Men Who Hunt at Night

The 'Coon Hunters

I am an ex-hunter myself so I have no beef with game bird hunters who hunt for the pot. There seems very little difference between what they do than, say, fishing, although I'll admit that quail and dove probably have more distinct personalities than fish—if that counts for anything. Until about 10 years ago I was an enthusiastic hunter of game birds: dove, quail, pheasants, and my guns—a 20 gauge Eig double, a 20 gauge Ithica Featherlite pump, a .22 Remington Nylon for copperheads, and a Remington .243 which isn't good for anything but coyotes (who were killing my dogs before I bought it)—still hang, oiled and functional, on the wall behind me. I quit hunting with the shotgun because I finally got it through my head that the little feathered creatures were just trying to stay alive and get by from one year to the next like the rest of us. I miss the sport of wing-shooting—it takes skill—and wish I had never gone soft in the head about the little fellows, but, there it is. I can't shoot them any more.

But, there are other kinds of hunters.
It has been my observation that the men who hunt raccoons, and I have encountered a few, are, to put it bluntly, genetic throwbacks. Any one of those with whom I have crossed paths could have played the part of the guy with the banjo in James Dickey's _Deliverance_. They don't hunt for the pot; they hunt for the raccoons bushy tails so they can tie them to their belts and show off. They throw the rest of him away. And they don't shoot a raccoon unless they have to; instead they try to shake the terrified animal out of his tree so they can watch their dogs tear him to pieces. I once saw a spread in Life magazine showing some "sportsmen" in Louisiana who chained a raccoon to a floating log and then watched as their dog swam out to try to tear him off the log; usually the dog won, but now and then the raccoon did and the dog drowned. Those people's characters must have been bent in that direction by too many generations of keeping it all in the family.

Let me repeat the words of one local raccoon hunter. He said to me as I was ushering him off my land at two-o'clock in the morning:
—"Don' no 'coon know anithin' 'bout fences and propity lines. Ol' 'coon, he go wheah he want when he want, and so do I."

If you are pleased that the trespasser got his comeuppance by being ejected, I must add that the episode turned out to be very costly. The next afternoon I found my old pal Jessie, my valiant black Lab, down by the mailbox breathing her last breath. Alvin, the vet, said that she had not been run over, as I thought, but had been beaten with a club. My stomach churned as I got a mental picture of old friendly Jessie approaching the man, all a-wag-tail, only to be beaten to the earth with a club. What kind of man is it that would do a thing like that? After I told Alvin that I suspected she had been killed by a raccoon hunter (whose name I did not know), he said that sounded about right. He said that, being in the dog business, he had had many experiences with 'coon hunters and advised me that it would be smart if I left the score where it stood; minus one black Lab.
—"Mess with those people and they'll burn your barn, or your house," he said. "They are not used to being thrown off anybody's property. They've been hunting where they please around here for generations and they do not pay attention to fences and they do not respect the idea of private land. Most landowners don't want to mess with them. Even the game wardens leave them alone. You cannot prove that it was a 'coon hunter that killed Jesse. The very last thing you want to do is start it up with them; you are too civilized, so just let it be."

Well, I have followed Al's advice and let it be, but it will be a long time before I forget wonderful old Jesse—and although it was dark that night, it was not so dark that I can't remember that son-of-a-bitchin 'coon hunter's face.

Alex Coyle
11/11/06