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Well, I hope I dont waste too many folks time with this story, but I had to tell it, so here goes.
My oldest son,Colt, got an excellent report card, and his reward was to get to go coon hunting for his first time. Hes only six , so I was a bit reluctant, but I gave in. We loaded up and went to a place I had never been. Our dog is a female Bluetick that we got from Mike Griffey. She hasnt been hunted in over two years and shes fat as mud, so this had the making of an interesting time for sure. My buddy Johnny was with us and he called his buddy John, who is man that loves his English dogs and has some good ones. He said he'd meet us,if this thunderstorm would pass and it did after about an hour. My son was sure getting impatient but after a hot dog and a pepsi, he was rareing to go. ( for the record, my son, just like me...is a Bluetick / Blue Gascon fanatic )
John finally shows up and he has a young man named Justin with him who has a 13 month old Red Bone that hes sure proud of, and I know this because he reminded us many times during the night.
The place we turned out hadnt been hunted in a while and now I know why. It had a lot of soft wood and a small branch flowing pretty decent, but dang was it thick ! I served four years in the Marine Corps and have seen some thick brush, and this was pretty thick ! I was worried this would ruin Colt and hoping I wouldnt have to carry him, but he just bulldozed right on through and made me proud. We could hear the dogs occasionally and several times Justin would look at the garmin and say his red bone was leading the way and the blue dogs were trailing along. After a good while we couldnt hear them any at all and finally found the road and made our way back to the truck. We all loaded up in John's truck and started driving. We stopped several times, just hoping to get in hearing distance of them dang hounds, but it wasnt meant to be. The garmin didnt seem to be working with us. Finally,Justin says it wants us to go to Foxwood lane and thats about 10 miles on the road, but not far at all the way the crow flies. We drive on over in that direction and sure enough, we can hear em treed ! That was music to my ears, believe me. We all jumped out and headed in their direction, and after crossing a hay field and a pasture, it started getting kinda marshy. When we got to where the dogs were, it was a small water hole about 20 ft by 30 ft and maybe 3 ft deep and the two blue dogs were going nuts and the red bone was over near a pine messing with ducks. Colt looks at the other guys and nods towards the two blue dogs working and says with sarcasm only a six year old can muster " I dont see no red bone ! " . I couldnt hold back my laughter and we all just had a good laugh together. We watched the coon for a few minutes and let Colt listen to the dogs and I hit my squall and this sucker starts coming down the tree. I hit it again and he came down a lil more, so the third time I hit it, he just bailed out right in the middle of the water ! It sounded like Rosie O'donnel doing a belly flop, and the blue dogs were on it instantly. This sucker came to fight and fight it did. The red bone stayed on the bank and barked to show his moral support, but finally he came in and instantly he got bit on the nose and he had enough of that coon. The two blue dogs fought this coon for what seemed like an eternity and let me tell ya, Colt was some kinda wound up. When it was all said and done, and the dogs got the coon up on the bank and killed it, Colt was as out of breath as if he'd been fighting himself. He hasnt stopped talking about it since. I may seem like a bad father to some folks for keeping a six year old out till 3 in the morning, but I can promise you, it was something he will never forget and neither will I. I was sure proud of ole Dixie, she did a great job, but what I was really proud of was my son, Colt.
Thanks for reading this and I hope I didnt waist anyones time with this story. I just had to tell it, because I had a blast as well.
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