I hunt Iowa and ILLINOIS, and our coon population is pretty decent. I usually hunt 2- 4 hours, and on an average night we tree 3-5 coon. I have treed 10 singles(Every single tree had 1 coon, no circle or slick trees) in a few hours with one Redbone(she was a coon treeing machine!), and with a couple hounds going we treed 12. We had the coons skinned and out of the timber before 1 a.m. when it got so foggy I could hardly spot the last coon to shoot it out. We could have treed 20 that night im sure. Now, in the summer, I have treed 9 in the same tree- a mulberry tree full of kitten coon:)
I dont shoot every one out, But I shoot enough that my hounds get plenty of fur in their mouths. If I lived in the south where coon population is low, I would be much more conservative with coon I shoot, but up here, if we dont thin the population, diseases spreads fast.
We shot 12 but forgot 2 hides a mile back in the timber. Everyone thought someone else had the other 2 lol and I didnt want to walk that far in the fog to find them