Bear Grease - Ep. 143: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - My Journey as a Coon Hunter (Part 1)

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

This week Brent's jumping in with both feet talking about his journey as a coon hunter. His family's legacy with the sport goes back to the childhood of his father and continues today. There are some pretty good tales in this one, and Brent promises, they're all true. Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease Merch https://gootf.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From Coon Hunting to Trotlining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my stories and country skills that will help you beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the Airways have to offer. All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I think I've got a thing or two to teach you.

My journey is a coon hunter part one. It was a children's story published in 1961 that smoldered on bookshelves with moderate sales until 1974. That's when they made a movie, telling the story of a grown man's perspective and memory of coonhounds and his life with him as a child. I saw the movie where the red fir grows when I was eight, and before the movie ended, I knew I was a coon hunter.

And just like Billy Coleman, starting out in the story, I didn't have a dog. It would be a few years before I got one and let me tell you what I did, I never looked back. We're talking about all things coon hunting, from what I look for and picking out a puppy to getting them to tree. It's a coon hunting jubilee this week on this country life podcast. But first, I'm going to tell you a story. This story I'm about to tell you could have come straight out of where the red fern grows.

The only difference is this one is true. And while Billy Coleman's desire to have a coon dog was fictional, it was very real in the heart of my father and would eventually be passed down to me. This is one of my favorite stories of all time, and it's the one where my dad and his friend Raymond stole a coon dog. Nobody Barnett lived less than a half a mile from the house where my dad grew up. He had been his neighbor since the moment my dad first saw the light of day, on April the 16th, 1937, in that very same house. This would have been in the late 40s when my dad was 10 or 12 years old. Nobody had a good dog, a really good dog,

and one that he guarded like it was a child. During this time, Coon hives were bringing top dollar and having a good coon house was just like having a second income. Most of the time, it paid more than being a hand at the sawmill. Dad and Raymond would go hunting with him, and like anyone I've ever taken with me that liked it, they liked it a lot. And any time nobody was leaving the house to go, there stood Dad and Raymond on the porch, waiting to go with him.

Thirty-plus years later, and at about the same age as my dad in this story, Miss Ailey Barnett, nobody's sister, lived there with him. And she'd fixed me cookies and a glass of sweet milk any time I just happened to be walking by and ambled up in their yard, which was just about any time I could smell her baking cookies. I'd sit on the same porch by Dad and Raymond waited on me eating cookies and listening to Nobody and Miss Ailey tell me how much I looked like my dad and walked like my grandpa, except there was no coon hunt afterwards. Just a heart full of old stories and a belly full of warm cookies and cold milk.

They were good folks. They were real good folks. Nobody's dog was a tree and walker, and his name was Tiger, and as far as my dad knew, he was the best coon dog in the country. Not having many dogs to compare him to may have elevated his status to a kid, but he said if they went hunting, they nearly always brought Coons home. Now, that's a solid of a testimony for a Coonhound that you can get. There was only one problem.

Nobody had a job and could only go hunting on the weekends, which really wasn't a problem them until school was let out for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Dad and Raymond's hunting had been limited to weekends only, just like nobody's. But now that school was out, Friday night and Saturday night, that wasn't nearly enough time for two aspiring young houndsmen to get their fix on hunting, and no amount of begging could persuade nobody to sacrifice a good night's rest when he had to be at work so early in the morning. Now, dad said it was absolute torture to walk by and see Tiger tied out by his dog house, knowing they weren't going to be able to go hunting that night. This is when the innocence of my father's youth took a dark turn.

Dad said he told his friend, well, if he won't take us hunting, we'll just take his dog. The plan was formulated. When nobody went to bed, Dad and Raymond would slip up to the edge of the yard, remove Tiger's collar, and fashion it back like he'd pulled loose from it, and then they'd go hunting. The first night they did it, dad said, said they slipped up to the woods at the edge of the yard and waited for the lights to go out. When they did, they waited for a little bit, and he left Raymond to watch the house and belly crawled across that yard like he was sneaking up on an enemy bunker,

hoping old Tiger didn't start barking all the while watching the house for any signs of movement. He made it up to Tiger, who'd been watching him the whole time wagging his tail. Dad took his collar off, fastened it back, and they led him a long way from the house with the lead rope he'd made from some haystring he got out of the barn. Once they were far enough away, they figured nobody could hear Tiger barking. They cut him loose, and the hunt was on. They treated a coon or two and was happy as they could be. Their plan had worked to perfection.

