John's First Coon
John and Noah, with some help from dad, set a couple coon sets the other day. This morning when John and I went down to check them, we had a pleasant surprise. Johnny trapped his first coon, and he was a big old boy. It was caught in a little cubby set they built out of shale. They dug out a spot on the bank and made three "walls" and I put a big slab of shale on the top for a roof. We baited with fish and guarded the entry with a 1 3/4 coil spring.
posted by Scott M Terry @ 10:47 AM
11 comments
11 Comments:
Congratulations! What do you do with the coons that are trapped? Though less glamorous, my brother and I trapped mice and rats when we were young boys. We were paid a dime a mouse and a quarter a rat by the Sonora Desert Museum (a live animal museum near Tucson, Arizona). They used them to feed their snakes and other critters that ate these rodents. I can’t believe my mother was so patient with us, as we would fill her only freezer with the accumulated trappings (pardon the pun) until it was full, then she would take us to the museum to cash them in, which added up to quite a bit for the early 1960’s. We trapped literally thousands over the several years we did it. My brother kept such meticulous and detailed records that a neighbor used them to do a doctrinal thesis on the rodent populations of the Sonoran deserts. It was a lot of fun. I will always be thankful for my parents that let us boys play, trap and hunt in the deserts, as it kept us off of the streets where mischievous kids learned evil. My deep appreciation of nature came from the many years I explored the rich deserts near Tucson.
Good goin' John! The coon's as big as you. I hope your dad makes your first coon skin cap out of it. (hint hint)
Beautiful pictures. I am thinking my sons would enjoy trapping. I have never explored this with them, but the did try to make a trap in the cedar's once. I need to encourage this desire.
Missouri Rev
Great story! Sounds like you had a lot of fun and made some money as well.
We sell most of our hides. We skin them and put the hides in the freezer. Soon the fur buyer will be coming to town every week and we take them in to sell. I'm not sure what to do with coons this year. Prices are down. We could hold them in the freezer until better prices come or just sell them now. I don't have my line out yet. The boys have those two sets they are watching, but I need to get some more steel out pretty soon. Time....never enough.
Matt
He was as big as John! I should have weighed him. Not sure if I want to go into hatmakin' this year. I think it takes 2 or 3 large coon for hat. We'll see.
Milkmaid
Your kids would love trapping. Encourage it!
so when're you planning to introduce him to his first 'bar' hunt?
well done, john!
Scott,
Love your pictures, my family took a trip up your way in October. I would love to find out more about that area.
Good thing you're teaching him to hunt. The government is trying to make it a lot harder to raise your own meat - Get ready for the prices of food to go up even if you raise it yourself. The government is forcing farmers to do a lot more paper work and that is going to add to the cost of every animal which will end up being paid for by consumers. The USDA pretends that the National Animal Identification System (NAIS, pronounced Nazi) is for the purpose of keeping the national food supply safe but if that was the case there would be no need to force this on pet owners, horses and other non-food animals, there would be no need for it to be implemented on homesteaders who are raising chickens for eggs for their own needs or other animals for their own consumption and no need for NAIS to be forced on farmers who sell direct to consumers as they know exactly where they got their food. Learn about this and write your congress critters to let them know how you feel. It is a bad idea that is just going to end up adding burocracy and cost to everything food related. Pretty soon hunting may be the only way we can get meat without the government's hand on it but don't count on that to last...
Can you eat racoon? Are they an abundant pest around you? It kinda seems a waste to me to just use their fur and nothing else. What do you do with the body once you skin it?
Yes you can eat them. You should only eat the young ones. You have to remove ALL the fat. They must be soaked in salt water and parboiled. I cut them up and fry them like chicken.
way to go john it is great to see kids in the outdoors it just seems like you dont see many kids outside now days.coon trapping is a great thing to do and fun and i am glad to see kids doing the same good job.
Hello i just started going coon hunting with my boyfriend we just go two new dogs black and tans but we can not going hunting untill he takes a test on fur harvester licenses do you know where he can go and take the test. So we can actual go. Thank You
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