Beginner's Guide to Coon Hunting

Have you ever thought about getting a dog? A coon dog? On this podcast Brent Reaves, Nick Gilliland and Clay Newcomb break down the barriers to entry in this iconic past time. It's probably a lot more doable that you think and the benefits of being a coonhunter are notable. Raccoon populations are at an all-time high and there has never been a better time to start hunting at night. You're bound to learn something and to enjoy this fun conversation with the hosts of the Nite Life Nation Podcast. Be sure to check them out for more detailed information about coonhunting. 

 

Bear Hunting Magazine is powered by Simplecast

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation podcast network, brought to
you by Outdoor Edge in their complete lineup of knives
and game processing. Kids. These guys right now are doing
an absolutely huge giveaway where you could win an elk hunt.
And not just any elk hunt. We're talking about a
seven or eight mile horseback ride into the back country.

(00:25):
We're talking a one on one guided hunt. You're gonna
be sleeping in a wall tent, and you're going to
be doing that for five days with the founder and
CEO of Outdoor Edge, David Block. Now, if you've never
been on an elk hunt before, I'm telling you right
now go sign up for this because if you ever

(00:46):
hear a elk bugle, whether it's at four hundred yards
or it's at forty yards, it is a life changing experience.
So here's how you enter. Go to outdoor edge dot com.
There's gonna be a big banner for it somewhere on
their homepage. All you have to do is click on that,
go fill out some information I think your name, your

(01:06):
email address, maybe some other stuff, and that's all you
have to do. That's how you are entered. They're gonna
be picking a winner. Oh always from now so you
have plenty of time to enter. Go visit outdoor edge
dot com. Sign up today. Here we go. My name

(01:29):
is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the Bear Hunting
Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the world
of hunting the icon of the North American Wilderness Prepare.
We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation. We will also bring
you into some of the wildest country off the planet
chasing fair. This week, I'm over in eastern Arkansas with

(02:00):
my good friend Brent Reeves and Nick Gilliland. We're coon camp.
We're cooking catfish, we're coon hunting, we're training some young dogs,
we're letting some old dogs hunt. And we have an
in depth discussion and I mean in depth about coon
hunting and we break it down. We break it down.
This is a beginner's guide to coon hunting because I

(02:21):
think that coon hunting is a great point for people
to enter into the outdoor world. You're gonna enjoy this podcast.
With my friend Brent Reeves and Nick Gilliland. I want
to talk to you about c v A muzzleloaders. C
v A has been around since nineteen one. They have
an incredible guarantee on all their guns. If you don't

(02:44):
like them, you simply send them back within a specified
period of time and they will refund your money. What
I want to talk to you today about is their
Acura muzzloaders. Their Accura has and I try to treated
stainless barrel and provides a high level of long range
performance without sacrificing balance and maneuverability. Like all their Accurate

(03:07):
series rifles, they all feature genuine Bigara barrels, which are
recognized as being the most accurate production rifle barrels in
the world. The nitride treatment hardens on the outer layer
of the barrel steel and turns a rich black color,
making these barrels impervious to corrosion. Additional standard equipment on
this c v A is their quick release breech plug,

(03:30):
which is basically you don't have to have a tool
to break it down and clean it. You also find
their durist site and their quake Claw gun sling on
all their guns. Hey, check out c v A if
you're looking for a muzzloader. These are gonna be the
best muzzloaders on the market. We can't have a coon

(03:50):
hunting podcast without talking about W Hunting Supply. W Hunting
Supply has everything that you need for hound hunting. They've
got leash and collars, They've got garment equipment, they've got
sport dog equipment. They've got all types in any and
everything of what you need for your hound, for your

(04:11):
for your for your squirrel dogs, for your duck dogs,
for your yard dog, whatever you need. If you need
dog stuff, you need to check out W Hunting Supply.
Buddy Woodbury and his team have an incredible acumen for
customer service they do. I was, I was a customer
before they were partners of this podcast. You're going to

(04:34):
enjoy this podcast with Brent Reeves and Nick gettle Land.
You know, I hate to start off this podcast with
a biology lesson, but I just learned something that I
hadn't told you all yet. Out here I was skinning
this squirrel and did you know, did you know tell

(04:57):
me the truth that a squirrel has a baculi. A
buck squirrel has a bone just his man parts, and
just like the raccoon and the bear. I didn't know
that it is very small that I did not know.
I absolutely did not know that it's it's about a

(05:18):
quarter inch long. I don't recall ever having a conversation
about one, but but I didn't know that it was
skinning squirrels with my dad and coon's and he said
they were of the same ilk. It's the only buck

(05:39):
squirrel that I've ever skinned that I noted it so
and it was it was not of the normal persuasion
of a coon. So again, this is a science lesson.
So this is this is just what we do. And uh,
you know, as coon hunters, everybody knows about the Baculai vaccoon.
You know, it's uh notable. Yes, so I we're in

(06:05):
East Arkansas. I was just corrected because we I had
said we were in South Arkansas. Any time I'm like
in swamp country, I feel like I'm in the South.
But we're not in the south at all actually, and
not quite northeast Arkansas. But if Arkansas was split into quadrants,
it would be we would be in the northeast quadrant.

(06:26):
Would you say we're above the halfway mark in Arkansas,
we would be in the southern portion of the northeast parts.
Kind of like a legal description. Yeah, we have to
be careful describing the people where we are because we
don't want to actually know where our secret spot. That's right. Well,
we're so we're in the northeast, the southern part of

(06:47):
the northeast quadrant of Arkansas, and we are we're at
Coon Camp. This is a this is the first for me,
and I've got Brent Reeves who has been here lots
of times before, so Brent welcome. Do you have any
science lessons for us? Just anything you've learned in the

(07:09):
last hour and a half. Alright, good, Nick, plumbing, I
can I can give you plumbing a plumbing lesson real quick.
What the three things you need to know about plumbing?
Go ahead, hots on the left, don't bite your fingernails,
and all the bad stuff runs down hill. That's everything
you need to know about. And the hot water in

(07:29):
this place is scalid. It's hogs. God. Yeah. Yeah. And
I've got Nick gili Land from western North Carolina. I
think any state or any place that has a direction
attached to it, it's very important that you add a
second direction in there, to even be more specific, so

(07:53):
that people aren't confused that there's one Carolina and you
live on the north side of it. Are you with me? Absolutely?
Eastern North Carolina I have come to find out that
the folks that live in the two directional states that
proceed Carolina were very particular about which one you say
that they live in. If they live in the north wind,

(08:14):
don't say don't you live in South Carolina? That isn't no, no,
I understand, no, do not do that. The mountains literally
stopped the state line. It's a desert. After that, they
just drop straight off with this whole different world. Wey,
what we're gonna do on this on this session is
we we I want to talk to you guys about
coon hunting. You guys are big coon hunters. Um. I

(08:38):
want to overall, I want to talk about what we're
doing here this weekend. But I want to talk I
want to walk somebody through who knows nothing about coon hunting.
I think there's a lot of people that are looking
for ways to to enjoy public lands, enjoy the outdoors,
and so they're exploring options of what they enjoy. And

(09:02):
there's some things in life that just seemed to have
these these barriers inside of them that are pretty dominant
and hard to get over. Okay, like, for instance, if
you're a if you're a golfer, like the barrier to
entry to golf is so huge because your life would

(09:22):
have to be so in the tubes for you to
want to play golf that you would have to be
it like that. I'm kid, I'm kid. You know that
there's some things that have these strong barriers to entry
that if you don't have exposure to them in some

(09:43):
way or know somebody that does it, you would just
never know that this was an option for something that
you could do. And I think coon hunting because of
it's uh maybe maybe it's reputation. Maybe I find that
people you're you're either a coon hutter or no a
lot about it or you know nothing about it. And

(10:05):
like Brent was saying that the people's main exposure to
coon hunting is from who was it? Mr Wilson Rawls?
Wilson rawls Where the red fern grows yep, And so
that's their exposure. A lot of people have read that
book and they have this idea of coon hunting. But
here's here's my take on it. And this is why
we're talking about it is when I was in high school,

(10:30):
I this is true, this true story. I foresaw that
my family was going to be an important part of
my life and that I was going to be a
family man and have a wife and have kids, and
I thought, you know what, if I'm a coon hunter,
I can put those kids to bed and do all
the normal things I have to do as a dad,

(10:50):
and I can coon hunt after that. I remember having
those thoughts when I was a teenager, like this is
a wise investment to learn how to do. And maybe
my dad put that in my mind, and somehow I
don't know where that came from, but that is my
selling point for you know, as an option. Like a
lot of people are busy during the daytime. A lot

(11:10):
of people are busy, a lot of people have stuff
to do, a lot of people have commitments. Um, if
you have a squirrel dog, you've got to hunt that
dog during the daytime. The daytime is valuable real estate
on a calendar. The nighttime is when a grown man
can make a decision to whittle away some leisure time.

