Beginner's Guide to Coon Hunting

We're talking a one on one guided hunt. You're gonna be sleeping in a wall tent, and you're going to be doing that for five days with the founder and CEO of Outdoor Edge, David Block. Now, if you've never been on an elk hunt before, I'm telling you right now go sign up for this because if you ever hear a elk bugle, whether it's at four hundred yards or it's at forty yards, it is a life changing experience. So here's how you enter. Go to outdoor edge dot com.

There's gonna be a big banner for it somewhere on their homepage. All you have to do is click on that, go fill out some information I think your name, your email address, maybe some other stuff, and that's all you have to do. That's how you are entered. They're gonna be picking a winner. Oh always from now so you have plenty of time to enter. Go visit outdoor edge dot com. Sign up today. Here we go. My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the Bear Hunting

Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the world of hunting the icon of the North American Wilderness Prepare. We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation. We will also bring you into some of the wildest country off the planet chasing fair. This week, I'm over in eastern Arkansas with my good friend Brent Reeves and Nick Gilliland. We're coon camp. We're cooking catfish, we're coon hunting, we're training some young dogs,

we're letting some old dogs hunt. And we have an in depth discussion and I mean in depth about coon hunting and we break it down. We break it down. This is a beginner's guide to coon hunting because I think that coon hunting is a great point for people to enter into the outdoor world. You're gonna enjoy this podcast. With my friend Brent Reeves and Nick Gilliland. I want to talk to you about c v A muzzleloaders. C v A has been around since nineteen one. They have

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before they were partners of this podcast. You're going to enjoy this podcast with Brent Reeves and Nick gettle Land. You know, I hate to start off this podcast with a biology lesson, but I just learned something that I hadn't told you all yet. Out here I was skinning this squirrel and did you know, did you know tell me the truth that a squirrel has a baculi. A buck squirrel has a bone just his man parts, and

just like the raccoon and the bear. I didn't know that it is very small that I did not know. I absolutely did not know that it's it's about a quarter inch long. I don't recall ever having a conversation about one, but but I didn't know that it was skinning squirrels with my dad and coon's and he said they were of the same ilk. It's the only buck squirrel that I've ever skinned that I noted it so and it was it was not of the normal persuasion of a coon. So again, this is a science lesson.

So this is this is just what we do. And uh, you know, as coon hunters, everybody knows about the Baculai vaccoon. You know, it's uh notable. Yes, so I we're in East Arkansas. I was just corrected because we I had said we were in South Arkansas. Any time I'm like in swamp country, I feel like I'm in the South. But we're not in the south at all actually, and not quite northeast Arkansas. But if Arkansas was split into quadrants, it would be we would be in the northeast quadrant.

Would you say we're above the halfway mark in Arkansas, we would be in the southern portion of the northeast parts. Kind of like a legal description. Yeah, we have to be careful describing the people where we are because we don't want to actually know where our secret spot. That's right. Well, we're so we're in the northeast, the southern part of the northeast quadrant of Arkansas, and we are we're at Coon Camp. This is a this is the first for me, and I've got Brent Reeves who has been here lots

of times before, so Brent welcome. Do you have any science lessons for us? Just anything you've learned in the last hour and a half. Alright, good, Nick, plumbing, I can I can give you plumbing a plumbing lesson real quick. What the three things you need to know about plumbing? Go ahead, hots on the left, don't bite your fingernails, and all the bad stuff runs down hill. That's everything you need to know about. And the hot water in this place is scalid. It's hogs. God. Yeah. Yeah. And

I've got Nick gili Land from western North Carolina. I think any state or any place that has a direction attached to it, it's very important that you add a second direction in there, to even be more specific, so that people aren't confused that there's one Carolina and you live on the north side of it. Are you with me? Absolutely?

Eastern North Carolina I have come to find out that the folks that live in the two directional states that proceed Carolina were very particular about which one you say that they live in. If they live in the north wind, don't say don't you live in South Carolina? That isn't no, no, I understand, no, do not do that. The mountains literally stopped the state line. It's a desert. After that, they

just drop straight off with this whole different world. Wey, what we're gonna do on this on this session is we we I want to talk to you guys about coon hunting. You guys are big coon hunters. Um. I want to overall, I want to talk about what we're doing here this weekend. But I want to talk I want to walk somebody through who knows nothing about coon hunting. I think there's a lot of people that are looking for ways to to enjoy public lands, enjoy the outdoors,

and so they're exploring options of what they enjoy. And there's some things in life that just seemed to have these these barriers inside of them that are pretty dominant and hard to get over. Okay, like, for instance, if you're a if you're a golfer, like the barrier to entry to golf is so huge because your life would have to be so in the tubes for you to want to play golf that you would have to be

it like that. I'm kid, I'm kid. You know that there's some things that have these strong barriers to entry that if you don't have exposure to them in some way or know somebody that does it, you would just never know that this was an option for something that you could do. And I think coon hunting because of it's uh maybe maybe it's reputation. Maybe I find that people you're you're either a coon hutter or no a

lot about it or you know nothing about it. And like Brent was saying that the people's main exposure to coon hunting is from who was it? Mr Wilson Rawls? Wilson rawls Where the red fern grows yep, And so that's their exposure. A lot of people have read that book and they have this idea of coon hunting. But here's here's my take on it. And this is why we're talking about it is when I was in high school,

I this is true, this true story. I foresaw that my family was going to be an important part of my life and that I was going to be a family man and have a wife and have kids, and I thought, you know what, if I'm a coon hunter, I can put those kids to bed and do all the normal things I have to do as a dad, and I can coon hunt after that. I remember having those thoughts when I was a teenager, like this is

a wise investment to learn how to do. And maybe my dad put that in my mind, and somehow I don't know where that came from, but that is my selling point for you know, as an option. Like a lot of people are busy during the daytime. A lot of people are busy, a lot of people have stuff to do, a lot of people have commitments. Um, if you have a squirrel dog, you've got to hunt that dog during the daytime. The daytime is valuable real estate

on a calendar. The nighttime is when a grown man can make a decision to whittle away some leisure time. And you know, if you miss a couple hours of sleep, you can do that, and you can make that decision and you can you can find this new thing to enjoy the outdoors. Yeah, and you're you're not using it. You don't have to burn vacation time. You don't have to take that the limited time that you have away from your job that you would need to be spending

with your family. If they're not interested in going with you, you don't have to take that in those hours. And you couldn't be spending them with them doing something at night because I mean, it's not costing you anything. You can still do the other thing. Yeah, and you know, if you have a family and they decided to go with you, it's one of those things they could actually partake of. You know, if you have a young child, to take them deer and they'd sit there and be quiet,