They'd gotten away with it, and when they were done, they walked Tiger back to to the inside of the house and let him go, knowing full well that he'd go back home, and he did. They hid their coons up in the barn that night and skinned them later the next day after nobody and everybody else had gone to work. Well, up in the day, they walked by and checked, and sure enough, there laid Tiger, back on the chain, sleeping the day away. Mission accomplished. That was easy.

So easy that they decided to do it again. They did this several nights over the winter school break, each taking turns doing the belly crawling while the other one was the lookout. Dad said they did it so much that Tiger would be sitting outside his doghouse looking for him to slip into their hiding spreeks. bought waiting on them to go hunting. Every time they did it, it was the same. Hide out till dark, crawl across the yard,

hitched Tiger up to the homemade lead rope, and fix his collar back exactly as it had been leaving nobody, no other answer for him to being off the chain other than he pulled out of it on his own. A Tiger always went home. It was the perfect victimless crime, and one that they had no intention to stop and once school started back.

He said if they could borrow a man's prize coon now without him knowing about it, and then they could surely slip out of the house and go hunting, because not only were they hiding their actions from nobody, but the Reeves family too, my great-grandpa would not have approved of him borrow someone's dog, especially one as valuable as that one. Folks didn't have a lot of pets back then, and you can bet if they were feeding the dog he was serving a purpose,

and one that could put food on the table and money in your pocket. was more valuable than any. Dad told me he didn't know how many times they pulled that off, but it was a lot. He said it all came to a screeching halt one night when it was Raymond's turn to fetch Tiger. He said Tiger wasn't setting up waiting for him like he normally was, and they could see him under the nightlight still in his house. They guessed him to still be sleeping, and deservedly so after all, he had been hunting quite a lot during the weekends, not to mention all the times Dad and Raymond

had him out during the week. Dad said it was Raymond's turn to get Tiger, and he watched him crawl off toward the doghouse, ready to hit the woods and treat some coons. Then Raymond came crawling back and said, buddy, something wrong with Tiger. She's breathing funny. Dad told him, there ain't nothing wrong with that dog.

We hunted him every night this week, including last night. Wasn't nothing wrong with him then, and when we checked on him this afternoon, I bet he's just sleeping in his house. I'll go get him, and off he went. crawling across the yard like an aggravated GI Joe only to find that Raymond was right. He said he stopped right before he got to the doghouse

and listened and he could hear him in there, breathing. What kind of laboring to do? He said it sounded kind of like he was snoring. In and out. Dad said, he didn't know what it was, but he whispered, come on, Tiger. Tiger got up, walked out of the doghouse. He said he reached up to grab his collar,

and he said it was so tight that he could barely get a finger to take it off. Nobody had apparently grown tired of, nobody had apparently grown tired of Tiger slipping out of his collar and had been slowly tightening it up every morning when he'd leave for work. He'd come home and there was Tiger on the chain beside his doghouse. He'd go to bed and wake up only discover his prize coon dog was loose once again the next morning from slipping out of his collar. Dad said if we would have took Tiger out of his collar. Dad said if we would have took Tiger out of one more night when nobody found him loose again the next morning that he would have tightened his

collar up so much it would have choked him to death before nobody got home from work that day. Dad loosened his collar and they never borrowed him again. And that's just how that happened. My journey as a coon hunter. Coon hunting has always been a part of my life since I, since I was a kid. I got my first town when I was 15. He was a registered tree and walking. He was a registered tree and Walker and I got him from Mr. Lloyd Corker, who owned Corker's feed store in Warren, Arkansas. He cost me $75 as an eight-week-old puppy. I had a job working at the local sale barn, pushing cows from one end to the other as the sale progressed every Saturday and a little trap line money left, but I was still $25 short.

Dad told me he'd loaned to me and we paid him, and Mr. Corker gave me a bag of feed before we left. I named him Tom. Want to know what you do with an eight-week-old coon hound? Absolutely nothing. As far as training a coon dog goes anyway, they're too young. The brains are like jello, and some of them, well, some of them never grow out of it. They're infants, and they don't know the butts from 15 cents when it comes to anything about what their purpose in life is. That's going to come later, but there's lots of things to do before you ever turn that rascal loose in search of a coon.

