The first coon hunt I remember was when I was 10 years old. My dad Bill and my grandfather Roy gathered the 2 coon dogs up and away we went into the darkness. They said something about it was time for me to hear a little hound music bugling in the oak woods. My grandfather always carried a coal oil lantern to walk by, which put out just enough light to see about 4 feet ahead of him, this was ok if you was right beside him. I guess I tripped over every stick and rock in the Indiana woods. Dad carried the old single shot .22 rifle and a bright 6 cell flashlight, which was never turned on until they were going to shine the coon, batteries cost money.
About 30 minutes into the hunt one of the dogs barked and granddad said “That’s old Spotty on a cold trail.” I didn’t know what that meant, but old Spotty just kept barking every once in a while and after about 20 minutes he was barking faster and getting farther away. Granddad said “Now he’s got him lined out.” The second hound Betty started in now and we had to hurry to keep up, dad and granddad would stop and listen and make some comment about the dogs are in the crick. All people in Indiana call streams a crick. Seems like we had been following those 2 hounds for two miles when granddad announced, “They are treed.” I knew what that meant and took off at a fast pace. When we got to a huge oak tree, dad said, “Damn it’s a den”. Sure enough when we shined up in the top there was a big hole in a hollow part of the tree. The coon was inside that hole about 40 feet up, safe and sound. Granddad said, “Catch the dogs and lead them away.”
Granddad said back in 1920 we would have left the dogs tied to the tree and went back for the cross cut saw. In 1920 raccoon skins were worth $30 and the average weekly wage was $23, so granddad would saw the den tree down or dig them out of a hole in the ground, whatever it took, they got that coon. With skins that high everybody was hunting and trapping and coons were hard to find. Granddad said he would pay 50 cents to anyone who could show him a track and he went back every night until he got that coon.
After we walked another hour the hounds opened up on a new track but were out of hearing quickly. We walked in the direction granddad thought they were going but I couldn’t hear anything. We came to a deep crick and there were the two hounds running around confused, it seems the coon swam in the water and got out somewhere down stream on the other side. Dad said, “That was a smart one.”
My feet were getting cold, we never had insulated boots in those days and it was in December. When I complained about my toes, Dad said, “Just jump up and down.” Finally Granddad said, “Catch the dogs, lets head to the house,” and boy was I ready, my feet were so cold they were stinging. I didn’t think much of this coon hunting, walk all night in the freezing cold and never even saw a coon. Little did I know 20 years later I would own 2 coon dogs and stay out all night chasing the masked bandits.
My next coon hunt was about a year later when I was 11 years old, Dad and my uncle Jack got grandpa’s hounds and we drove over to another farm that had a crick alongside a corn field. Grandpa was born in 1893, 60 years old now and was slowing down a little so he didn’t go this time. Grandpa was at the point in life where he liked to hear our stories and think about what happened 20 years ago. It was in November and the temperature was in the 40s with a light drizzle. Dad said it was perfect tracking conditions for the hounds. As soon as we turned the dogs loose, they opened up on a hot track. They didn’t go 500 yards until they were doing their chopping tree bark. When we got to the tree dad said, “I see two coons”. Dad held the light behind Uncle Jack, part of the beam on the coon and part on the open sights of the rifle. Crack went the .22 but the coon didn’t move, Uncle Jack put another round in the old single shot and fired again. This time he hit right behind the front leg and the coon lost hold of the tree and fell to the ground. Both dogs grabbed hold and started a tug of war. Dad said, “Russ, pull that coon away from them before they tear a hole in the hide.” That was easier said than done, I finally had to kick the dogs off. Dad and Uncle Jack were getting lined up on the second coon, this time it took 3 shots to knock him out and yes the dogs started another fight over the coon.
Wow, I thought this was more like it, 30 minutes and we had two raccoons. We got the hounds away looking for more coon tracks and 20 minutes later they were both on another hot track. They ran all the way out of the corn field and into big oak woods on another farm, Dad and Jack knew all the farmers around this area so we didn’t worry about any trespassing problems.
Pretty soon they were barking treed, I took off at a run but stepped in a hole and fell down. When you are eleven years old, you just bounce back up and keep on running, not so today. The tree was a huge red oak about 60 feet tall and now the drizzle turned to a rain. In fact the rain was coming down so hard that it was falling sideways. Uncle Jack went around and around the tree but could not find the coon. Dad said to shut off the light, and he held the lantern up over his head and started making a sound like a coon crying for his life. After about 5 minutes Uncle Jack said,” I see the eyes in that top fork of the big oak“. When they turned the 6 cell light on, the coon looked away but we could see some fur showing. Dad was trying to line up on the coon and the sights but the rain got worse and Uncle Jack just shot and shot, 10 times I think and the coon never moved. Dad said, “Let’s go around to the other side”. When we got on the other side, we couldn’t find it again and had to do the coon crying noise to get him to look at us. On the third shot, he must have hit it or clipped it because he left that fork and climbed up higher. Now we could see the whole body and the second shot connected and down he came from 60 feet in the air. I thought if the .22 doesn’t kill him the fall will.