don't move, you know, and all that stuff. But you can tow them through the woods or have them walked with you and it's no big deal. Well and see that's just so okay. So point number one is the time when you do it. You can coon hunt during the nighttime, not as valuable of real estate except for sleep. Okay, number two what Nick just said, Um, you can. You can take people with you and there's not as big

a barrier to entry. Most states, a person that's a participant inside of a connut wouldn't even necessarily have to have a hunting license if they're not gonna be shooting and partaking of game. It's a it's a it's a social sport. It's easy to take people. Everybody has heard me talk about all the honey that I've done my whole life. I have taken more people and introduced them to hunting through coon hunting than any other thing that I do. Um Number three is that the coons happened

to be doing really well in the current ecosystem. Messo predators. Have you guys heard the theory on messo predators? Okay, imagineing Uh basically, uh a pre European colonization or colonized North America. Okay, limited human influence. I mean a lot of human influence, but a lot less than now. There would have been big predators everywhere here in Arkansas. There would have been mountain lines. There would have been wolves. Uh there there Uh well those were in Bears has

been the three big main predators. Okay, we essentially, well, we removed mountain lines, we removed wolves. Now we only have bears. Well, the the natural order has this vacuum that's created when predators are removed. So the mid size the meso predators increased. Coyotes, coons, skunks, possums, mid sized predators filled in the void that the the apex predators once filled. And so that's why now the place is

covered with coons, coyotes, possums, foxes, stuff like that. So these are also animals that are not highly coveted by most people. Am I right? So there's a lot of access if you want to pursue finding a place to cuna. And now, Nix, I want to hear nick story about how he has a tough time in North Carolina find a place to cuna, which is hard for me to believe. I mean, I believe you, it's hard. I wouldn't have

known it. Um. So one is is that you're not asking a farmer down here to go hunt his hundred and eighty in white tail. You're not asking him to go kill a gobbler turkeys. You're not asking to you know, it's a small ask. So it's accessible public land. Almost all public land we would have in the Midwest would have coons. Um. So it's a it's a it's it's an accessible thing. Um. I'm I'm I'm building some some ideas for why this is a This is about everything.

Number four, Number seven, we're gonna skip number seven. I don't know, I don't know. Number one. You you use a dog in this hunt. I think people that have never used a dog before in a hunting situation. It adds a whole layer of excitement that is totally different than big game hunting. I mean, I loved the big game hunt. I mean I've built my I've built my hunting life around big game hunting. I love it to be able to go from a big game hunt, which

is a solo endeavor typically. You know, no, you're not using a dog to go to this social hunt. A lot of people that can be involved hunting small game. You're you're not trying to kill one coon a year. We're gonna this is this is an opportunity game, you know. And uh and so it's using the dog is just so incredible. Okay, what are you gus thoughts on which part? On on on all in every part, all in every part. Now, I'm just can you guys think of any other I'm

just trying to build a case. And then we're gonna

talk about how we're coon hunting. Well, when you talk about to access if you we always talk about you and I talk about limiting factors on something enhancing the experience, and and like Nicol explained in a minute, the limiting factor he has to deal without North Carolina, we actually don't the limiting factor we would have here as far as gaining access to property, maybe because someone else has already beat us to it, because the the landowner, the

deer hunter, and the turkey hunter. These coons are a problem to them. You know, where it's legal to to to feed corn, you know, to deer or whatever, to use bait. They're they're in competition direct competition with cones. Coons are a nest predator for turkeys, you know there and in Arkansas especially, you know Clay that the turkey hunting in Arkansas has suffered because of the amount of predators and the predation on on nesting, on ground nested animals.

It's been tough to the point at this point number twelve, and we're doing a service. And it's very true. Yeah, you know, and it's I mean, it's you can tell it. It'sn't. And it doesn't take a you know, three or four or five years study to do it. I mean you can see you see more dead coon's running up down the highway and then you and you're seeing list turkeys in the woods, hearing fewer gobblers. You know, Hey, I want to make a comment on that, and I really

don't want to monologue. I'm gonna actually talk to you guys, but I just wanted to set this preface. Okay, the people that are in the know oftentimes will have have a refute a little bit, this idea that coon hunters are actually doing something for conservation by taking off coons off the landscape. Okay, I talked to I corresponded with the Mike Chamberlain, the wild Turkey doc uh, the guy that was on Big Big One, the top turkey biologists in the country. He he actually did has done an

extensive amount of research on coon's in the South. He sent me a bunch of bunch of his research papers over the last twenty years that he has written about coon's, coon predation, all these different things. So sometimes like we might wear a chip on our shoulder saying, hey, we're we're saving the predators. And I basically said, tell me why we're not, because I hear some people say, well,

you're not really having an impact. These guys on and Basically, what I felt like he insinuated, and I'm not putting his words about this is what I insinuated from what he told me is that on a on a small scale, a coon hunter can make a difference. On a macro scale, coon hunters probably can't. Do you understand what I'm saying.

I mean, because we hunt on these little bitty pockets of land, even this ten thousand acre property that we're coon hunting this weekend, that is a spa on the map when it comes to turkey habitat in the state of Arkansas. So like a like a turkey manager for the State of Arkansas would be like, coon hunting doesn't really impact success in turkey nesting because there is such a You've got to have a really special set of circumstances for you to be able to run a dog

on a place. It's got to be a big enough place. The landowner's gotta be happy about it. Um And essentially he was like, there's no possible way that you're not hurting. I mean, there's no possible way that what you're doing

is negative for turkeys. He said, I can't prove how much it is, but the way I think about it is if the one coon that we killed last night, or we killed a couple, if that was the coon that came upon the turkey nest that day or was going to and it didn't because it was dead, that's a direct impact. Yeah, And so it's hard for sometimes research science to say coon hunters are saving wild turkeys.

Are you with me? So anyway, I just wanted to say that there is credible understand because what's happening to wild turkey nest is they're getting robbed by predators. I mean, that is what is happening now. It's a lot of predators and that's what Mike has shown everybody and their research is that it's great horned owls and it's skunks, and it's coyotes, and it's possums and it's black snakes

eating a lot of turkey gigs. So anyway, but that's a good point, is that we are doing a service and in certain places, and I know from the places I hunt back home, you can thin out coons on a property to where they are hard to find. If you're not making an impact for the whole state, I guarantee you the farmer of the man leasing that particular piece of land. If you've been there for a year or two, you can probably see the impact that you're

having at least, you know. Yeah, Nick, tell me about hunting in North Carolina, Like, uh described to me the challenges of hunting there. Well, the proof is I'm here and not in North Carolina, right, So that's that number one. Well, you know, in western North Carolina everything is mountainous. Um, so the terrain has a big factor in it, you know. Um, it's very hard to hunt just the terrain. In general.

