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janet kosnik

It was in October on a Friday night after work, around midnight. I had my 5-yr. old male, Sonny and my young female, Ladybug along with me. It’s been a mild but dry fall here in Montana which makes tracking conditions difficult for the hounds. The conditions were similar to late summer; dry and not much scent on the ground. But the hounds did their best to find some scent. Sonny’s an excellent tracker and Ladybug followed along. We were out for over a half-hour before Sonny and Bug took that track to a tree. I never did locate that coon in the tree for two reasons: that big old cottonwood was still in leaf and my fully? charged light died. I had a VERY dim light and that was it. Couldn’t have seen that coon if it was on the lowest branch looking right at me! But the hounds knew it was there. I had a small mini mag lite but it didn’t help me catch sight of ol’ Mr. Coon. There was plenty of moonlight that night so it wasn’t too hard to find my way back. I had the dogs tied up while I had tried to find that coon…fat chance! I started back toward the truck; about a quarter to a half mile away. Didn’t want to turn those hounds loose again without a good light so I kept them on their leads.

Well, in the moonlight I saw 2 huge outlines off to the left of the road we were taking back to the truck. I shined my tiny light…I shut it off. It helped me none. These two shapes were moving slowly toward the road to cross it and get to the pond. No cows here and it didn’t look like elk, either. Too bulky. Not buffalo either. But, then…it came to me. A cow and calf MOOSE! Woah, stay back, Janet! Stay away from that momma! Could be trouble! So what do I do at 1 AM with 2 dogs in tow and 2 moose up ahead between my truck and me? And let’s not forget that I had only moonlight to see. Thank God for that! My hounds are not deerchasers, usually, but they from time to time have run an occasional deer. But they must have smelled those moose and started getting excited. Well, I started yelling at them for that and thought that making noise would probably be the best thing to do, anyway. I kept looking down the road, trying to see them cross, waiting to see them come into the moonlight. They must have crossed further than I could see. But I couldn’t be sure and I didn’t want to walk straight into them either. So I started back in the direction they were coming from, figuring that they weren’t going back from where they came. I got off the road, through the field and went for the trees. I thought that if that cow came after us, I’d turn the hounds loose and get in close to the trees so she couldn’t get me. I continued talking loudly to the hounds and never saw the moose again. Hooray! I made it back to my truck, loaded up the dogs and had wanted to go pick up my live trap further down the road. Well, not tonight! I might meet momma and baby moose out there without my hounds to help me out. No way!

So I thought it’d be a good idea to just go home. The night was not over and when I started my truck and turned on the heater…it sounded like that heater was an airplane taking off. What a noise! It sounded to me as if something got stuck in the heater fan or somewhere near it. Could it be a coon? More like a mouse, probably. It was a chilly drive home without a heater. It’s about 55 miles home, over an hour’s ride.

So I got home, fed the hounds and went to bed. I’ll look under the hood in the daylight. It was a mouse. Spark plug wires were chewed and nesting material was on top of the engine! Had to take it into the dealership for them to go in and remove that mouse. I knew for sure, it was a mouse a day or two after that first happened before I got it into the service dept. ‘cause I could smell him. And we all know what a dead mouse smells like! I hung a few air fresheners in the truck to help the air quality.

When we go hunting, things can happen which we don’t plan on. But that what makes it all so interesting. And isn’t that part of life! The unexpected! Good hunting to all!