(11:33):
And you know, if you miss a couple hours of sleep,
you can do that, and you can make that decision
and you can you can find this new thing to
enjoy the outdoors. Yeah, and you're you're not using it.
You don't have to burn vacation time. You don't have
to take that the limited time that you have away
from your job that you would need to be spending

(11:54):
with your family. If they're not interested in going with you,
you don't have to take that in those hours. And
you couldn't be spending them with them doing something at
night because I mean, it's not costing you anything. You
can still do the other thing. Yeah, and you know,
if you have a family and they decided to go
with you, it's one of those things they could actually
partake of. You know, if you have a young child,

(12:14):
to take them deer and they'd sit there and be quiet,
don't move, you know, and all that stuff. But you
can tow them through the woods or have them walked
with you and it's no big deal. Well and see
that's just so okay. So point number one is the
time when you do it. You can coon hunt during
the nighttime, not as valuable of real estate except for sleep. Okay,

(12:35):
number two what Nick just said, Um, you can. You
can take people with you and there's not as big
a barrier to entry. Most states, a person that's a
participant inside of a connut wouldn't even necessarily have to
have a hunting license if they're not gonna be shooting
and partaking of game. It's a it's a it's a
social sport. It's easy to take people. Everybody has heard

(12:57):
me talk about all the honey that I've done my
whole life. I have taken more people and introduced them
to hunting through coon hunting than any other thing that
I do. Um Number three is that the coons happened
to be doing really well in the current ecosystem. Messo predators.

(13:20):
Have you guys heard the theory on messo predators? Okay,
imagineing Uh basically, uh a pre European colonization or colonized
North America. Okay, limited human influence. I mean a lot
of human influence, but a lot less than now. There
would have been big predators everywhere here in Arkansas. There

(13:42):
would have been mountain lines. There would have been wolves.
Uh there there Uh well those were in Bears has
been the three big main predators. Okay, we essentially, well,
we removed mountain lines, we removed wolves. Now we only
have bears. Well, the the natural order has this vacuum

(14:04):
that's created when predators are removed. So the mid size
the meso predators increased. Coyotes, coons, skunks, possums, mid sized
predators filled in the void that the the apex predators
once filled. And so that's why now the place is

(14:25):
covered with coons, coyotes, possums, foxes, stuff like that. So
these are also animals that are not highly coveted by
most people. Am I right? So there's a lot of
access if you want to pursue finding a place to cuna.

(14:47):
And now, Nix, I want to hear nick story about
how he has a tough time in North Carolina find
a place to cuna, which is hard for me to believe.
I mean, I believe you, it's hard. I wouldn't have
known it. Um. So one is is that you're not
asking a farmer down here to go hunt his hundred
and eighty in white tail. You're not asking him to

(15:08):
go kill a gobbler turkeys. You're not asking to you know,
it's a small ask. So it's accessible public land. Almost
all public land we would have in the Midwest would
have coons. Um. So it's a it's a it's it's
an accessible thing. Um. I'm I'm I'm building some some

(15:33):
ideas for why this is a This is about everything.
Number four, Number seven, we're gonna skip number seven. I
don't know, I don't know. Number one. You you use
a dog in this hunt. I think people that have
never used a dog before in a hunting situation. It

(15:55):
adds a whole layer of excitement that is totally different
than big game hunting. I mean, I loved the big
game hunt. I mean I've built my I've built my
hunting life around big game hunting. I love it to
be able to go from a big game hunt, which
is a solo endeavor typically. You know, no, you're not

(16:18):
using a dog to go to this social hunt. A
lot of people that can be involved hunting small game.
You're you're not trying to kill one coon a year.
We're gonna this is this is an opportunity game, you know.
And uh and so it's using the dog is just

(16:38):
so incredible. Okay, what are you gus thoughts on which part?
On on on all in every part, all in every part. Now,
I'm just can you guys think of any other I'm
just trying to build a case. And then we're gonna
talk about how we're coon hunting. Well, when you talk

(16:59):
about to access if you we always talk about you
and I talk about limiting factors on something enhancing the experience,
and and like Nicol explained in a minute, the limiting
factor he has to deal without North Carolina, we actually
don't the limiting factor we would have here as far

(17:21):
as gaining access to property, maybe because someone else has
already beat us to it, because the the landowner, the
deer hunter, and the turkey hunter. These coons are a
problem to them. You know, where it's legal to to
to feed corn, you know, to deer or whatever, to
use bait. They're they're in competition direct competition with cones.

(17:43):
Coons are a nest predator for turkeys, you know there
and in Arkansas especially, you know Clay that the turkey
hunting in Arkansas has suffered because of the amount of
predators and the predation on on nesting, on ground nested animals.
It's been tough to the point at this point number twelve,

(18:04):
and we're doing a service. And it's very true. Yeah,
you know, and it's I mean, it's you can tell it. It'sn't.
And it doesn't take a you know, three or four
or five years study to do it. I mean you
can see you see more dead coon's running up down
the highway and then you and you're seeing list turkeys
in the woods, hearing fewer gobblers. You know, Hey, I

(18:25):
want to make a comment on that, and I really
don't want to monologue. I'm gonna actually talk to you guys,
but I just wanted to set this preface. Okay, the
people that are in the know oftentimes will have have
a refute a little bit, this idea that coon hunters
are actually doing something for conservation by taking off coons

(18:47):
off the landscape. Okay, I talked to I corresponded with
the Mike Chamberlain, the wild Turkey doc uh, the guy
that was on Big Big One, the top turkey biologists
in the country. He he actually did has done an
extensive amount of research on coon's in the South. He

(19:08):
sent me a bunch of bunch of his research papers
over the last twenty years that he has written about coon's,
coon predation, all these different things. So sometimes like we
might wear a chip on our shoulder saying, hey, we're
we're saving the predators. And I basically said, tell me
why we're not, because I hear some people say, well,

(19:30):
you're not really having an impact. These guys on and Basically,
what I felt like he insinuated, and I'm not putting
his words about this is what I insinuated from what
he told me is that on a on a small scale,
a coon hunter can make a difference. On a macro scale,
coon hunters probably can't. Do you understand what I'm saying.

(19:50):
I mean, because we hunt on these little bitty pockets
of land, even this ten thousand acre property that we're
coon hunting this weekend, that is a spa on the
map when it comes to turkey habitat in the state
of Arkansas. So like a like a turkey manager for
the State of Arkansas would be like, coon hunting doesn't

(20:11):
really impact success in turkey nesting because there is such
a You've got to have a really special set of
circumstances for you to be able to run a dog
on a place. It's got to be a big enough place.
The landowner's gotta be happy about it. Um And essentially
he was like, there's no possible way that you're not hurting.