Everything's laid out different. There's no crops lands, Um, These river bottoms and stuff you know that you have here, we don't have those, so that makes it more difficult. The biggest issue we have is everywhere around the house is turned into retirement community. Um. Well it used to be where a guy had some bottom farm land and he had two or three d acres on the mountain too. It's sold off scoff course down the bottoms, million dollar

homes all over the ridges, gated community. There's absolutely no access. Even if Grandpa did hunted, you're not gonna get to. Um, say, Joe Blow gives you permission for teen acres next door. One the properties nowhere near big enough you can run a dog on. More than likely you're gonna end up in the gay community. Law is gonna be called. It's just too much of a hassle. Tell me. Let me stop you right there, because a lot of people might

have a question about this. What do you think is a big enough property to turn loose a dog on. I wouldn't turn loose from no less on heart acres, And that would be a young dog that is started king hunting. Yeah, more than likely. If it has kun on heart acres, you can get something going, but the dog and dogs probably not gonna go off of it. Yeah, more than likely. But if the dog has any kind of experience to it, you know, then I probably wouldn't. I would need to because he's gonna maybe win one

from off. He's gonna end up off the property to go find one. Yeah, my experience hound, you know, two three hundred acres because I can handle him well, I can call him off if I need to, and it won't hurt him to cut him off the middle of the track because he's experienced so that that would probably be the memium for him. But you know, a young pub you can get by with the Hunter Acres. And that's just I can name you maybe five or six property owners in my entire county that owned the Hunter Acres.

You know, that's just that's a that is a regional issue because of the population explosion of where you're at in western North Carolina. I mean that's like where man, I tell you one thing coming from here going back east and seeing that world over there is there's a lot of people over there. Yeah, I mean more so

than what word used to here. Everything we used to have as far as industry was textiles and plants, and then the nineties all those kind of went away, and you know, you get a lot of people from Charleston, even up north, they moved to the mountains in North Carolina because of the temperature, we got good four seasons. Everything is a little bit equal. You've got some good hot summer, you've got cold winter. You know. So whether they're trying to get away from this out of the

you know, in the extreme, they find it there. And so now everybody that loves around or you either sell them their land, you build their house, you mother grass or something. So it's a necessary evil. We've accepted it and we take it in for our livelihood, but we've lost all our access to natural resources, you know, for any kind of hunting well, and that so there in lies a challenge to coon hunting is finding a place

to hunt, and and that challenge is nationwide. I would say, like right now where I live in northwest Arkansas, that would be a similar challenge, even though we have a lot of public land. Like thirty years ago and beyond, you know, it was common for farmers to see it normal that they would let the coon hunters hunt their place. You wouldn't even necessarily have to have permission just to be a given. Oh, coon hunters run you went down to let's go to tonight, let's go down to Clay's

farm and turn loose. And it's just like it was permission to build. So I mean, you know, it doesn't care. It's the coon hunter, and and that that would have been common, and I love it. I love it in when I find people still like that. And the two places that I hunt are like that. Those guys, I mean, it's like they are just like, well, of course you're gonna hunt my farm. You're a coon hunter, aren't you. I Mean, that's that's kind of the way they look

at it. Another thing that he fights out there too, that he and I've talked about is because of that, you can't go down to Clay's farm in turnal Leaves anymore. All those folks that used to do that are now going to where their state ground is their public hunting. Yeah, we only have well in the county, we have to two areas of public ground. We have a National Force and then a state game land what we call it. And the National Force has certain restrictions. You know, they've

got a lot of access roads. I do not understand why, but when season comes in, they shut the gates on. So even if you want to deer hunt it, you gotta hockey in, you know, into the mountains miles and so coon hunting is pain to do that. And what few guys still coon hunt, You know, they're flogging to those areas because I saw they got They don't have any public or private land either. It's just like I don't.

So if you're the last guy to get there ten miss after dark, you know, you don't have a creek to turn a dog. So yeah, that makes sense. So we're sitting here talking about coon hunting because we uh, we're on a coon hunting excrapaganza this weekend and Nick Nick's dog got hurt. We don't even know what happened to it, but Nick hunting, he hunt it. We hunt until four am last night, and then Nick drove his dog to a to a vet two hours away. And you just gotta you gotta leave, like right now to

go get the dog. Yeah. Yeah, Thursday nights when I hunt him and uh, I guess he got a must run two you think of beaver stop, Yeah, that's what it looked like. And just basically him right in the chest. And uh Friday when we came out, was walking him saying he was swollen. And then uh, so I left him in the kennel. Last night we went hunting, come back and he's definitely got infection. So I had to drive him to the vet and it's two hours away, so they just notify me I gotta come get him. Well,

it was awesome having you on here. We were hoping to have you the whole time. So anyway, you're the first guest to exit the bare hunting congratulations. But it's because you're we're in the we're in the heat of it right here, and you gotta go get that dog. So Nick, hey, thanks for thanks for being on and uh, we hope the dog's okay. But and we're going hunting tonight, so you gotta drive, go get the dog, and then

we're going hunting again. You'll be back in a a little bit. Okay, all right, man, Brent, this is what I would like to do. I would like to talk through just a general conversation about how somebody could get started coon hunting. Okay, so walk me through, Um, what what we're doing when we're coon hunting? Like what Because because I shared with Nick yesterday, people see like coon hunters posting stuff on social media and they see these dogs barking at a tree.

I took a guy hunting one night and he was like, oh, I thought these dogs were gonna be crazy all night long. He had no He just thought that these were just like wild dogs that just we're gonna be barking all the time. It's gonna be and chaotic. And when he saw my dogs were just like pets in the back of my truck and the only time they bark like that is when they're on a tree or without a trailer. So point being, he didn't understand the aspects of what

we were doing. And uh so walk me through what what you're actually doing on a coon from like the beginning, like where we go, what time we go, what we do, and then I'll interject and interrupt you. Certain times of the year depend on the time dark we're going at night. I mean, this is a coon is conducted at night. The time of year will depend on what time of

night that you go. Normally, when it's hotter, warmer weather, you will go later because coon's just like people, you know, if it's hot outside, they don't really feel like going onto and doing a whole lot. So usually at the optimum time when it's the coolest part of the night, as you generally when you get the most activity from coon's going you know, moving around coming down from their dens out of the trees, and so they're sleeping during the day and they're moving around at night as most

of the time. As a rule that that's that's the way it goes, right, And so you're gonna go and you're gonna go to an area where you feel like, you know there's where coons will be. So you need to be familiar with with with what they need, what their food sources are um. You know, habitat that is suitable form. So you know, hardwood, hardwood timber in this area would be UM. Any place, um, well there's water.