Now, this was my approach. and the methods that I used to train my first one was from what my dad taught me. Later on, and as recently as right now, I'd ask my Uncle Jimmeray, whose favorite dog he had many years ago was a tree and walker named Willie Nelson. I thought it kind of ironic that now I have one named Whalen. Anyway, some of what I learned is from friends, like Rex Whiting and Michael Roseman, but the best lessons I got was from cutting that hound loose in the woods. but only after I'd made sure one thing that he'd mind me.

Remember, I said, this is how I do it and what works for me. I ain't looking to defend this as a doctoral thesis. Everybody has an opinion. This one, it just happens to be mine. Dad told me it does me no good to have a dog with no way to control him. So, from day one, he has to learn that I'm his boss and he's safe with me. Wherever I am is always a good place. that's the only way that a dog will leave what he's doing or is interested in

and come to where you are is if he recognizes your authority and feels safe and secure there. How do I get him to come to me? Well, that for me starts when I'm picking him out of the litter. You can't tell what a dog was going to make when they're two months old. Old-time coon hunters wouldn't even start messing with a coon dog until he was like a year or more older. So here's a few cues that I've found to be helpful. I'm looking for a puppy that looks at me. Michael Roseman will tell you, and I believe it,

that a dog that will make eye contact with you has some potential to take direction. He's paying attention. It doesn't mean that they'll treat coons and not chase deer. It's just a starting point. Dogs are like people, and that they have personalities. They're as different as night and day.

There's no one-size-fits-all. Just traits to look for. Genetics are important up to a point, and to me it's just a baseline of skills that a dog should inherently possess. Notice I said should possess. Just like mama, daddy, grandma, grandpa, and aunts and uncles can do it. It don't mean junior can or any of his litter mates. I've got to teach this joker to come to me when I call him.

And one of the easiest ways is to use food. Call their name when you put down some food or a treat and you praise them when they get there. But that's not the way I like to do it. that'll condition a dog to look for food every time that they come to you, and it won't take many times of you forgetting to bring any or running out, and sooting that dog might say, well, I hear you calling, but you don't ever really have anything to eat. I think I'll just stay here.

Well, I'd rather have that dog come to me from the rapport that we've developed together through socialization. I'm the guy that feeds him. I'm the guy that waters him. I'm the guy that makes sure his dog bed is clean and his kennels are washed out, and in Whalen's case, I'm the guy that cleans the filter in his air-conditioned doghouse. I spend time with my hound. My dad always said that a dog that gets messed with and hunted will make the best tree dog.

So I don't look at him as a tool. He's not a hammer, and his doghouse ain't a toolbox. I don't just pull him out of the kennel every time I want him to go tree a coon. He's a member of this family and he got there by doing what I wanted him to do, or he'd be a member of somebody else's family. I wasn't looking for a pet when I got him. I was looking for a coon dog, and it was my responsibility to give him every chance to be one.

It goes back to that looking at you thing. If they're looking at you, they're paying attention. If they're paying attention, they're teachable, and that's half the battle. If you've got an intelligent dog whose inherent desire is to please you, their boss, and you can't convey what you want that dog to do, that ain't the dog's fault. That's all on you. They say dogs can learn close to like 250 words. Go tree a coon.

That's only four. So how hard could it really be to get one to do that? Well, they got to be exposed. You can't teach a dog desire. That's got to come naturally. They have to have the will to leave the safe. of your presence and go into the dark unknown, specifically looking for the sin of a coon.

And let me tell you about old Tom. His registered name was Reeves Sea Creek Tom. That name come from, obviously, my last name, and the creek that ran through our farm that I only a few weeks ago learned. The actual name wasn't Sea Creek. It was Walker Creek. So I guess you can teach an old dog a new trick. At least you can teach them a little bit about the geography.

But Tom was his call name, and that's what it was going to be. Steve McQueen played a cowboy named Tom Horn in a movie by the same name. I liked that movie, and Steve McQueen, so I named him Tom. When you register a dog, a pure-bred dog, he has to have a unique name. That separates him from the other dogs in the registration. There are some real creative names in the registry, and some of which make absolutely no sense. It may not even be what the dog is called.

His registered name could be Buffalo Bill Cody's tricolored tornado But his call name might be Carl That's a whole whole other show So we're going to go on with the story On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over They just get darker I've seen something in the road I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag

And there was a full of blood Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors. Where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper.