(20:36):
I mean, there's no possible way that what you're doing
is negative for turkeys. He said, I can't prove how
much it is, but the way I think about it
is if the one coon that we killed last night,
or we killed a couple, if that was the coon
that came upon the turkey nest that day or was
going to and it didn't because it was dead, that's

(20:59):
a direct impact. Yeah, And so it's hard for sometimes
research science to say coon hunters are saving wild turkeys.
Are you with me? So anyway, I just wanted to
say that there is credible understand because what's happening to
wild turkey nest is they're getting robbed by predators. I mean,

(21:21):
that is what is happening now. It's a lot of
predators and that's what Mike has shown everybody and their
research is that it's great horned owls and it's skunks,
and it's coyotes, and it's possums and it's black snakes
eating a lot of turkey gigs. So anyway, but that's
a good point, is that we are doing a service

(21:41):
and in certain places, and I know from the places
I hunt back home, you can thin out coons on
a property to where they are hard to find. If
you're not making an impact for the whole state, I
guarantee you the farmer of the man leasing that particular
piece of land. If you've been there for a year
or two, you can probably see the impact that you're
having at least, you know. Yeah, Nick, tell me about

(22:03):
hunting in North Carolina, Like, uh described to me the
challenges of hunting there. Well, the proof is I'm here
and not in North Carolina, right, So that's that number one. Well,
you know, in western North Carolina everything is mountainous. Um,
so the terrain has a big factor in it, you know. Um,

(22:24):
it's very hard to hunt just the terrain. In general.
Everything's laid out different. There's no crops lands, Um, These
river bottoms and stuff you know that you have here,
we don't have those, so that makes it more difficult.
The biggest issue we have is everywhere around the house
is turned into retirement community. Um. Well it used to
be where a guy had some bottom farm land and

(22:44):
he had two or three d acres on the mountain too.
It's sold off scoff course down the bottoms, million dollar
homes all over the ridges, gated community. There's absolutely no access.
Even if Grandpa did hunted, you're not gonna get to. Um, say,
Joe Blow gives you permission for teen acres next door.

(23:05):
One the properties nowhere near big enough you can run
a dog on. More than likely you're gonna end up
in the gay community. Law is gonna be called. It's
just too much of a hassle. Tell me. Let me
stop you right there, because a lot of people might
have a question about this. What do you think is
a big enough property to turn loose a dog on.
I wouldn't turn loose from no less on heart acres,

(23:26):
And that would be a young dog that is started
king hunting. Yeah, more than likely. If it has kun
on heart acres, you can get something going, but the
dog and dogs probably not gonna go off of it. Yeah,
more than likely. But if the dog has any kind
of experience to it, you know, then I probably wouldn't.
I would need to because he's gonna maybe win one

(23:47):
from off. He's gonna end up off the property to
go find one. Yeah, my experience hound, you know, two
three hundred acres because I can handle him well, I
can call him off if I need to, and it
won't hurt him to cut him off the middle of
the track because he's experienced so that that would probably
be the memium for him. But you know, a young
pub you can get by with the Hunter Acres. And
that's just I can name you maybe five or six

(24:10):
property owners in my entire county that owned the Hunter Acres.
You know, that's just that's a that is a regional
issue because of the population explosion of where you're at
in western North Carolina. I mean that's like where man,
I tell you one thing coming from here going back
east and seeing that world over there is there's a

(24:33):
lot of people over there. Yeah, I mean more so
than what word used to here. Everything we used to
have as far as industry was textiles and plants, and
then the nineties all those kind of went away, and
you know, you get a lot of people from Charleston,
even up north, they moved to the mountains in North
Carolina because of the temperature, we got good four seasons.
Everything is a little bit equal. You've got some good

(24:54):
hot summer, you've got cold winter. You know. So whether
they're trying to get away from this out of the
you know, in the extreme, they find it there. And
so now everybody that loves around or you either sell
them their land, you build their house, you mother grass
or something. So it's a necessary evil. We've accepted it
and we take it in for our livelihood, but we've
lost all our access to natural resources, you know, for

(25:16):
any kind of hunting well, and that so there in
lies a challenge to coon hunting is finding a place
to hunt, and and that challenge is nationwide. I would say,
like right now where I live in northwest Arkansas, that
would be a similar challenge, even though we have a
lot of public land. Like thirty years ago and beyond,

(25:40):
you know, it was common for farmers to see it
normal that they would let the coon hunters hunt their place.
You wouldn't even necessarily have to have permission just to
be a given. Oh, coon hunters run you went down
to let's go to tonight, let's go down to Clay's
farm and turn loose. And it's just like it was

(26:02):
permission to build. So I mean, you know, it doesn't care.
It's the coon hunter, and and that that would have
been common, and I love it. I love it in
when I find people still like that. And the two
places that I hunt are like that. Those guys, I mean,
it's like they are just like, well, of course you're
gonna hunt my farm. You're a coon hunter, aren't you.

(26:22):
I Mean, that's that's kind of the way they look
at it. Another thing that he fights out there too,
that he and I've talked about is because of that,
you can't go down to Clay's farm in turnal Leaves anymore.
All those folks that used to do that are now
going to where their state ground is their public hunting. Yeah,
we only have well in the county, we have to

(26:42):
two areas of public ground. We have a National Force
and then a state game land what we call it.
And the National Force has certain restrictions. You know, they've
got a lot of access roads. I do not understand why,
but when season comes in, they shut the gates on.
So even if you want to deer hunt it, you
gotta hockey in, you know, into the mountains miles and
so coon hunting is pain to do that. And what

(27:05):
few guys still coon hunt, You know, they're flogging to
those areas because I saw they got They don't have
any public or private land either. It's just like I don't.
So if you're the last guy to get there ten
miss after dark, you know, you don't have a creek
to turn a dog. So yeah, that makes sense. So
we're sitting here talking about coon hunting because we uh,

(27:27):
we're on a coon hunting excrapaganza this weekend and Nick
Nick's dog got hurt. We don't even know what happened
to it, but Nick hunting, he hunt it. We hunt
until four am last night, and then Nick drove his
dog to a to a vet two hours away. And
you just gotta you gotta leave, like right now to
go get the dog. Yeah. Yeah, Thursday nights when I

(27:49):
hunt him and uh, I guess he got a must
run two you think of beaver stop, Yeah, that's what
it looked like. And just basically him right in the chest.
And uh Friday when we came out, was walking him
saying he was swollen. And then uh, so I left
him in the kennel. Last night we went hunting, come
back and he's definitely got infection. So I had to
drive him to the vet and it's two hours away,

(28:11):
so they just notify me I gotta come get him. Well,
it was awesome having you on here. We were hoping
to have you the whole time. So anyway, you're the
first guest to exit the bare hunting congratulations. But it's
because you're we're in the we're in the heat of
it right here, and you gotta go get that dog.