You know, they like crawfish, they like frogs, tadpoles, but they'll also eat they want to eat berries and grasshoppers and insects and and their corn. You know, they're they're hard on a farmer's corn patch. Um, those kind of places where they can shop for the wide variety of things that they use. They're they're an omnivore deluxe. That's part of the reason why they've been so biologically successful.

And let me distial it down to even like the dummies guide to where to turn loose your coon dog, if you don't know, is on a creek, on a lake, on a body of water. Typically coons are gonna be I would say eight percent of the time, I'm turning loose on some in some proximity of a body of water, Like if I'm in the ozarks, I'm turning loose on

a pond or on a creek. If we're down here, we're turning loose usually along you know, ox bow or buyou or something and uh so a coon's one of his primary ways of gathering food is in water, and they they like to People say coons like to wash

their food. They actually don't like to wash their food, but they like to get their hands wet when they feel around on their food to try to it increases their tactile sensory ability on their on their hands, which I have read that a coon has more tactile sensory receptors on his paws front paws than any other animal in its class. You know, I'm not gonna say any animal in the world because I don't know that, but in North America. So they have this incredible ability to

to feel. And so the way the way that comes in handy is at night, when they cannot see, they use their hands as their eyes, basically putting that hand under water. So water. So you've got us to where you're gonna go. You're gonna turn loose in a place where you think there's coons, and pretty much anywhere there's woods, there's gonna be coons. Wherever you live, there's there's There are some places where there are not raccoons in the lower forty eight, but anywhere in the East, and even

more so out west. I've got a friend now in Montana that is starting his dog on coons, and I mean they're finding coons out in the river bottoms in Montana, but typically it would be in the you know, in the eastern deciduous forest, you know, in that section of the world is where they're gonna have coon's okay, So there there, we've that's where we're gonna go. Okay, and then what are we gonna do? And then we're not talking about training a dog will go back to that,

but like, what are what are we gonna what? What are you doing? Well, when we get there, you know, we're gonna hopefully be um, you know, kind of oriented to to that piece of property or whether we're using going it off a map, you know or Apple on the phone, or a place that we're already familiar with, maybe a place that were that we deer hunt or whatever, or where we grew up, you know, public land, anything someway that you know that's that's big enough expense where

your dog. You can turn a dog loose and let it get out and get away from it and start looking for the scent fresh scent of a coon, and you're gonna do this at night. You know, like like I said, when they come down, they come down with the trees and they start looking for something to eat. You want to put that dog out there and hopefully he's gonna intersect his nose is gonna intersect with their

track that they've made, their scent that they laid down. Okay, is this dog like a bird dog that's gonna stay within sight of you? Or is he gonna just range out and go hunt on its own? Well, you know you've got mostly they're going to range out and and hunt on their own. Ideally, you're gonna be able to turn the dog loose when you listen for when he leaves, he leaves silently, and when he runs across a coon track the scent of a coon, he's gonna do what

they we call open. He's gonna open up. He's gonna start barking, and he will bark hopefully consistently. Are enough that that you can tell his general direction. You know, now we have GPS s and and and and satellites that where we can keep up with the exact track of where our dog is and and in its relation to the to the Google Earth view of of this piece of property you own, So it's not as him being his vocal on the track is not as important as it was at one time. It's not a bark

to to run the quarry up a tree. To make him go up a tree, it was a bark so you could know where he was at. And so as he's going down through the woods and he's barking and he's letting you know where he's at, and then that he is running a count and he's supposed to be only barking if he's running the raccoon. That's right. Now, Hey, you've just tapped into the very definition of a hound. A hound is an animal as a dog that barks on ground scent. I mean, that's that's inside the definition

of what a hound does. There are other dogs that aren't hounds that do that, but that's that is like hound. The luxe is he's smelling scent on the ground and he barks. Okay, um, let me go back to how the dogs hunt, because I don't think it's it's it's always real clear with hunting dogs, like a duck dog

is sitting by your side and retrieving ducks. A bird dog is gonna be very have a really good handle on it, meaning that the owner can give that dog commands, very specific commands, and that dog will obey, but that dog is always staying pretty close to the owner, you know, never kind of like leaving side of the owner. Typically bird dog. These dogs were free casting them what you've just described as free casting. And we want a dog that is gonna have a lot of hunt in and

and go out and find the quarry. So I mean, like you turn a dog loosen, you you just if we're if we're hunting that way by free casting, we're just gonna turn a dog loosen. We're gonna sit there. And I think that's been surprising to some new people I've taken Brent as They're like, well, aren't we gonna chase the dogs? Isn't that what? Isn't that what all? Uh uh Billy did on where the red friend grows, Yeah, followed after him. Well Billy didn't have a garment from

the w hound supply, Buddy would bury. Um No, the what you just said them being able to track a dog by sound like used to you would have had to follow the dogs pretty close to stay within hearing of them. Anymore. We don't have to do that, so we turned dogs loosen. We just kind of sit there wait for him to go tree or wait for him to strike a track. And so that's I just wanted

to clarify that. Okay, So walk me through the stages of a track, okay, like like if they open or they strike or whatever they do or what I would call it strike or I mean, that would be typically what I would say, But they're both the same thing. So take me from there, all right, he strikes on the track. You know, some dogs, after you get after you know them, if you hunt them a while, you can tell how hot the track is. And by that

I mean how fresh it is. You know, a dog leaving a uh walking through a place thirty minutes before our coon walking through a place thirty minutes before the hound comes through, you know, that's that's pretty warm, pretty warm track as opposed to one that came through two hours ago. That would be what we'd call a cold track,

and he would be in in the way. The smoking hot track would be Yeah, he's he was here, right, you know, the puddle or the mud that where that coon step is, the waters filling into that track, you know, So it's a hot track and the dogs are gonna react different. You're gonna get a different reaction from him. Where a hot track would be a more excited and a more high tempo and you know, excitable bark as as opposed to it would be less degrees of that for the colder part of the track or a colder

style track. Yeah. Um, So the dog strikes a track and he's smelling the scent of that coon on the ground, and he's he very well maybe smelling like okay. Here, here's the other thing I think I don't think people understand is that what stage does a coon? No, it's being pursued by a dog, okay, like that. I think most of the time our dogs are striking the natural travel patterns of that coon. That coon has been waiting

along that creek, leaving scent on the ground. Then our dogs come in and they hear, they smell him and bark and they start tracking that coon, and that coon maybe three yards up the creek and goes, oh, I hear a dog. Some percentage of coons are pretty much gonna probably climb up a tree right then some percentage of coons are gonna run. But coons are not like this endurance animal like a black bear would be coon.