The rain was getting worse so Dad said, “Let’s call it a night”, and Jack said, “Yeah I only have 5 shells left anyway.” On the way back we came to an old barn and decided to get out of the rain and skin the three coons, I thought this was a great idea since I had been carrying them since the first tree. When we got into the dry barn and tied the dogs up, Dad got out his Case skinning knife with two folding blades, one long and pointed and the other more round on the end. Dad said, “Russ you pay attention because this is going to be your job soon.” He made a cut with the pointed blade from one back ankle across to the vent and over to the other ankle. Then around both ankles and pulled the hide down exposing both hind legs. Then he made a cut from the vent out almost to the end of the tail, all the time telling me how this was a critical part to skin the tail without tearing it up. Fur buyers didn’t like the end of the ring tail pulled off. After he got the bone pulled out of the tail, He worked the hide down to the front legs, kind of like taking off a shirt. When he got to the front legs he pulled the skin down and cut it off at the front feet. Now we are at the head and Dad said, “After you do this a few times you will learn where to cut at the base of the ears and around the eyes and finally the mouth, leaving a perfect skin for the board. Afterwards he turned it fur side out and put it in his hunting coat, same place where he put rabbits and quail. Next day was Saturday so Dad showed me how to flesh all the fat and meat off the skin then put it on a wire stretcher with skin side out to dry.
Over the next few years I went coon hunting with Dad and Uncle Jack many times and got pretty good at skinning a coon out. The hounds got old and finally died and grandpa passed away when he was 73 due to cancer. Grandpa’s coon dogs were famous in Central Indiana; everybody wanted a pup out of those hounds. Well maybe this was the end to the Porter coon dog legacy?
No, five years after grandpa died, I bought a young blue tick hound from a friend of mine and one year later bought a red tick hound. They turn out to be top notch dogs and I started putting a lot of fur on the boards. Only problem I had with those two hounds were they were both males and would always fight when the coon hit the ground. I carried a Marlin bolt action .22 with a 3 power scope on it. It had a tubular magazine that held 15 shots but I rarely needed more than one shot. I took dad out with me for his first time with the 2 hounds and when they treed, I told dad to shine the coon. I was ready with the scope against a tree and as soon as the light hit the coon I hit it in the left eye. Dad said, “Holy cow, how did you make that shot?” He had never seen a scope sight before. I told him to retire the old single shot that grandpa had. When we left the tree I took the coon, I had a carbide light on my hat to walk by and my .22 had a strap which left both hands free to skin the coon while I was walking, pretty soon dad said, “Let me carry that coon”, I handed him the skin, he said, “You have come a long way since that first hunt at 10 years old”
One night I had been out with the dogs about an hour and suddenly a thick fog rolled in, I had never seen a fog like this. I put on the 6 cell flashlight but could only see about 5 feet ahead of me. I kept walking but could not see anything I recognized and I was only about a half mile from the house on land that I knew like the back of my hand. I didn’t have a compass in those days, now I carry a compass and GPS. I walked and walked, realizing I was really lost and the fear set in, so now think what Dad would say. I know what he would say, “Stay calm and use your head,” All of a sudden I ran into a woven wire fence that I recognized was on the railroad, which was about a mile from home and ran east and west. I needed to go west to hit the road that led back home but which way was west? Dad always said to check some big trees for moss which always grew on the north side. Sure enough the second tree had some moss at the base so with my back to that tree I was looking north and west was on my left, so I followed that fence and soon came to the road to home. What a relief! When I walked into the back yard at 4 a.m. my two hounds were already home and looked at me like, “Where the heck have you been?”
I was working 2nd shift, 3:30 p.m. until midnight, and as soon as I got home each night I would grab the 2 hounds and take off for the woods, hunt until 2 or 3a.m. then grab some sleep and back to work at 3:30 p.m. I was also running a trap line for fox, coon, muskrat and mink. Fur prices were high and I was making more hunting and trapping than my job at IBM which paid $1.50 an hour. But I was a young gun in those days, 6 foot 150 pounds hard as a rock, I could walk for miles. I guess that was the good old days?? Oh yeah, I found out a stream was a creek and a crick was what you got in your neck.
Pictured above Russ Porter’s grandfather in 1940. Below is Russ Porter in 1972.