(28:31):
So Nick, hey, thanks for thanks for being on and uh,
we hope the dog's okay. But and we're going hunting tonight,
so you gotta drive, go get the dog, and then
we're going hunting again. You'll be back in a a little bit. Okay,
all right, man, Brent, this is what I would like
to do. I would like to talk through just a

(28:53):
general conversation about how somebody could get started coon hunting. Okay,
so walk me through, Um, what what we're doing when
we're coon hunting? Like what Because because I shared with
Nick yesterday, people see like coon hunters posting stuff on

(29:17):
social media and they see these dogs barking at a tree.
I took a guy hunting one night and he was like, oh,
I thought these dogs were gonna be crazy all night long.
He had no He just thought that these were just
like wild dogs that just we're gonna be barking all
the time. It's gonna be and chaotic. And when he

(29:38):
saw my dogs were just like pets in the back
of my truck and the only time they bark like
that is when they're on a tree or without a trailer.
So point being, he didn't understand the aspects of what
we were doing. And uh so walk me through what
what you're actually doing on a coon from like the beginning,

(30:00):
like where we go, what time we go, what we do,
and then I'll interject and interrupt you. Certain times of
the year depend on the time dark we're going at night.
I mean, this is a coon is conducted at night.
The time of year will depend on what time of

(30:21):
night that you go. Normally, when it's hotter, warmer weather,
you will go later because coon's just like people, you know,
if it's hot outside, they don't really feel like going
onto and doing a whole lot. So usually at the
optimum time when it's the coolest part of the night,
as you generally when you get the most activity from

(30:41):
coon's going you know, moving around coming down from their
dens out of the trees, and so they're sleeping during
the day and they're moving around at night as most
of the time. As a rule that that's that's the
way it goes, right, And so you're gonna go and
you're gonna go to an area where you feel like,
you know there's where coons will be. So you need
to be familiar with with with what they need, what

(31:04):
their food sources are um. You know, habitat that is
suitable form. So you know, hardwood, hardwood timber in this
area would be UM. Any place, um, well there's water.
You know, they like crawfish, they like frogs, tadpoles, but

(31:25):
they'll also eat they want to eat berries and grasshoppers
and insects and and their corn. You know, they're they're
hard on a farmer's corn patch. Um, those kind of
places where they can shop for the wide variety of

(31:45):
things that they use. They're they're an omnivore deluxe. That's
part of the reason why they've been so biologically successful.
And let me distial it down to even like the
dummies guide to where to turn loose your coon dog,
if you don't know, is on a creek, on a lake,
on a body of water. Typically coons are gonna be

(32:06):
I would say eight percent of the time, I'm turning
loose on some in some proximity of a body of water,
Like if I'm in the ozarks, I'm turning loose on
a pond or on a creek. If we're down here,
we're turning loose usually along you know, ox bow or
buyou or something and uh so a coon's one of

(32:31):
his primary ways of gathering food is in water, and
they they like to People say coons like to wash
their food. They actually don't like to wash their food,
but they like to get their hands wet when they
feel around on their food to try to it increases
their tactile sensory ability on their on their hands, which

(32:55):
I have read that a coon has more tactile sensory
receptors on his paws front paws than any other animal
in its class. You know, I'm not gonna say any
animal in the world because I don't know that, but
in North America. So they have this incredible ability to
to feel. And so the way the way that comes

(33:16):
in handy is at night, when they cannot see, they
use their hands as their eyes, basically putting that hand
under water. So water. So you've got us to where
you're gonna go. You're gonna turn loose in a place
where you think there's coons, and pretty much anywhere there's woods,
there's gonna be coons. Wherever you live, there's there's There

(33:36):
are some places where there are not raccoons in the
lower forty eight, but anywhere in the East, and even
more so out west. I've got a friend now in
Montana that is starting his dog on coons, and I
mean they're finding coons out in the river bottoms in Montana,
but typically it would be in the you know, in
the eastern deciduous forest, you know, in that section of

(33:59):
the world is where they're gonna have coon's okay, So
there there, we've that's where we're gonna go. Okay, and
then what are we gonna do? And then we're not
talking about training a dog will go back to that,
but like, what are what are we gonna what? What
are you doing? Well, when we get there, you know,
we're gonna hopefully be um, you know, kind of oriented
to to that piece of property or whether we're using

(34:22):
going it off a map, you know or Apple on
the phone, or a place that we're already familiar with,
maybe a place that were that we deer hunt or whatever,
or where we grew up, you know, public land, anything
someway that you know that's that's big enough expense where
your dog. You can turn a dog loose and let
it get out and get away from it and start
looking for the scent fresh scent of a coon, and

(34:45):
you're gonna do this at night. You know, like like
I said, when they come down, they come down with
the trees and they start looking for something to eat.
You want to put that dog out there and hopefully
he's gonna intersect his nose is gonna intersect with their
track that they've made, their scent that they laid down. Okay,
is this dog like a bird dog that's gonna stay
within sight of you? Or is he gonna just range

(35:07):
out and go hunt on its own? Well, you know
you've got mostly they're going to range out and and
hunt on their own. Ideally, you're gonna be able to
turn the dog loose when you listen for when he leaves,
he leaves silently, and when he runs across a coon
track the scent of a coon, he's gonna do what
they we call open. He's gonna open up. He's gonna

(35:27):
start barking, and he will bark hopefully consistently. Are enough
that that you can tell his general direction. You know,
now we have GPS s and and and and satellites
that where we can keep up with the exact track
of where our dog is and and in its relation
to the to the Google Earth view of of this

(35:50):
piece of property you own, So it's not as him
being his vocal on the track is not as important
as it was at one time. It's not a bark
to to run the quarry up a tree. To make
him go up a tree, it was a bark so
you could know where he was at. And so as
he's going down through the woods and he's barking and

(36:12):
he's letting you know where he's at, and then that
he is running a count and he's supposed to be
only barking if he's running the raccoon. That's right. Now, Hey,
you've just tapped into the very definition of a hound.
A hound is an animal as a dog that barks
on ground scent. I mean, that's that's inside the definition

(36:36):
of what a hound does. There are other dogs that
aren't hounds that do that, but that's that is like hound.
The luxe is he's smelling scent on the ground and
he barks. Okay, um, let me go back to how
the dogs hunt, because I don't think it's it's it's
always real clear with hunting dogs, like a duck dog
is sitting by your side and retrieving ducks. A bird

(36:58):
dog is gonna be very have a really good handle
on it, meaning that the owner can give that dog commands,
very specific commands, and that dog will obey, but that
dog is always staying pretty close to the owner, you know,
never kind of like leaving side of the owner. Typically

(37:19):
bird dog. These dogs were free casting them what you've
just described as free casting. And we want a dog
that is gonna have a lot of hunt in and
and go out and find the quarry. So I mean,
like you turn a dog loosen, you you just if
we're if we're hunting that way by free casting, we're

(37:39):
just gonna turn a dog loosen. We're gonna sit there.
And I think that's been surprising to some new people
I've taken Brent as They're like, well, aren't we gonna
chase the dogs? Isn't that what? Isn't that what all?
Uh uh Billy did on where the red friend grows, Yeah,
followed after him. Well Billy didn't have a garment from
the w hound supply, Buddy would bury. Um No, the

(38:06):
what you just said them being able to track a
dog by sound like used to you would have had
to follow the dogs pretty close to stay within hearing
of them. Anymore. We don't have to do that, so
we turned dogs loosen. We just kind of sit there
wait for him to go tree or wait for him
to strike a track. And so that's I just wanted
to clarify that. Okay, So walk me through the stages

(38:29):
of a track, okay, like like if they open or
they strike or whatever they do or what I would
call it strike or I mean, that would be typically
what I would say, But they're both the same thing.
So take me from there, all right, he strikes on
the track. You know, some dogs, after you get after
you know them, if you hunt them a while, you

(38:50):
can tell how hot the track is. And by that
I mean how fresh it is. You know, a dog
leaving a uh walking through a place thirty minutes before
our coon walking through a place thirty minutes before the
hound comes through, you know, that's that's pretty warm, pretty
warm track as opposed to one that came through two

(39:12):
hours ago. That would be what we'd call a cold track,
and he would be in in the way. The smoking
hot track would be Yeah, he's he was here, right,
you know, the puddle or the mud that where that
coon step is, the waters filling into that track, you know,
So it's a hot track and the dogs are gonna

(39:33):
react different. You're gonna get a different reaction from him.
Where a hot track would be a more excited and
a more high tempo and you know, excitable bark as
as opposed to it would be less degrees of that
for the colder part of the track or a colder
style track. Yeah. Um, So the dog strikes a track

(39:57):
and he's smelling the scent of that coon on the ground,
and he's he very well maybe smelling like okay. Here,
here's the other thing I think I don't think people
understand is that what stage does a coon? No, it's
being pursued by a dog, okay, like that. I think
most of the time our dogs are striking the natural

(40:18):
travel patterns of that coon. That coon has been waiting
along that creek, leaving scent on the ground. Then our
dogs come in and they hear, they smell him and
bark and they start tracking that coon, and that coon
maybe three yards up the creek and goes, oh, I
hear a dog. Some percentage of coons are pretty much

(40:40):
gonna probably climb up a tree right then some percentage
of coons are gonna run. But coons are not like
this endurance animal like a black bear would be coon.
The longest coon races I've ever seen would probably be
like half a mile or three quarters of a mile,
and and there have been much longer coon races than that.