From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragmented. and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers.

Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Old Tom gets to be about eight months old and I'm about to have a fit to take him hunting. Dad finally says, come on, let's load him up and go see what he'll do. finally, it's coon hunting time. After six months of working with this dog and leading him and teaching him to load to come to me when I called and getting him to do everything under the sun that I wanted to do except split wood and paint the barn or anything related to coon hunting, we'd finally fin to get this dog in the woods.

I was about to pee in my breeches from excitement. Billy Coleman, you ain't got nothing on me because I'm fint to do this for real. We loaded Tom up in Dad's dog crate, and off we went to the neighbor's chicken farm. Dad said there was a big persimmond tree on the side of the road that goes down to the chicken house. It's probably got some persimmons on it. If it does, it ought to have some coons in it or close by. We'll cut him loose and see what he does. Now, I should probably mention in this point of the story that I had recently had my appendix removed,

like eight days ago. I was still sporting a handful of staples in the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the incision. Anyone that's ever had an appendectomy will tell you they're not fun. Believe them when they say this. On with the story. I was sitting on the edge of the seat for the two-mile ride down the gravel road. We made the curve and 20 yards off the road and a hundred from that chicken house stood the persimintry and it looked like it was decorated for Christmas. When all those coons looked at the truck and their eyes glowed in the dark, Dad said, well, Tom's fixing to get his test.

I was ready to bail out of that truck before it stopped. I did that 10 years prior to this night, and my dad ran over me on an accident. Six years prior to this night, I ran over him. But those are two different stories. Back to the coons. That tree was over 20 feet tall and as big around as a cantaloupe. The first limb was about eight feet off the ground.

it was loaded with Bres Simmons and Coons. I counted six sets of eyes of what I could see. Dad, what do I do? He said, get Tom out and cut him loose. We'll just see what he does. He needs to find him on his own. Well, I did just as he said. Old Tom walked around in front of the truck wagging his tailed

and looking happy just to be hanging out with the boys at night for once, and all of a sudden he caught a whiff of scent from him, Coons, and his whole demeanor changed. started moving with a purpose over toward that tree. His nose was going from above his shoulders and back to the ground. Dad said he's winning them coon, son, and that means he was catching their scent as it flowed through the air, and then he'd put his nose to the ground and smell where they'd been walking around. Now, you'd think that would be an ideal scenario to train a dog in, but it really ain't. Dogs don't smell like we do. If you walked in a house and you smelled someone

cooking homemade soup. You'd think, I smell soup. Let's eat. Well, a dog's never don't work that way. They walk in the door right beside you, and while you're smelling soup, they're smelling tomatoes, salt,

pepper, potatoes, garlic, celery, thyme, corn, beans, whatever you got in the pot, plus and everything else in the house, including you. In an area where Coons have been frequenting, it could turn into sensory overload.

literally everything around it smells like coons and when everything smells like a coon it's hard to discern where the source of the smell is coming from that'll mess up a finished dog just as quick as it as will a young one i've seen it but we watched old tom's he went back and forth around that tree left and right front and back over to a big corner post on the fence 10 yards away and back to the tree again. He was confused. He was also still a baby as far as coon dogs go. Now you coon hunters out there save your messages telling me about how your dog was tree and coons by their self when they was two months old or before they had their eyes open. I know y'all are out there. That goes for you too, Clay. Michael, Rex, Toby Neymire. Ain't nobody got time for that. Tom needed some help,

So I hatched a plan And I knew if I didn't If I didn't just do it on my own That I'd never get it approved by my dad So when dad had walked back to his truck to get a light I saw the opportunity I was waiting for I could feel the staples pulling against my incision As I reached up and I grabbed that bottom limb of that persimetry

It felt like my guts were about to pop out of that cut When I finally hooked my leg over the limb And stood up on it I was fixing to shake some coons out of that tree. If that didn't get Tom more focused on what we were doing there, I didn't know what would. Son, get out of that tree, you've been to tear your staples out. Now, just so y'all know, and to adhere to the Bear Grease Policy Manual in reference to truth and storytelling, that is not an exact quote of what my father said when he turned around

and saw me eight days out of surgery and my feet eight feet off the ground. It ain't even close. I remember it verbatim and it contained all those words I just quoted, but it was also sprinkled with a string of adjectives that were not approved for all agents. Having kids and grandkids of my own, I get where he was coming from. Dad, I'm all right and it don't hurt. I'm fixing to, I'm fitting to shake these coons out, get ready. Now, I should have paid attention to that warning about getting ready.