The longest coon races I've ever seen would probably be like half a mile or three quarters of a mile, and and there have been much longer coon races than that. That's just my personal experience, and that would be a long one. Most of them are two hundred yards. And the dog, the dog trails trails, trails, trails. He's barking on the track, barking, barking, barking, and then when he comes to the tree that the game has gone up, he will do what we call a locate bark, which

is an elongated bark. Typically not not all hounds do it. Some of them do it really beautiful. Some of them have a quote unquote a million dollar locate. Others may not have much of a locate or a changeover. But so they're barking this irregular bark and then they they hit the tree and it's almost like they're saying, he went up the tree. I me and you were walking along coon track, Brent, and we were like, there he is.

There's his track. There's his track. There's his track, there's his track, and then we see his tracks go up the tree. Would be like, I just think you went up that tree, voice would change in octave. And then once the dog is solidified on the the coon is up that tree, then it begins to treat um. I described to somebody the other day, Brent, about how the

reason that a tree dog is so special. Man, if you just talk to somebody that had no context for hunting dogs or tree dogs, you would say that dog barks at a coon tree. When a coon goes up a tree at barks, they would not know that that was special. Do you see what I'm saying. I mean, it's just like, it's a dog barking on a tree. What's the big deal? And and we are like, oh, man, that's a tree dog. Let's dissect this, Brent Reeves, listen to this. A a tree dog is actually a beautiful,

a beautiful example of the human dog partnership. Perhaps the greatest example of the human dog partnership, which dogs which were are basically domesticated wolves. If we go back a long time and humans partnership with dogs has been a massive part of our success as a species. If we go back to our hunter gatherer days, the human species has been propped up on the back of dogs, domesticated dogs, that protected us, that helped us hunt uh, that fed

humans at different times when time's got rough. It's kind of like having a little backup plan if things plan f um. But listen to this. A a natural canine would never have the instinct to stay embark at a tree while I was pursuing game because that game would have escaped them. And the reason he is staying there because he's waiting for me to come to him. And that has been bred into them by selective breeding, and it it shows a it's a partnership dynamic because humans

have a way to deal with critters that climb. It's called bullets, it's called arrows, it's called rocks, it's called opposable thumb, so we can climb that tree and shake it out. A dog does not have that. So my point being is a wolf, a coyote, a fox, they're chasing stuff on the ground to try to catch it. When it ran up a tree, they go try to find something else that hadn't run up a tree yet.

Do you see what I'm saying? Selective breeding, So it goes against everything natural for a dog to want to stay at a tree and bark. That's why tree dogs special. Yeah, and you know, it's a it's the it's the whole volume of that partnership and and and what it means to somebody that can really appreciate it is I'm providing that dog's healthcare, I'm feeding him, I give him a place to stay, dental absolutely, and it's and he's pretty

expensive for the one that I've got. So and Nick just went and no telling how much she's spent one for Nick Gilliland's dog that he just went to pick up exactly. So I mean, and and that dog is also a very important part of my family. You know, my wife and my little girl are It's a daily ritual when my wife comes home, she picks Bailey up from school, which wiks. She goes outside, sets on the on the back patio and tells my coon dog that he does not have to go hunt and if he

don't want to, he can stay right here. Your wife. Yeah, this is Alexei. This is Alexis. Yeah, my wife. And uh and because Bailey goes with me, she likes to coon hunt. And but it's you know, he's just he's a part of the family. And it's that that it really makes it. I mean, it's humorous, but it makes it that much more special when he does. You know, he's just a puppy and he's learning, so it just makes it that much more special when he holds up his end of the deal. You know, I bought him

as a as a coon dog. It turned out he became a member of our family and through his personality, but it makes it that much more special what you're talking about when he does what he's had to do, what his genetic code you know, tells for him to do, and it is it's hard for somebody to understand that's not had a dog in the hunt quote unquote. I mean there's something like people that are dog people understand it, and uh and and nothing against people that wouldn't be

dog people. But point being, there is something that triggers inside of us that is beyond rational explanation. When we partner with an animal to acquire meat for our family, to acquire hides for our family, to acquire wildlife related commodities. I mean, it's it's like it's like it's almost as elemental as a humans attraction to fire. I mean, and it's the human attraction to fire goes beyond rational explanation

of oh I can warm my hands. I mean that is something that has has from the very beginning been the thing that has caused us to be successful as a species as well. Yeah, absolutely, we have we have. Uh. I was reading in a book the other day Brint about this is slightly a rabbit trail. But I'm going back to this kind of like uh. And when I when I use the term evolutionary, I'm not. I'm not talking about there's a lot of stuff. There's a lot

of good things inside of evolution. They are just science. Okay, sometimes we've been trained to think that, you know. Anyway, there's a lot of evolutionary stuff that goes with fire, with goes I read uh uh And apart a high apartment that has a good stuff or where we put our trophy homes is up on big hills. Wherever you live, there's probably like high dollar homes up high. It's that stems from our days when humans were in grasslands and

to have any sort of elevation was biological advantage. Like we we developed this this sense inside of our genes are instincts that like to be high is better than to be low, because when we're high we can see anyway, I'm saying that a tree dog triggers these same things because what I do is absolutely irrational. Brand It makes no sense why I drove three and a half hours to come to this swamp to turn loose my dogs.

I love it. Oh my gosh. The mosquitoes know it's And the whole point of this whole conversation is is that coon hunting may not be get something that's in people's wheelhouse, but we're gonna put it there as an option for people to to give him an access point. And that's what this whole conversation is about, Okay. And and there's uh to dive into the like practical aspects of like how could you become a coon hunter? I mean, let's talk about getting a dog? Where where could people?

What kind of dogs are people using for coon hunting? Number one brand, Well, probably the most popular dog, and it's gonna be a tree and walker's. There's probably there's more of those used than than than anyone are there any other type. But you've got tree and walkers, and you've got red bones, um blue ticks, black and tans, plot dogs. There's leopard dogs that I'm not very familiar

with those U English English dogs, um dogs. I think there are five or six U k C registered what they call coonhounds, and it's the ones you just named. People also used for coon hunting, sometimes curd dogs, but most of it is going to be those main breeds of hounds that you just described. So if you have a lab, it's probably not gonna make a coon dog. People ask me stuff like that, well I've got a I've got a blue healer. You think I could turn

it into this? And it's like, well, probably not right. And it doesn't saying that they wouldn't run one up a tree. But as far as as having a dog that that if you're looking for a coon dog, that the ones that we just described there that are that's

the area that you want to start picking from. And you know, there's a there's a lot of through you know, social media and and and the internet and other sources finding dogs are it's pretty easy, very easy, readily available, finding the right I bet we could right now on our phone, bright, I bet we could do a challenge. Could we in ten minutes find a registered litter of coon hounds within two hours? Right here for sale? Oh gosh, yeah, and we we could. That would be a good challenge.