(41:01):
That's just my personal experience, and that would be a
long one. Most of them are two hundred yards. And
the dog, the dog trails trails, trails, trails. He's barking
on the track, barking, barking, barking, and then when he
comes to the tree that the game has gone up,
he will do what we call a locate bark, which

(41:21):
is an elongated bark. Typically not not all hounds do it.
Some of them do it really beautiful. Some of them
have a quote unquote a million dollar locate. Others may
not have much of a locate or a changeover. But
so they're barking this irregular bark and then they they
hit the tree and it's almost like they're saying, he

(41:41):
went up the tree. I me and you were walking
along coon track, Brent, and we were like, there he is.
There's his track. There's his track. There's his track, there's
his track, and then we see his tracks go up
the tree. Would be like, I just think you went
up that tree, voice would change in octave. And then
once the dog is solidified on the the coon is

(42:01):
up that tree, then it begins to treat um. I
described to somebody the other day, Brent, about how the
reason that a tree dog is so special. Man, if
you just talk to somebody that had no context for
hunting dogs or tree dogs, you would say that dog
barks at a coon tree. When a coon goes up

(42:23):
a tree at barks, they would not know that that
was special. Do you see what I'm saying. I mean,
it's just like, it's a dog barking on a tree.
What's the big deal? And and we are like, oh, man,
that's a tree dog. Let's dissect this, Brent Reeves, listen
to this. A a tree dog is actually a beautiful,

(42:48):
a beautiful example of the human dog partnership. Perhaps the
greatest example of the human dog partnership, which dogs which
were are basically domesticated wolves. If we go back a
long time and humans partnership with dogs has been a

(43:08):
massive part of our success as a species. If we
go back to our hunter gatherer days, the human species
has been propped up on the back of dogs, domesticated dogs,
that protected us, that helped us hunt uh, that fed
humans at different times when time's got rough. It's kind
of like having a little backup plan if things plan

(43:32):
f um. But listen to this. A a natural canine
would never have the instinct to stay embark at a
tree while I was pursuing game because that game would
have escaped them. And the reason he is staying there
because he's waiting for me to come to him. And

(43:54):
that has been bred into them by selective breeding, and
it it shows a it's a partnership dynamic because humans
have a way to deal with critters that climb. It's
called bullets, it's called arrows, it's called rocks, it's called
opposable thumb, so we can climb that tree and shake

(44:17):
it out. A dog does not have that. So my
point being is a wolf, a coyote, a fox, they're
chasing stuff on the ground to try to catch it.
When it ran up a tree, they go try to
find something else that hadn't run up a tree yet.
Do you see what I'm saying? Selective breeding, So it
goes against everything natural for a dog to want to
stay at a tree and bark. That's why tree dogs special. Yeah,

(44:38):
and you know, it's a it's the it's the whole
volume of that partnership and and and what it means
to somebody that can really appreciate it is I'm providing
that dog's healthcare, I'm feeding him, I give him a
place to stay, dental absolutely, and it's and he's pretty

(45:00):
expensive for the one that I've got. So and Nick
just went and no telling how much she's spent one
for Nick Gilliland's dog that he just went to pick
up exactly. So I mean, and and that dog is
also a very important part of my family. You know,
my wife and my little girl are It's a daily

(45:23):
ritual when my wife comes home, she picks Bailey up
from school, which wiks. She goes outside, sets on the
on the back patio and tells my coon dog that
he does not have to go hunt and if he
don't want to, he can stay right here. Your wife. Yeah,
this is Alexei. This is Alexis. Yeah, my wife. And
uh and because Bailey goes with me, she likes to

(45:45):
coon hunt. And but it's you know, he's just he's
a part of the family. And it's that that it
really makes it. I mean, it's humorous, but it makes
it that much more special when he does. You know,
he's just a puppy and he's learning, so it just
makes it that much more special when he holds up
his end of the deal. You know, I bought him
as a as a coon dog. It turned out he

(46:09):
became a member of our family and through his personality,
but it makes it that much more special what you're
talking about when he does what he's had to do,
what his genetic code you know, tells for him to do,
and it is it's hard for somebody to understand that's
not had a dog in the hunt quote unquote. I

(46:31):
mean there's something like people that are dog people understand it,
and uh and and nothing against people that wouldn't be
dog people. But point being, there is something that triggers
inside of us that is beyond rational explanation. When we
partner with an animal to acquire meat for our family,

(46:54):
to acquire hides for our family, to acquire wildlife related commodities.
I mean, it's it's like it's like it's almost as
elemental as a humans attraction to fire. I mean, and
it's the human attraction to fire goes beyond rational explanation
of oh I can warm my hands. I mean that

(47:14):
is something that has has from the very beginning been
the thing that has caused us to be successful as
a species as well. Yeah, absolutely, we have we have. Uh.
I was reading in a book the other day Brint
about this is slightly a rabbit trail. But I'm going
back to this kind of like uh. And when I

(47:36):
when I use the term evolutionary, I'm not. I'm not
talking about there's a lot of stuff. There's a lot
of good things inside of evolution. They are just science. Okay,
sometimes we've been trained to think that, you know. Anyway,
there's a lot of evolutionary stuff that goes with fire,
with goes I read uh uh And apart a high

(47:58):
apartment that has a good stuff or where we put
our trophy homes is up on big hills. Wherever you live,
there's probably like high dollar homes up high. It's that
stems from our days when humans were in grasslands and
to have any sort of elevation was biological advantage. Like

(48:18):
we we developed this this sense inside of our genes
are instincts that like to be high is better than
to be low, because when we're high we can see anyway,
I'm saying that a tree dog triggers these same things
because what I do is absolutely irrational. Brand It makes

(48:39):
no sense why I drove three and a half hours
to come to this swamp to turn loose my dogs.
I love it. Oh my gosh. The mosquitoes know it's
And the whole point of this whole conversation is is
that coon hunting may not be get something that's in
people's wheelhouse, but we're gonna put it there as an

(49:01):
option for people to to give him an access point.
And that's what this whole conversation is about, Okay. And
and there's uh to dive into the like practical aspects
of like how could you become a coon hunter? I mean,
let's talk about getting a dog? Where where could people?
What kind of dogs are people using for coon hunting?

