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janet kosnik

Our late February nights in Montana were warming up enough to try my luck on those breeding coon. I worked until 11PM, as usual, and I had brought 4 hounds with me to work. They were happy to be in the dogbox, waiting to hunt at dark. I turned out around midnight. I had 2 older hounds and 2 young ones. My 4-yr. old male, Sonny Boy, is a great dog on track and my 2-yr. old spayed female, Angel, is turning into a good tracking dog, also. They both struck soon after being turned out. My 1-½ yr. old female, Jujube, doesn’t open yet on track but I expect that to change soon. My 10-month-old Ladybug followed along with the big dogs with plenty of interest. All hounds were working the same area, the big dogs opening from time to time. I was anxious to see if my hounds could find one of those coon! I talked to the hounds, encouraging my young dogs. The dogs were in an area that had lots of willows and cottonwoods, lots of downed and dead branches which took a lot of work to get over. It was easier for those hounds to go under then it was for me to go over! That’s coonhunting, for you! After about 30 minutes of working that track, my Jujube located and opened, I mean, she treed ol’ Mr. Coon. I was excited…and impressed with that young dog. And that wasn’t all…my pup, Ladybug, made a beeline to that tree after hearing Jujube treeing and she treed right along with her, staying hard on the wood. That was Ladybug’s first treed coon in the woods! This was no planned drag or carefully placed coon for the pup, she was in there right along with the big hounds. I did catch a glimpse of that coon before he slipped into the den. Well, after snapping a few pictures, encouraging those young dogs on the tree, shining that coon, I leashed up those hounds and we all went home happy.

Two nights later, we tried it again, after work. Only took the girls this time: Angel, Jujube and Ladybug. Turned out in the same vicinity as the other night. Angel struck but the hounds couldn’t move the track. I figured it must have been a cold one. I was getting ready to leash them up and call it a night when Angel struck hard and the other girls followed. Angel worked it for awhile, then that little Jujube treed one again! And this one was in full view! Those girls got a good look at that coon in my nite lite and did some hard treeing. I was real proud of them. The pup didn’t have as much interest as the other night, so I decided that she would stay home the next time.

Another 2 days went by and it was the last day of February, ready to be March. I worked until 1130PM and drove to the area where we’ve been having such good luck finding those coon. This time I had Sonny Boy and Jujube. Turned those 2 hounds out and Sonny immediately struck. He began working that track, or should I say those tracks ‘cause there was more than just one coon out there. My hounds aren’t used to getting into this much scent and, boy, were they excited. Me, too! I heard and saw a coon climbing up a tree and the hounds were right there treeing hard. They saw it, too. After pulling Sonny and Jube off that tree, they took off on another track. While Sonny found another coon on a low bowed branch, Jujube was off working a track on her own. I dragged Sonny off the; she’s a lean, agile hound. It was hard for me to get to this tree since there was so much undergrowth around the bottom of this tree but somehow I managed to get there just in time to catch Jube falling out of it! I grabbed at her and was able to get ahold of her collar and break her fall. Good thing! I snapped her leash on and tied her closeby. Didn’t want her to try the same thing again. This coon was also on a bowed branch and Jube thought she could just climb on up after it. I tried to get that branch swaying so that coon would jump out but it was too big and I wasn’t brave enough to climb way up there, either.

Three coon in an hour’s time was more than I could’ve wished for. And 5 coon in 3 nights of hunting…this was more coon for this time of the year than I’m used to seeing. I sure hope that this is just the start of a great year of coonhunting with my hounds, especially the young ones!

PICTURES:

11 MONTH OLD LADYBUG

JUICE'S SON:   SONNY BOY