge of a
stand of hardwood timber bordered by a big soybean filled
(15:24):
They didn't go eighty yards before the barking started, and
Whalen was thirty in line to start making racket. That's
not a good way to start, considering that only gave
him fifty points to start out with in a hunt
that was only going to last ninety minutes. That's why
a few episodes ago, when I talked about dogs being
(15:44):
quick to get gone, strike a track and begin barking
and come treated. So imported, you only have so much
time to score plus points, and plus points are what
mattered most in a competition. Huh. The dogs treating Whalen
was last start barking out of the group. The coon
was found and seen by all of us. We cut
(16:05):
him loose after that tree was scored, and me and
my four licked little buddy were in the last place.
And I only knew that when the judge, who's now
my friend, Barry McEwan from d w At, Arkansas, called
out the places we all held and our scores fourth
place out of fourth. We had nowhere to go but
(16:27):
up from right there. But I wasn't upset. Whaling had
done everything I'd ask him to do. He's not a
follower or a run with the crowd dog. He's independent
to a fault and was only striking in treating with
the other dogs because they'd all smelt the same coon
when we turned them loose. He was there with them
purely out of coincidence. I had nothing to be upset
(16:50):
about when I saw him hunt, carefree and unbothered by
the other dogs. I felt like I'd already won. Rex
and Michael have some Rainman type math skills when it
comes to keeping up with everyone else's score and what
their dog needs to do to get ahead and what
they don't need to do to get behind. And there's
(17:11):
as much strategy that goes into the competition that the
best dog doesn't always win. Some might say that that
takes the fun out of it and that the handler
really doesn't have anything to do with the outcome or
of the performance of the dog, and that is far
from the truth. The handler is the head coach. He
(17:34):
practices and works on corrected minor faults all through the
training time and in between competitions to correct and improve performance.
There are a ton of rules in hunting competitions, and
a well versed, knowledgeable handler with a decent dog will
have the advantage over a better dog with a poor handler.
(17:56):
Clock management is key and knowing where everyone stands on
the scorecard is paramount. There are grace periods and time
limits to be considered for individual parts of the hunt that,
when called too soon or too late, can have direct
results on who wins and who loses. Now, my knowledge
(18:17):
of the rules or lack of them, and coon hunting
competitions could be rendered down to football terms. Now, I
figure there's probably more folks listening to this that can
relate to those than the ones I barely even know.
And I've been in competition hunts, but kind of break
it down like this, run left, run right, throw the ball,
(18:40):
and punt on fourth down if you don't get a
first or score. And coon hunting, it's Carl Whalen's name
when he strikes, call his name when he trees. It's
my own fault for not knowing any more than that.
I had two of the best competition coaches of my
own that I hunted with weekly. I just didn't care,
(19:00):
but not in a non caring way, if that makes
any sense. I was having such a great time being
out there with those men and their dogs that I
couldn't have begun to even guess the score or how
much time was left in the hunt. Some dogs had
treed and no coons were found. Others had done good
here and there, but there was none of them, including
my own, that was doing anything exceptional except Old Whaling
(19:24):
hadn't done anything wrong. Some of the others had. One
in particular, was actually withdrawn from the competition by his hand,
and there was just no way he could catch up
with the rest of us after making a fault and
getting a minus point, so he chose to throw in
the towel. I was listening to them talk about his
(19:45):
withdrawal and trying to follow along and figure out how
the rules all played out when Whaling started barking, so
I just called him struck. And then he started treating
a few moments after, and I treat him. No idea
how much time was left in the hunt, what anyone's
score was, or what mine was for that matter. I
(20:06):
just knew my dog could treat a coon, or it
sounded like he had, and was within seventy five yards
of where we were standing. We all walked over and
someone said, I got him. Now, that's the universal call
out of someone seeing the coon. We all walked to
where he was, and sure enough, about twenty feet off
the ground was a coon looking back at the four
(20:27):
of us, and my barking hound dog, Barry said, waiting
two twenty five plus for striking tree. Time up, men,
that's the hunt. He then took out his scorecard and
commenced to doing some figure. He added readded and added again.
A and the other two men were busy visiting about
how much fun we'd had and that how much we'd
(20:49):
enjoyed hunting together. When Barry said, congratulations, mister Reeves, sir, congratulations,
you won? Are you kidding me? He looked at the
scorecard again, as if doubt in his calculations after my
less than enthusiastic response. Then, with everyone looking over his shoulder,
(21:12):
he went through the hunt and did a play by
play of the hunt as it played out in the
woods and on paper. Sweet Jesus, I did win, but
I learned more than I won. I learned that while
competition coon hunting is fun, I didn't embrace it enough
(21:32):
as a competition handler to keep up with it. While
I was doing it, I enjoyed the community of the endeavor,
the heritage and the legacy of the participants, in the
stories of the dogs present, and passed far beyond the
arena of competition. I Barry mcute could have told me,
I came in last place, and I have never known
(21:52):
the difference or been affected negatively by the outcome. My
dog had done what I asked him to do and
had a him by believing what he told me. While
I fully support all the registries that carry on the
legacy of coon hunting and follow us enthusiasm a lot
of the big competitions, engaging in them beyond being a spectator.
(22:14):
Just me, this ain't who I am, and I learned
that four years ago in Saint Charles, Arkansas, beneath a
big red oak tree on a cool spring deep I'm
a coon hunter and proud to be recognized as one,
but for me, it's not as far as it goes.
(22:37):
On September sixth, from nine am to four pm, I'll
be at the Shepherd Hills Cutlery Celebration in the Ozarks
in Levenon, Missouri. If you get there and pronounce it elevenone,
you will be identified as a spy and thrown into
the stony lownesome. It's Levennont. I learned that the hard way.
(22:58):
Alexis and Bailey will be with me, and we'll have
some this country life merch available along with some of
my signature case mini trappers. Bring the whole family. It's
gonna be a great time. Thank y'all so much for listening.
Share your stories with us at my TCL stories at
the Meat Eater dot com and until next week. This
(23:20):
is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful.
Host
Clay Newcomb
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