(49:22):
Number one brand, Well, probably the most popular dog, and
it's gonna be a tree and walker's. There's probably there's
more of those used than than than anyone are there
any other type. But you've got tree and walkers, and
you've got red bones, um blue ticks, black and tans,

(49:42):
plot dogs. There's leopard dogs that I'm not very familiar
with those U English English dogs, um dogs. I think
there are five or six U k C registered what
they call coonhounds, and it's the ones you just named.
People also used for coon hunting, sometimes curd dogs, but

(50:05):
most of it is going to be those main breeds
of hounds that you just described. So if you have
a lab, it's probably not gonna make a coon dog.
People ask me stuff like that, well I've got a
I've got a blue healer. You think I could turn
it into this? And it's like, well, probably not right.
And it doesn't saying that they wouldn't run one up
a tree. But as far as as having a dog

(50:29):
that that if you're looking for a coon dog, that
the ones that we just described there that are that's
the area that you want to start picking from. And
you know, there's a there's a lot of through you know,
social media and and and the internet and other sources
finding dogs are it's pretty easy, very easy, readily available,

(50:53):
finding the right I bet we could right now on
our phone, bright, I bet we could do a challenge.
Could we in ten minutes find a registered litter of
coon hounds within two hours? Right here for sale? Oh gosh, yeah,
and we we could. That would be a good challenge.
We could do it. The point is there, these dogs
are readily available. Yeah, they're They're everywhere for sure. And

(51:18):
is it's um in great abundance, you know. And you've
got different different styles. All the dogs that are bred
now are are coming from the competition world of the
the characteristics. And he just found the litter of pups. Carson.
We've got our buddy Carson over here and he just

(51:40):
picked up his phone. You find a letter, Carson. Let
me see, Okay, let me see. All right, So this
is uh, this is this was posted yesterday at twelve thirty.
This guy's got some tree and walker puppies. Where is
this at? Do you know it's in Arkansas? Yep. Well
there's not a place in our that you can't go

(52:02):
be Yeah, yeah, because Carson id is good for the wind.
So okay, so you you got your dog. And again
we're just breaking this down bare bones, um, how you
train a dog? Brow And again like we're just that
you could have their books written about training coon dogs.

(52:24):
We're gonna talk about tons of tons of literature, tons
of videos, the best thing in the world to do.
Break it down as simple as you can take a
dog that's bread two tree coons to a place where
there are coons and turn him loose and you and
see what he does. Now, you want to you want
to be able to control that dog. You know, I started.

(52:46):
I got my dog when he was six months old,
and the first thing we did was bond as friends
and show him I'm the boss. He needs to do
what I tell him to do. That's the way you
did with me too, that you and you've never done it,
iss never took. So I wanted to up the ampage
on your collar the next time, the next time we
go train. Most dogs are started when they're about ten

(53:09):
to twelve months old. Nine nine to twelve months old
is the window when you're gonna start kind of hunting
the dog. Yeah, and you're and you're talking about a
process now and an investment not only in money, but
in time, because there there are some of the greatest
dogs in the world never started a tree and until
they were two years old or older. So I mean,

(53:29):
you're that's that's a lot of trips in the woods
where nothing happened to the way you wanted it to happen.
And we talked about it um a lot Nick and
I do on our podcast and with Steve Fielder, is
that the the best thing that you can have is
patients when you're training one of these dogs. And so

(53:50):
it's a it's a big investment. Uh and if if
you're wanting to do it yourself, if I'm a puppy
up to the finished, you know, it's a project and
it's a it's a long grind. Now the thing to do.
Somebody's wanting to get into it right away. You know,
they're started dogs. You can buy started dog and to
buy a dog that someone else has already put the

(54:12):
time in getting that dog started where he's not where
he's he's hunting for coons when he leaves you, and
he's doing what what you want him to do when
you tell him to. He's not running deer, he's not
running pot tree and possums or bobcats or or anything
bats or other than a coon. And uh, but you

(54:35):
know those obviously they are going to be more expensive. Well,
the so when you're talking about training a dog, you
have this dog that has a natural instinct to tree coon,
that dog also would have the same natural instinct to
run a deer or so a lot of people don't
understand that is that just because you have a dog

(54:56):
that's bread to be a a coon dog to rae
coon's does not mean that he's not gonna have that
a similar desire to chase other games. So basically you're
you're trying to whittle them away from off game. And
so you you reward them for good behavior, and then
you discipline them. And by discipline that could mean many

(55:18):
many things, usually very light, which would be like no
reward for bad behavior, reward for good behavior, zero award,
or negative reward for bad behavior. And over the course
of a period of time, like my scooter dog, he's
ten months old. Over the last month, I think I'm

(55:39):
seventy percent towards turning him on just coon like. He'll
still run whatever, but he has learned that there is
a big reward for tree and a coon. He because
when he gets the tree, he sees my excitement, my
praise of him. And when shoot a coon down, he

(56:01):
gets to see a coon. When he runs a deer,
he gets nothing. The deer runs away from him, he
gets tired, he gets no reward for me. He doesn't
get the smell at deer's fur. And eventually as he's older,
I might find other ways to discipline him running a deer,
but he usually it's positive praise. It's the positive that

(56:25):
makes him go, man, why would I want to run anything?
But and so just over time, it's almost like a miracle.
Just your dog's pretty straight. They're inherent, Uh desire is
to please you, you know. And I've always said that
a dog is only if a dog is everything is equal,

(56:45):
and you've got a well bred dog that knows what
he's supposed to do, or he has the desire to
do what what he's bred to do. The limiting factor
for that dog is the man that's handling him, or
the ladier whoever is the isn't handling that dog. Because
if you cannot explain or communicate to that dog what

(57:07):
you want him to do, then it's not his fault,
it's yours. So and that has always been something that
that when I'm correcting a dog or praising a dog,
is he understanding what I'm wanting him to do? And
if if when he's treating, when he treats a coon
and we see the coon and he knows the coon's there,

(57:27):
whether I knock it out to him or not, and
I love him up and I praise him, and he
you know, he's the best boy ever. And we were
doing a little I'm petting him and praising and rubbing
him and everything there at the tree, and then we leave.
I mean, you can tell them his demeanor. He's ready.
I want I want to experience that again. I want
to do that again. Or if he goes somewhere we

(57:49):
can't find the tree, or we we he treats and
we can't find the coon, and it's uh, maybe it's slick.
What's called a slick tree where you can look on
every limb and there's not a there's not a dog.
He missed him, you know, he missed it. He treate,
But the coon wasn't. You just go up there and
you put your lead on him and you drag him

(58:11):
and you pull him away, you walk away and you
turn and loose again. And in that experience, he maybe
the scent was not. For whatever reason, he's got to
do a little deductive reasoning that what happened just then
was not as fun as when we saw the coon
and the coon got knocked out, or I was praised
on the on the previous and it's repetition. It's the

(58:33):
same thing every time, every time you go. And it's
not it doesn't happen in a month, like I said,
it could be years, you know, a year and a half,
two years. However, wouldn't you say you typically expect to
see I don't want to paint the picture too negative,
even though what you're not negative but too extreme. I mean,
you like, your dog is a year old and he's

(58:55):
already treating coon's right, so now to get a finished dog,
you're gonna get that two year plus. But I mean
like you're already having a ton of fun and excitement
with a year old dog that's tree tree and coon's
on his own. Well, so I don't want to sound like,
you know, there's two years old for your doing anything,
and it's all what what you watch, how you look

(59:16):
at it. You know, every day every time that I go,
he doesn't tree a coon every time I take him,
you know, but if he does what I tell him,
if he hunts like I want him to hunt, if
he because you know, I've got no control over whether
or not coons are coming down and crawling around on
the ground. I can't control that part. The only thing
I can do is try to prepare my dog the

(59:37):
best I can, take him to the place where I
think they are at the time they are, and turn
them loose. But if if that dog does what I
want him to do when I turn him loose, that's
a it's a positive thing, you know. And when I
get him back at the end of the night, and
I know he's been out there and he's tried, and
he hadn't run deer, and he hadn't treated uposs um,
and you know, he he hadn't disobeyed me when and

(01:00:00):
when I called him back, maybe he was getting close
to a road, you know, and I I give him
a tone on the collar, um, and or I called
him verbally, you know, and and and he come back
to me. You know that those are all positive, positive things.
And when he gets back to me at the end
of the night, I'm gonna love on him and pet

(01:00:20):
him and praise him, you know, just like I would
if he had treated coon. Because that progression every day
is just your building the foundation, putting all that stuff,
building that base layer of that. You know, I'm the
dogs thinking, I'm if I do these things, I get
the reward, you know. And then the the the gravy