We could do it. The point is there, these dogs are readily available. Yeah, they're They're everywhere for sure. And is it's um in great abundance, you know. And you've got different different styles. All the dogs that are bred now are are coming from the competition world of the the characteristics. And he just found the litter of pups. Carson. We've got our buddy Carson over here and he just picked up his phone. You find a letter, Carson. Let

me see, Okay, let me see. All right, So this is uh, this is this was posted yesterday at twelve thirty. This guy's got some tree and walker puppies. Where is this at? Do you know it's in Arkansas? Yep. Well there's not a place in our that you can't go be Yeah, yeah, because Carson id is good for the wind. So okay, so you you got your dog. And again we're just breaking this down bare bones, um, how you

train a dog? Brow And again like we're just that you could have their books written about training coon dogs. We're gonna talk about tons of tons of literature, tons of videos, the best thing in the world to do. Break it down as simple as you can take a dog that's bread two tree coons to a place where there are coons and turn him loose and you and see what he does. Now, you want to you want to be able to control that dog. You know, I started.

I got my dog when he was six months old, and the first thing we did was bond as friends and show him I'm the boss. He needs to do what I tell him to do. That's the way you did with me too, that you and you've never done it, iss never took. So I wanted to up the ampage on your collar the next time, the next time we go train. Most dogs are started when they're about ten to twelve months old. Nine nine to twelve months old is the window when you're gonna start kind of hunting

the dog. Yeah, and you're and you're talking about a process now and an investment not only in money, but in time, because there there are some of the greatest dogs in the world never started a tree and until they were two years old or older. So I mean, you're that's that's a lot of trips in the woods where nothing happened to the way you wanted it to happen. And we talked about it um a lot Nick and I do on our podcast and with Steve Fielder, is that the the best thing that you can have is

patients when you're training one of these dogs. And so it's a it's a big investment. Uh and if if you're wanting to do it yourself, if I'm a puppy up to the finished, you know, it's a project and it's a it's a long grind. Now the thing to do. Somebody's wanting to get into it right away. You know,

they're started dogs. You can buy started dog and to buy a dog that someone else has already put the time in getting that dog started where he's not where he's he's hunting for coons when he leaves you, and he's doing what what you want him to do when you tell him to. He's not running deer, he's not running pot tree and possums or bobcats or or anything bats or other than a coon. And uh, but you

know those obviously they are going to be more expensive. Well, the so when you're talking about training a dog, you have this dog that has a natural instinct to tree coon, that dog also would have the same natural instinct to run a deer or so a lot of people don't understand that is that just because you have a dog that's bread to be a a coon dog to rae coon's does not mean that he's not gonna have that a similar desire to chase other games. So basically you're

you're trying to whittle them away from off game. And so you you reward them for good behavior, and then you discipline them. And by discipline that could mean many many things, usually very light, which would be like no reward for bad behavior, reward for good behavior, zero award, or negative reward for bad behavior. And over the course of a period of time, like my scooter dog, he's ten months old. Over the last month, I think I'm

seventy percent towards turning him on just coon like. He'll still run whatever, but he has learned that there is a big reward for tree and a coon. He because when he gets the tree, he sees my excitement, my praise of him. And when shoot a coon down, he gets to see a coon. When he runs a deer, he gets nothing. The deer runs away from him, he gets tired, he gets no reward for me. He doesn't

get the smell at deer's fur. And eventually as he's older, I might find other ways to discipline him running a deer, but he usually it's positive praise. It's the positive that makes him go, man, why would I want to run anything? But and so just over time, it's almost like a miracle. Just your dog's pretty straight. They're inherent, Uh desire is

to please you, you know. And I've always said that a dog is only if a dog is everything is equal, and you've got a well bred dog that knows what he's supposed to do, or he has the desire to do what what he's bred to do. The limiting factor for that dog is the man that's handling him, or the ladier whoever is the isn't handling that dog. Because if you cannot explain or communicate to that dog what you want him to do, then it's not his fault,

it's yours. So and that has always been something that that when I'm correcting a dog or praising a dog, is he understanding what I'm wanting him to do? And if if when he's treating, when he treats a coon and we see the coon and he knows the coon's there, whether I knock it out to him or not, and I love him up and I praise him, and he you know, he's the best boy ever. And we were doing a little I'm petting him and praising and rubbing him and everything there at the tree, and then we leave.

I mean, you can tell them his demeanor. He's ready. I want I want to experience that again. I want to do that again. Or if he goes somewhere we can't find the tree, or we we he treats and we can't find the coon, and it's uh, maybe it's slick. What's called a slick tree where you can look on every limb and there's not a there's not a dog. He missed him, you know, he missed it. He treate,

But the coon wasn't. You just go up there and you put your lead on him and you drag him and you pull him away, you walk away and you turn and loose again. And in that experience, he maybe the scent was not. For whatever reason, he's got to do a little deductive reasoning that what happened just then was not as fun as when we saw the coon and the coon got knocked out, or I was praised on the on the previous and it's repetition. It's the

same thing every time, every time you go. And it's not it doesn't happen in a month, like I said, it could be years, you know, a year and a half, two years. However, wouldn't you say you typically expect to see I don't want to paint the picture too negative, even though what you're not negative but too extreme. I mean, you like, your dog is a year old and he's already treating coon's right, so now to get a finished dog,

you're gonna get that two year plus. But I mean like you're already having a ton of fun and excitement with a year old dog that's tree tree and coon's on his own. Well, so I don't want to sound like, you know, there's two years old for your doing anything, and it's all what what you watch, how you look

at it. You know, every day every time that I go, he doesn't tree a coon every time I take him, you know, but if he does what I tell him, if he hunts like I want him to hunt, if he because you know, I've got no control over whether or not coons are coming down and crawling around on the ground. I can't control that part. The only thing I can do is try to prepare my dog the best I can, take him to the place where I think they are at the time they are, and turn

them loose. But if if that dog does what I want him to do when I turn him loose, that's

a it's a positive thing, you know. And when I get him back at the end of the night, and I know he's been out there and he's tried, and he hadn't run deer, and he hadn't treated uposs um, and you know, he he hadn't disobeyed me when and when I called him back, maybe he was getting close to a road, you know, and I I give him a tone on the collar, um, and or I called him verbally, you know, and and and he come back to me. You know that those are all positive, positive things.