I looked up and I could see Coons sitting everywhere in that tree. They were on the limbs I was holding on to. They were sitting just above my head. They were sitting on the limbs on the other side of the tree. And without much effort, I could have reached and touched every one of them. But what I did was test the tensile strength of that tree like Hurricane Reeves. They just blow it into town. I was shaking that tree with every bit of strength I could muster.

My side was hurting, but I was making it rain coons on Dad and Tom. They were dropping out of that tree as fast as the persimmons were. My plan was perfect. Almost perfect. The tree was 100 yards from that chicken house, 10 yards from that big corner post on the fence, and 200 yards from the next tree. In my mind, those coons had two choices.

They could head toward the woods across that pasture or climb that fence post. Either way, Tom was bound to get after him. Six coons hit the ground. One made three jumps and was sitting on top of that big corner post matter than a mashed cat. Tom was right behind him barking. Now, this was good. But only one of them went up that post.

No problem, oh. I'll climb down. We'll let him trail on that post for a little bit. Then I'll put Tom on the leash. I'll get me a stick and poke that coon off the post and let him run off. I'll turn Tom loose and let him try. him again. This was going to be some good schooling. But I'd made two mistakes that night. One was climbing that tree so soon after my surgery. My side was killing me. Two was thinking those

coons only had two choices once they hit the ground, because the other five came right back up that persimetry. It was chaos. Absolute chaos. Tom was barking and jumping at that coon. That Coon was growling and fussing and taking swipes at him every time he jumped. Dad was hollering, get him, Tom. Son, be careful. Get him, Tom. Son, look out. The Coons are coming back out of the tree.

Get him, Tom. Hold on, son. I looked down that tree truck, and I saw that squad of coons and a cogger line coming up so fast that all I could do was watch. I couldn't jump. All my guts would have come out when I hit the ground and I'd have died, never knowing how good that Coon Dog was going to be. I just had to ride the storm out.

Two of them ran across my arms as I bear hugged that tree. The other three ran across my left leg in rapid succession and between my knees as they corkscrewed up that tree. They were circling it like a Coon Barber pole. I just stood there watching the show. All five of them looked me right in the eyes as they passed my head going to the butt of that persimetry, and I could smell them. And they didn't smell like homemade soup.

They smelled like rabies and hate, and I was stuck in that tree with them. I had made an egregious mistake by not factoring in the persimmons tree as their alternate route to travel. Now, Tom was still barking at that coon on the fence post, but he was starting to lose interest with everything else that was going on. My dad was begging me to get out of the tree, and I scared to move. Finally, I started easing down and my dad grabbed my legs and put me on his shoulders. He walked to the truck, and I stepped off on the dog crate. He checked my staples, and they were all still good. I hadn't pulled anything loose.

But while he was checking me over, Tom made a dash over where we were, and in that instant that coon bailed off that corner post and disappeared. I don't know where he went. Dad pulled the plug on that hunt, and we called it a night. We'd accomplished what we'd set out to do with Tom and had one heck of a tale to tell folks. Unfortunately, I never got to see what they'd be. that hound would have made.

He got stolen. He was bad to wander off and visit the neighbors, and during that time you could run deer dogs during deer season, and lots of folks did. Out-of-towners were bad about picking up hunting dogs that didn't belong to them and trade them off to other deer camps to run deer, and we're pretty sure that that's what happened to him. I hated that.

But, man, what a wonderful memory we shared with our friends and family over the years telling that story, and that old pup made it all possible. Dadgum, I've been telling these tales about my journey as a coon hunter, and we about run out of time. I guess we'll just make this part one. If that works for y'all, it works for me. There's plenty more stories of my old noggin to tell you,

and me and old whaling, we're making them just about every time we go. You folks have been mighty good to me. All of us and my family and my meat eater family appreciate so much all the wonderful, feedback in the reviews that y'all have taken the time to send in. There's lots of folks that work on this thing. It's not just me,

not even close. Hey, if y'all can share it with the others you think might enjoy it. And until next week, this is Brett Reeves. Sign it all. Y'all be careful. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love my.

because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods,

they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out prime cuts. at Phelps game calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did,

and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action.