(01:00:43):
on that biscuit is when he's treeing coons by consistently
love the metaphor brant, that's it man on that biscuit.
The hunt is the the other thing that people. I mean,
the main way that we would train a dog to
brand is about taking it with an older dog. And
I can't minimize that in anyway. Like the way I'm

(01:01:05):
training my dog Scooter right now is taking her with
a broke, finished coon dog. And so that dog begins
to the young dog begins to hunt with the old dog,
The old dog trees, the young dog comes in and
it's like, hey, what's he doing? And and over time
they kind of just merge into doing what a good

(01:01:27):
dog is gonna do, just like they would merge into
doing what a bad dog was doing too. If you
had a trashy dog does running deer, your pub will
start running deer. So there's the probably the hardest limiting
factor for somebody that's never coon hunting, that doesn't have
a connection to coon hunting is how are they gonna
find somebody? And and that's just one of those, uh
social challenges that somebody's gonna have to figure out. You

(01:01:50):
know all over the country, you know, I was in.
I was very fortunate when after I bought my dog,
I'd had him maybe three or four weeks, and I'm
outside of my driveway cleaning out my my dog box
and a man that I'd never met in my life,
Rex White, and drove up in my driveway and said, Hey,

(01:02:14):
what you're gonna think? He said. The first thing he
said to me is you're gonna think I'm crazy. Well,
I didn't think he was crazy then, but I do
now it's confirmed. But he said, there's two kinds of
people that live around here where we live, and that
is duck hunters and coon hunters. What kind of dog
you putting in this box? I said, the coon dog.
And from that conversation right there, we have become really

(01:02:37):
good for hims. It turns out, you know, he's got
an older dog, just what you're talking about, an eight
year old dogs. All you had to do is have
a dog box in the back of your and that's
all it took. And I was fortunate enough. And that
just shows you how willing people are. I mean, they're
out there, but it's not I say that statement to
say that it's not impossible to do it by yourself.

(01:02:59):
You know, it's just gonna be harder. And and Rex
not only is there, his dog is not only helping
my dog, he's helping me. You know, he's helping me
read that dog and telling me through his experience. This
guy's got tons. He's been hunting forever. Hey, when I
when I started training mules, I didn't know much of anything.

(01:03:22):
And I watched YouTube videos learn how to train a mule. Okay,
that could only take me so far. And my friend
Darren Wiles, who's Darren's probably in his sixties, he was
coaching me through, just like over the phone, different things
about my mule. I'd tell him what was happening. He'd

(01:03:44):
tell me this, and yad. We went back and forth. Well,
one day Darren said, hey, i'm I want to come
over and I'll help you work your mule. I watched
Darren Wiles for five minutes in that round pen with
my mule, and bam, I got it. Really, it wasn't
what he taught. It wasn't like do this and do that.

(01:04:06):
It wasn't like a technique. But I watched his demeanor
with that animal. I watched how he demanded its respect
I watched his posture and I was like, oh, that's training.
I get it. And that translated a whole bunch of stuff.
I say that to say I have been with a
houndsman before that. The same experience happened, like I'd just

(01:04:30):
been turning dogs loose, Like when I in phase one
of Clay Newcomes coon hunting career from age fourteen to
age twenty one, I was just taking coon dogs quote
unquote and just turn them loose and they'd go trick coon.
I'd go shoot it out, and we just did that
as much as we could. I never had great dogs.
When when I was an adult and got back into

(01:04:53):
coon hunting, I went with Danny Drummond, my friend Danny
Drummond in Northwest Arkansas, and uh, just a couple of
things he told me to do, and it wouldn't have
even been anything specific. It was Fern when I was
training Fern, and Fern was running something that the old
dog that he had wouldn't run. And I didn't know

(01:05:15):
if I should go discipline Fern because we knew it
was off game. And he said, I'll just let her
run and I said really, and he said, Jesus, a
pup she's eight months old. Just let her run, and
you know that that trash track, as we'd call it,
fizzled out, and Fern came back and went and treat

(01:05:37):
a coon with the old dog. Eventually, you know, like
the old dog treat. And Fern was there and I learned, Okay,
you don't have to demand perfection. This is kind of
a long term thing. And he was like, I like
it that your dog was running anything, and I said, oh,
really okay. And then the next time we went, Fern

(01:05:57):
absolutely burned the hair for a deer and he said,
I like what your dog just did. And I said
really and he said, man, she ran that deer like
she meant it. And I said, okay, got it like
it like he he liked the desire, and he said,
you can. You can work with that her running a deer.

(01:06:19):
Later once she starts treeing coons and you start praising
her for that, and she knows that life is good
when you tree coons. And point being going with somebody
can mean a lot. You can learn a lot. The
exact same lesson. I got that exact same lesson from Rex.
He told me. He said, look, he said, the hardest

(01:06:39):
thing to do to teach a dog is to go hunt,
he said. If you got one that'll go out there
and do that, you're you're way ahead of the game already, said.
If he's chasing deer, it don't matter what he's doing.
If he is chasing another animal out there, regardless of
what what you want to do, you can teach him
not to do that and stick to coons, he said.

(01:07:00):
But if he's running running game out there, deer or whatever,
he said, you know you've got something. You've got a
place to start. So you're already ahead of the game.
So you know, I think the main the main thing
we wanted to do was introduce people to the idea
that they could be a coon hunter, the idea that
this is a family sport, the idea that the the

(01:07:22):
game regulations are liberal. Anywhere you want a coon hunt,
the game rags are pretty liberal. I mean like high
bag limits, long seasons. Um. Your challenges are gonna be
finding a place to hunt. But if you're in a
place a lot of public ground, you can probably do
pretty good. I pretty much have three farms that I
hunt on private ground for coon and that has serviced

(01:07:46):
me well for years. Three farms, one of them is
three hundred acres, one of them six hundred acres, and
one of them two acres. Okay, that gives you an
idea the size farms that I'm hunting, and uh, all
the those do me good. Plus my public land and
like come down here for a weekend hunt with you
guys on some of this big these big tracks of

(01:08:06):
land down here. Um so the way, so this is
not meant to be like the full resource of off
of coon hunting, but you guys have that. You have
a podcast brandts all about coon hunting. Tell me about
that just a little bit. Nick Gilla Land and Steve
Fielder and I uh do a podcast called The night

(01:08:30):
Life Nation and it's all coon dogs, coon hunting, anything
related to it. Competition. Steve is a oh gosh, I
would almost said world renowned, but yeah, I don't know
that that wouldn't your nationally renowned absolutely because there's not
much nobody else cares about coon's far and as far

(01:08:51):
as I know, Steve is the only guy that has
ran all the coon hunting registries a k C, p
k C in the U k C that has worked
all three places, and just a vault of information about
competition hunting and and the lineage of legacy of historically

(01:09:12):
great dogs and and good coon hunters, and just a
wealth of information. He handles all that stuff and uh
and and Nick is an accomplished a dog trainer and
and hunter from North Carolina. He's just a good guy.
He's just a good guy man and he loves to hunt.