And when he gets back to me at the end of the night, I'm gonna love on him and pet him and praise him, you know, just like I would if he had treated coon. Because that progression every day is just your building the foundation, putting all that stuff, building that base layer of that. You know, I'm the dogs thinking, I'm if I do these things, I get

the reward, you know. And then the the the gravy on that biscuit is when he's treeing coons by consistently love the metaphor brant, that's it man on that biscuit. The hunt is the the other thing that people. I mean, the main way that we would train a dog to brand is about taking it with an older dog. And I can't minimize that in anyway. Like the way I'm training my dog Scooter right now is taking her with

a broke, finished coon dog. And so that dog begins to the young dog begins to hunt with the old dog, The old dog trees, the young dog comes in and it's like, hey, what's he doing? And and over time they kind of just merge into doing what a good dog is gonna do, just like they would merge into doing what a bad dog was doing too. If you had a trashy dog does running deer, your pub will

start running deer. So there's the probably the hardest limiting factor for somebody that's never coon hunting, that doesn't have a connection to coon hunting is how are they gonna find somebody? And and that's just one of those, uh social challenges that somebody's gonna have to figure out. You know all over the country, you know, I was in.

I was very fortunate when after I bought my dog, I'd had him maybe three or four weeks, and I'm outside of my driveway cleaning out my my dog box and a man that I'd never met in my life, Rex White, and drove up in my driveway and said, Hey, what you're gonna think? He said. The first thing he said to me is you're gonna think I'm crazy. Well, I didn't think he was crazy then, but I do now it's confirmed. But he said, there's two kinds of people that live around here where we live, and that

is duck hunters and coon hunters. What kind of dog you putting in this box? I said, the coon dog. And from that conversation right there, we have become really good for hims. It turns out, you know, he's got an older dog, just what you're talking about, an eight year old dogs. All you had to do is have a dog box in the back of your and that's all it took. And I was fortunate enough. And that

just shows you how willing people are. I mean, they're out there, but it's not I say that statement to say that it's not impossible to do it by yourself. You know, it's just gonna be harder. And and Rex not only is there, his dog is not only helping my dog, he's helping me. You know, he's helping me read that dog and telling me through his experience. This guy's got tons. He's been hunting forever. Hey, when I when I started training mules, I didn't know much of anything.

And I watched YouTube videos learn how to train a mule. Okay, that could only take me so far. And my friend Darren Wiles, who's Darren's probably in his sixties, he was coaching me through, just like over the phone, different things about my mule. I'd tell him what was happening. He'd tell me this, and yad. We went back and forth. Well, one day Darren said, hey, i'm I want to come over and I'll help you work your mule. I watched Darren Wiles for five minutes in that round pen with

my mule, and bam, I got it. Really, it wasn't what he taught. It wasn't like do this and do that. It wasn't like a technique. But I watched his demeanor with that animal. I watched how he demanded its respect I watched his posture and I was like, oh, that's training. I get it. And that translated a whole bunch of stuff. I say that to say I have been with a

houndsman before that. The same experience happened, like I'd just been turning dogs loose, Like when I in phase one of Clay Newcomes coon hunting career from age fourteen to age twenty one, I was just taking coon dogs quote unquote and just turn them loose and they'd go trick coon. I'd go shoot it out, and we just did that as much as we could. I never had great dogs.

When when I was an adult and got back into coon hunting, I went with Danny Drummond, my friend Danny Drummond in Northwest Arkansas, and uh, just a couple of things he told me to do, and it wouldn't have even been anything specific. It was Fern when I was training Fern, and Fern was running something that the old dog that he had wouldn't run. And I didn't know if I should go discipline Fern because we knew it

was off game. And he said, I'll just let her run and I said really, and he said, Jesus, a pup she's eight months old. Just let her run, and you know that that trash track, as we'd call it, fizzled out, and Fern came back and went and treat a coon with the old dog. Eventually, you know, like the old dog treat. And Fern was there and I learned, Okay, you don't have to demand perfection. This is kind of

a long term thing. And he was like, I like it that your dog was running anything, and I said, oh, really okay. And then the next time we went, Fern absolutely burned the hair for a deer and he said, I like what your dog just did. And I said really and he said, man, she ran that deer like she meant it. And I said, okay, got it like it like he he liked the desire, and he said, you can. You can work with that her running a deer.

Later once she starts treeing coons and you start praising her for that, and she knows that life is good when you tree coons. And point being going with somebody can mean a lot. You can learn a lot. The exact same lesson. I got that exact same lesson from Rex. He told me. He said, look, he said, the hardest thing to do to teach a dog is to go hunt, he said. If you got one that'll go out there and do that, you're you're way ahead of the game already, said.

If he's chasing deer, it don't matter what he's doing. If he is chasing another animal out there, regardless of what what you want to do, you can teach him not to do that and stick to coons, he said. But if he's running running game out there, deer or whatever, he said, you know you've got something. You've got a place to start. So you're already ahead of the game.

So you know, I think the main the main thing we wanted to do was introduce people to the idea that they could be a coon hunter, the idea that this is a family sport, the idea that the the game regulations are liberal. Anywhere you want a coon hunt, the game rags are pretty liberal. I mean like high bag limits, long seasons. Um. Your challenges are gonna be finding a place to hunt. But if you're in a place a lot of public ground, you can probably do

pretty good. I pretty much have three farms that I hunt on private ground for coon and that has serviced me well for years. Three farms, one of them is three hundred acres, one of them six hundred acres, and one of them two acres. Okay, that gives you an idea the size farms that I'm hunting, and uh, all the those do me good. Plus my public land and like come down here for a weekend hunt with you guys on some of this big these big tracks of

land down here. Um so the way, so this is not meant to be like the full resource of off of coon hunting, but you guys have that. You have a podcast brandts all about coon hunting. Tell me about that just a little bit. Nick Gilla Land and Steve Fielder and I uh do a podcast called The night Life Nation and it's all coon dogs, coon hunting, anything

related to it. Competition. Steve is a oh gosh, I would almost said world renowned, but yeah, I don't know that that wouldn't your nationally renowned absolutely because there's not much nobody else cares about coon's far and as far as I know, Steve is the only guy that has ran all the coon hunting registries a k C, p k C in the U k C that has worked all three places, and just a vault of information about competition hunting and and the lineage of legacy of historically

great dogs and and good coon hunters, and just a wealth of information. He handles all that stuff and uh and and Nick is an accomplished a dog trainer and and hunter from North Carolina. He's just a good guy. He's just a good guy man and he loves to hunt. His mission. He's always talking about how can we help you know, the folks that are listening, and that's that's

why we do. He came up with the phrase of you know, we want to do something that's that's educational, entertaining and help people evolve, you know, getting better in this in this business of of coon in the sport of it. And he's not a competition hunter. And you know, I've never been to a competition hunt. I look forward to going some you know and trying it out. But the joy of just having a dog and and going out and doing you know, hunting, pleasure hunting is what

what drives us. And we in Nixon, North Carolina, Steves in in Florida, and I'm in Arkansas. And we put out this weekly show where we just put podcast Night Live Nation podcast where we just sat around and we talked about it, and we talked about uh, training tips

