Why don't Germans hunt Coon?
Gentlemen,
"During the 30's Herman Goring imported Raccoon's to Germany". I read that somewhere and promptly forgot about it.
I am an old Coon hunter who lives out in the woods alone and being of 25% German blood am have been studying German for the last five years. I went out working with a friend trimming trees and he told me "the next customer was a lady from Germany". We were dragging limbs from the back yard around to the truck and I needed a broom so I went up to this lady's glass sliding door and knocked. A lady came to the door and she knew I was with tree guy Danny and so opening the door, she stepped outside closing it behind her and was a little bit apprehensive about this guy who worked for the tree guy knocking on her door.
She came up to me and I said in my best German:
"entschuldigen Sie mich bitte, ich möchte einen Bessen bitte".
The look on the ladies face was blank, just a blank stare. I made the motion of sweeping and repeated "einen Bessen"?
She shook her head like to clear it and walking to the garage asked if I had rather have a blower?
I said that's about it for my German I wasn't sure about the word for broom, but yes a blower would be better and thanked her.
Later I heard her talking to Danny and she told him my German wasn't perfect but she understood me. We were talking and the subject got around to Raccoon. I mentioned that I had read Herman Goring had imported Raccoon's to Germany from the U.S. during the 30's, and did they ever establish a breeding population over there?
Now the ladies eyes became big and bright and she said:
There are a million of them. I read about that just the other day. Everybody in Germany hates coon! I looked it up on the internet that night and there are 1,000,000 Raccoon's in Germany. But at the time I said: 1,000,0000 coon huh, sounds like a fairly well established breeding population to me. What y'all need now is coon hounds! She laughed out loud and said oh, yeah, right, that's just what we need. You and Herman Goring would have really hit it off, coon hounds. Ha Ha.
I told her that there are a million coon there now. Next year there will be 2,000,000 and the next year 4,000,000, then 8,000,000. You better get after those coon now! We are at the ground floor of a tremendous money making opportunity. You can get set up, over there, I can get set over here and I can send you 100 trained coon hounds and 1,000 puppies every year. We can raise them over here and soon it will be 1,000 trained hounds and 10,000 puppies yearly!
The lady was laughing out loud and said: I can see it all now, I would be driving over a mountain at night and looking down over the woods I would see 100 lights. Every light would represent a drunk with a gun out looking for his dogs who are looking for coon. A gun in his right hand, a bottle of Jagermiester in his left and a light on his head... I told her: "don't forget about the bib overalls".
She was roaring: bib overalls, bib overalls, yeah, a gun in his right and a bottle in his left a light on the top of his head and wearing bib overalls! Out staggering around in the woods running into trees! Ha Ha, You and Herman Goring would have really gotten on well together. She was an accountant about 50 and a nice lady. We had a good laugh and finished our job so we left.
But I have though about this for some time. The reason Herman Goring imported Raccoon's to Germany was to have something to hunt. I told my Vet of 35 years Dr. Menser about Herman Goring importing Coon to Germany in the 30's and his response, {he never even looked up}
" What the fxxx for"?
No one likes coon in Germany. There's not one person who feels any sympathy for them and doesn't want them all dead. So the question stands,
Why don't Germans hunt Coon?
They have them, hate them, coon are populating at a rapid rate. If they are not used for sport they will eat everything. Germany will look like the Shara desert! Coon hunting could be made into a national sport. There could be Olympic events about coon hunting. We could buy, tan and deal fur, sell guns, lights, dog supplies, Raccoon coats could make a big come back!
We could sell bottles of Jagermeister with pictures of hounds on the label, sell books, magazines, bib overalls, bring old Herman's vision of Germans hunting coon to fruition.
Coon hunting is good exercise! It's fun too!
You had better 'get after them coon' I said and she laughed at that to. But to Germans, I don't speak German that well.
But lets 'git ignert and go Coon hunting'!
Tschüß
J. Winters von Knife...
http://jacksknifeshop.tripod.com/
