flyguy Loc: Lake Onalaska, Sunfish Capitol of the World!

Just wondering, 60 years ago most of the kids hunted coon, it was great. The hills would look like Christmas trees with all of the lights shining from the hunters. The pelts were worth decent money. One year, I got a 108 coon and averaged $56.00 apiece for the pelts. You do the math, that's decent money for a kid for a couple of months of fun. I live in the woods now, and never see anyone hunting coon. I know the pelts are not worth anything, but just do it for shi1s and giggles. I'm too old to hunt alone, but I'm going to see if my neighbor wants to go coon hunting just for shi!s and giggles. Anyone want to come along?

FinFisherman Loc: Born in Ohio - 40 yrs Florida- Clearwater,Fl

To far away for coon hunt and don't know if I could keep up with the dogs. Never hunted coons without dogs.

Iowa Farmer Loc: Iowa City Iowa

A couple people still have dogs in my area, used to hunt my timber but the interstate along my property made it too dangerous for the dogs. Coon population is booming!

Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

Flyguy: I'm sorry but I wonder if you didn't get your decimal in the wrong place. $56.00 per pelt times 108 is $6048~! That is/was a lot of money when I was a kid, and probably was for you as well. Just Sayin....RJS

Egghead

Coon hunting was a way if life 20 years ago Fly. Never made any money money at it other than selling my hound pups I ran 22 hounds not including my pups at time I had over 40 dogs.at s time. LOTS of work. But worth every minute farmers would call me year round to come clear out there corn fields. I averaged 500 Coons a year for years. Never seen another hunter guess I was the only crazy one in Wyoming at the time. I will post a picture of my best hound ever with the biggest lion we ever caught. I had Running Walkers, Gascon Hounds Blue ticks,Red ticks Red Bone,an English hounds. Some came and went with a price,but the good ones died of old age and sold out after I broke my neck. Those were and always will be the BEST part of my life. It was then that I liked who I was and what I was about. I would love to run the woods and rivers with you Fly.

Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

Egghead: Did you ever get $56.00 for one coon pelt? Just Sayin...RJS

Egghead

RJS, I sold a couple for 50 bucks to people that want big ones to mount. It was mostly just getting rid of them. But I would get a 5 gallon bucket full ofsweet corn for every field i cleared lol and I ate it all.lol. and hunting rights for deer and pheasant so I think I was well paid. Here is a picture if My best hound.,her name was Kitty, she weighed 55 pounds. And was rock solid on a tree the lion was 207 lbs 9 foot from nose to tail. It scored 14 7/8 inches. She treed that cat by herself.

Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

Egghead: Sounds like you had a top notch hound there. Just Sayin...RJS

Egghead

She was almost two years old in this picture. And caught well over 2000 thousand coons and 60 lions in her life. She was one of a kind.

Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

That had to be one fine coon dog. I know you treasured her. Just Syin...RJS

Flytier Loc: Wilmington Delaware

I know I never got that much. Only thing that came close to that was wild mink. Did shoot 5 or 6 from my bathroom window to get them off my bird feeders last fall.

Egghead

Fly I would probly love to live where you do.lol. my wife would never see me from 9pm to dawn lol. If I had the time it takes to train hounds the right way, I would do it again. Nothin sounds sweeter than an hound running a hot trail. It brings tears to my eyes to look at that picture. Knowing how good life was back then and how it is now. I hunted coons and Cats 4 days n nights a week,every week and sometimes more. Hell I coulda been a surgeon. I could sew a hound up faster a prettier in the dark under a head light than any Doctor ever sewed me up. Even had to sew myself up a time or two. Barbed wire will mess you up bad if your a runnin dummy. Lol. Fly thanks for bringing this up. I know what's in my dreams tonight. Sorry I went on so long. Good night fellas,sleep with the Angels.

Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

EGGHEAD: funny that coon hunting and coon dogs would come up. I must relate this to a real coonhunter. It is also a good way to delve up old and forgotten memories.

Donald Davis Help

We were attending the Tejas Storytelling Convention in Fort Worth in 2018 and there was an expert Storytelling individual, Donald Davis, who was offering both a workshop in storytelling and on the schedule to tell stories. I want to assure everyone he was outstanding in both areas.

I have heard a lot of people tell stories, but Donald was above everyone I have ever heard. I will only relate one thing that I though was golden that Donald gave us at this meeting about recovering long-lost memories of grandparents and other elderly relatives in your family. This method will work also for anyone, and I discovered it would also work on myself!

Donald told us that our brains were in two separate parts. The front had all the current stuff, like were you are going tomorrow, what you are going to do, wear, and where your car keys are. But there is the back portion that is like a junk room behind the barn. Where broken items are thrown, no system, on organization or alphabetizing, or anything. Like a broken lawn mower, Christmas lights that no longer work, just a pile of junk.

Instead of saying, “Momma, tell me about when you were a kid.” Or similar, instead, ask about something very specific, like “Momma, tell me about he first day when you went to the first grade?” or “Tell me about your Christmas party when you were in the first grade.” “Tell me about the house you and dad moved into when you first got married, describe it room by room!” He assured us this type question would elicit more detailed answers, and facts or memories that you would find surprising, and that had often never heard before.

I realized I had done this very thing. I had done just such a technique without realizing I had done so. It was my birthday, maybe I was 60, or so. My mother was in the hospital in Fort Worth, and I had called on my birthday. We were talking and out of the blue, asked her,
Momma, what time of the day was I born? She said, I think it was around 5:00 AM and then she remembered this.

When the doctor got ready to leave, dad did not have enough money to pay him for my birth. Then the doctor said, “Well, I will take two of your hunting dogs.” Dad then said that’s too much, I will not give you two of my hunting dogs. The doctor goes back to town and later dad sells one dog and pays the doctor. No one in 60 years had heard that story! And it would not have brought to her memory except that I had triggered it by my other questions.

I am within less than a month of being 86, but with this method, I have been able to dredge up memories of as early as when I was 3. It works, and you will find it worth a try. I have found that I need a quite time, such as if I am unable to sleep and at 2 or 3:00 AM, I will get up, have a glass of milk and just write down topics of things I gave delved up from old memories. You will be surprised when you will recall! Just Sayin…RJS

Flytier Loc: Wilmington Delaware

It's funny that you say that. I grew up between a chicken farm and a dairy farm. My backyard was the Kittanning mountains in Northern Jersey. I spent more time in the woods than I did in the house. Now I live in Northern Delaware maybe a mile outside the city limits. I see more wildlife here than I did growing up. Those coons I shot from my window lived under my neighbors shed. She fed them like pets. I've seen boar red fox walk across my backyard at 3 pm on a summer day. We had a cougar walking around here a couple years back, verified with pictures. Last summer we had a blackberry wandering around the city, going through trash cans and dumpsters. They travel around on the Greenway paths. It's really weird. The only thing I have a hard time finding is a decent fishing hole and a place to hunt. Have to go out of state or travel an hour or so south to find a place where I CAN hunt.

Joe Beaderman Loc: Adams Nebraska

Back in the day we were getting from 55.00 to 65.00 per coon depending on size!!!!!