(01:09:34):
His mission. He's always talking about how can we help
you know, the folks that are listening, and that's that's
why we do. He came up with the phrase of
you know, we want to do something that's that's educational,
entertaining and help people evolve, you know, getting better in
this in this business of of coon in the sport
of it. And he's not a competition hunter. And you know,

(01:09:56):
I've never been to a competition hunt. I look forward
to going some you know and trying it out. But
the joy of just having a dog and and going
out and doing you know, hunting, pleasure hunting is what
what drives us. And we in Nixon, North Carolina, Steves
in in Florida, and I'm in Arkansas. And we put

(01:10:18):
out this weekly show where we just put podcast Night
Live Nation podcast where we just sat around and we
talked about it, and we talked about uh, training tips
and the progression of our dogs. We've all got three
pretty young dogs that that we're training, and people have
shown a lot of interest and following how how their

(01:10:39):
progression is and the the techniques and stuff that we
use to to make them better and and we it's
just a fun family affair. Um. We usually tell a
story at the end of the other podcast of a
personal experience someone had, humorous or or otherwise. That is,

(01:11:01):
you've never had anything funny happen? Dude, we got to
close this podcast with me talking about my story. I
think you know what story I'm talking about. God Bless America. No, no,
I'm not closed. I'm just I just that's what I
want to when when we do, we will cue the eagle,

(01:11:22):
the eagle cry. Yeah. Anyway, it's it's it's yeah. So
check out night Life Nation podcast if you have any
interest in this kind of stuff, because you know, I
think Brent, this maybe our hundredth podcast, maybe this one
we're doing right now. And we've talked about coon hunting
just a handful of times, So I mean, my are

(01:11:43):
we're not trying to educate the world on coon hunting.
You guys are and so uh if you if you
have interest in becoming a coon hunter, this is these
guys have a great resource. And that's just a palatable,
family oriented podcast, a lot of fun, a lot of information.

(01:12:04):
You listen to or three podcasts and you get the
lingo of coon hunting. You know. Part of entry buried
entry sometimes is people just not understanding stuff. Like we
say the word treat, well, they don't know what treat is.
You say a hot track, they don't know what a
hot track is. You say a walker, they don't know
what a walker. Yeah, and we say this or that. Yeah.
We actually did like three episodes where we did three

(01:12:25):
a segment in three episodes of going through terminology of
what they were, you know, competition terminology and just regular
coon hunting terminology. So and we got in a lot
of response came back that you know, that was people
if people found it really helpful and it's it just
inspires us to do more. Yeah, it's it's great. It's

(01:12:45):
a lot of fun. Yeah. So yeah, that's uh, I've
been enjoying it. Um. Hey, two things I want to
end with. I want to end with the story and
we're gonna build this story up because it was just incredible. Um. Secondly,
always always want I feel this need deep in my bones.

(01:13:07):
Two talk about why we do what we do, and
we've already talked about part of the conservation aspect of
coon hunting. Um Historically, though, did you know I'm gonna
tee you up for a question. I'm gonna tee you
right up. What is the most economically important fur burying

(01:13:27):
animal of all time for North America? A fever bright
see American bison, d coyotes? Okay, what is your answer?
And the to repeat the question the most economically like

(01:13:50):
which one has the most gross economic sales of all
time in North America going back to the sevent hundreds
when the French came over and start to trapping for trapping.
Ready go teed um right up, you're exactly right, that's right.
I would have thought beaver because you hear about the

(01:14:12):
high prices that beaver bought in the West. Was the
European expansion West was fueled by the beaver. But the
beaver fur trade Brent Reeves was pretty much from about
the late seventeen hundreds to about the eighteen thirties and
in about fifty years they trapped those suckers out and

(01:14:32):
then from then on it was raccoon pelts for a
hundred years, from eighteen thirty to about nineteen forty, well
hundred and fifty years to the nineteen eighties. From like
the eighteen thirties to the nineteen eighties, coon hides dominated
the world for markets. And so the reason that this

(01:14:53):
is important information is that we are we're coon hunting
for hides. People do eat raccoons, they do, we do,
but it is not the primary reason that we hunt coons.
We're hide hunting, and that is that fits inside the
North American Mile of Wildlife conservation because there's multiple things

(01:15:17):
that we're tapping into. We're tapping into an overabundance of
a natural resource, which is scientifically. I read that in
a research paper that uh, Mike Chamberlain sent me, Brent,
because I've always said that, I've always said that coons
are over the population of coons currently is unnatural for

(01:15:38):
recorded history. That is true, absolutely, So we are we
are tapping into from a like a depredation standpoint, we're
trying to lower coon numbers. So that's number one, But
then number two for high fur prizes aren't worth that
much anymore, but there's still, uh, there's still traditional all

(01:16:00):
usage patterns of coon hides. Like what I'm doing these
days is all the coons that we take, especially during
the prime winter months, I'm getting those hides tanned and
giving away as gifts and oh, it's a it's incredible.
I mean, the coolest thing in the world is going
to be to have a buddy of yours that's a
coon hunter and you get a full tan coon pelt

(01:16:22):
for Christmas. For real. They're beautiful. Yeah, and so the
the hides and and when we've talked about eating them
and they there it's great meat um, and we've we've
had it. A lot of people use it, but it's
not the main reason we're doing it. There's a lot
of animals that it is the main reason. I think

(01:16:42):
sometimes people don't understand that or they might have a
hard time with it. But don't You don't have to
have a hard time with it, because this fits perfectly
inside North American Mali Wildlife Conservation that we are removing
meso predators off the landscape, but we're also utilizing it
come mod at the off that animal. So coon hunters man,

(01:17:03):
that's what we are, Okay, glad to be one story.
I was coming here, Brent, yesterday, I was. I drove
three and a half hours to get down here from
We didn't even talk about our coon weekend. Kolbe has
got to put in some background patriotic music. Yeah yeah,
yeah yeah, just a music bad Kobe a little yeah yeah. All.

(01:17:24):
I hear there, it goes there, it goes it sounds good.
Good job, do you hear it? Now? That's it. I
was coming here, and I was in downtown Fayette Bulle, Arkansas.
And now most of you never been there and probably
will never go there, But imagine in your city the
most one of the most busy intersections in your city.

(01:17:45):
And that was on a major interstate that runs through
this very populated area of northwest Arkansas. I got off
on an exit to go wash my truck because I
didn't want to come down here with a dirty truck.
There's a construction crew working like right off the exit ramp.
So there's just people everywhere. Cars almost not bumper to bumper,

(01:18:07):
but you know, just people everywhere. I see a bald eagle,
a bald eagle the size of a Cessna airplane. Swoop
down out of a bluebird sky and pick up a
freshly road kill fox squirrel. Now why there was a

(01:18:29):
fox squirrel on the Interstate off ramp that I don't know,
but it was a big, glowing orange fox squirrel. He
swoops down right in front of my truck, picks up
the fox squirrel, and then just flies off like a boss.

(01:18:50):
Like the rockets are red glare. There was a guy
right behind me driving a Toyota Tacoma. Sometimes when you're
in like big cities and you see somebody that's driving,
they give some indication of you have like a little
bit of a cultural connection to them. He kind of
like like hat tip him, you know. And this guy
had a Toyota Tacoma. You know, I could tell this

(01:19:11):
guy was, like, I mean, probably on the same page
as me in terms of like just he digs the outdoors.
Probably yea. And he pulled up right beside me, and
he I knew he had to see because he was
right behind him. And he looked at me with a
big grin on his face, a big grin on my face,
and both of us knew that we had seen something special. Yeah,

(01:19:33):
you'll always have that, Oh my goodness. So the eagle
story Eagle and the fox squirrels. Yeah, that's gonna be
retold free. That will be on. That'll be a cave drawing.
You should paint that picture. It's a world good quarters. Yeah,

(01:19:54):
that's gonna be awesome. Well, thanks, Brent Man. I hate,
I hate that Nick had to leave. It was kind
of an odd Oh we didn't know when he was
going to get the call about this dog and he
had to go. So and we don't wanta leave folks hang.
And we think he's gonna be fine. He's just he's
gonna he just got fixed up and and he'll have
have him back here this evening and we'll he probably
won't hut tonight and you know, go back home and

(01:20:16):
get well and be good to go. Well, hey, we're
gonna we're gonna hunt. We're gonna fry some fish and
then we're gonna hunt again tonight aboutely all right, man,
We'll keep the wild places wild because that's where the
Queen's live