and the progression of our dogs. We've all got three pretty young dogs that that we're training, and people have shown a lot of interest and following how how their progression is and the the techniques and stuff that we use to to make them better and and we it's just a fun family affair. Um. We usually tell a story at the end of the other podcast of a personal experience someone had, humorous or or otherwise. That is, you've never had anything funny happen? Dude, we got to

close this podcast with me talking about my story. I think you know what story I'm talking about. God Bless America. No, no, I'm not closed. I'm just I just that's what I want to when when we do, we will cue the eagle, the eagle cry. Yeah. Anyway, it's it's it's yeah. So check out night Life Nation podcast if you have any interest in this kind of stuff, because you know, I think Brent, this maybe our hundredth podcast, maybe this one

we're doing right now. And we've talked about coon hunting just a handful of times, So I mean, my are we're not trying to educate the world on coon hunting. You guys are and so uh if you if you have interest in becoming a coon hunter, this is these guys have a great resource. And that's just a palatable, family oriented podcast, a lot of fun, a lot of information. You listen to or three podcasts and you get the lingo of coon hunting. You know. Part of entry buried

entry sometimes is people just not understanding stuff. Like we say the word treat, well, they don't know what treat is. You say a hot track, they don't know what a hot track is. You say a walker, they don't know what a walker. Yeah, and we say this or that. Yeah. We actually did like three episodes where we did three a segment in three episodes of going through terminology of what they were, you know, competition terminology and just regular

coon hunting terminology. So and we got in a lot of response came back that you know, that was people if people found it really helpful and it's it just inspires us to do more. Yeah, it's it's great. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. So yeah, that's uh, I've been enjoying it. Um. Hey, two things I want to end with. I want to end with the story and we're gonna build this story up because it was just incredible. Um. Secondly, always always want I feel this need deep in my bones.

Two talk about why we do what we do, and we've already talked about part of the conservation aspect of coon hunting. Um Historically, though, did you know I'm gonna tee you up for a question. I'm gonna tee you right up. What is the most economically important fur burying animal of all time for North America? A fever bright see American bison, d coyotes? Okay, what is your answer?

And the to repeat the question the most economically like which one has the most gross economic sales of all time in North America going back to the sevent hundreds when the French came over and start to trapping for trapping. Ready go teed um right up, you're exactly right, that's right. I would have thought beaver because you hear about the high prices that beaver bought in the West. Was the

European expansion West was fueled by the beaver. But the beaver fur trade Brent Reeves was pretty much from about the late seventeen hundreds to about the eighteen thirties and in about fifty years they trapped those suckers out and then from then on it was raccoon pelts for a hundred years, from eighteen thirty to about nineteen forty, well hundred and fifty years to the nineteen eighties. From like the eighteen thirties to the nineteen eighties, coon hides dominated

the world for markets. And so the reason that this is important information is that we are we're coon hunting for hides. People do eat raccoons, they do, we do, but it is not the primary reason that we hunt coons. We're hide hunting, and that is that fits inside the North American Mile of Wildlife conservation because there's multiple things that we're tapping into. We're tapping into an overabundance of

a natural resource, which is scientifically. I read that in a research paper that uh, Mike Chamberlain sent me, Brent, because I've always said that, I've always said that coons are over the population of coons currently is unnatural for recorded history. That is true, absolutely, So we are we are tapping into from a like a depredation standpoint, we're

trying to lower coon numbers. So that's number one, But then number two for high fur prizes aren't worth that much anymore, but there's still, uh, there's still traditional all usage patterns of coon hides. Like what I'm doing these days is all the coons that we take, especially during the prime winter months, I'm getting those hides tanned and giving away as gifts and oh, it's a it's incredible.

I mean, the coolest thing in the world is going to be to have a buddy of yours that's a coon hunter and you get a full tan coon pelt for Christmas. For real. They're beautiful. Yeah, and so the the hides and and when we've talked about eating them and they there it's great meat um, and we've we've had it. A lot of people use it, but it's not the main reason we're doing it. There's a lot of animals that it is the main reason. I think sometimes people don't understand that or they might have a

hard time with it. But don't You don't have to have a hard time with it, because this fits perfectly inside North American Mali Wildlife Conservation that we are removing meso predators off the landscape, but we're also utilizing it come mod at the off that animal. So coon hunters man, that's what we are, Okay, glad to be one story. I was coming here, Brent, yesterday, I was. I drove three and a half hours to get down here from We didn't even talk about our coon weekend. Kolbe has

got to put in some background patriotic music. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, just a music bad Kobe a little yeah yeah. All. I hear there, it goes there, it goes it sounds good. Good job, do you hear it? Now? That's it. I was coming here, and I was in downtown Fayette Bulle, Arkansas. And now most of you never been there and probably will never go there, But imagine in your city the most one of the most busy intersections in your city. And that was on a major interstate that runs through

this very populated area of northwest Arkansas. I got off on an exit to go wash my truck because I didn't want to come down here with a dirty truck. There's a construction crew working like right off the exit ramp. So there's just people everywhere. Cars almost not bumper to bumper, but you know, just people everywhere. I see a bald eagle, a bald eagle the size of a Cessna airplane. Swoop down out of a bluebird sky and pick up a

freshly road kill fox squirrel. Now why there was a fox squirrel on the Interstate off ramp that I don't know, but it was a big, glowing orange fox squirrel. He swoops down right in front of my truck, picks up the fox squirrel, and then just flies off like a boss. Like the rockets are red glare. There was a guy right behind me driving a Toyota Tacoma. Sometimes when you're in like big cities and you see somebody that's driving, they give some indication of you have like a little

bit of a cultural connection to them. He kind of like like hat tip him, you know. And this guy had a Toyota Tacoma. You know, I could tell this guy was, like, I mean, probably on the same page as me in terms of like just he digs the outdoors. Probably yea. And he pulled up right beside me, and he I knew he had to see because he was right behind him. And he looked at me with a big grin on his face, a big grin on my face, and both of us knew that we had seen something special. Yeah,

you'll always have that, Oh my goodness. So the eagle story Eagle and the fox squirrels. Yeah, that's gonna be retold free. That will be on. That'll be a cave drawing. You should paint that picture. It's a world good quarters. Yeah, that's gonna be awesome. Well, thanks, Brent Man. I hate, I hate that Nick had to leave. It was kind of an odd Oh we didn't know when he was going to get the call about this dog and he had to go. So and we don't wanta leave folks hang.

And we think he's gonna be fine. He's just he's gonna he just got fixed up and and he'll have have him back here this evening and we'll he probably won't hut tonight and you know, go back home and get well and be good to go. Well, hey, we're gonna we're gonna hunt. We're gonna fry some fish and then we're gonna hunt again tonight aboutely all right, man, We'll keep the wild places wild because that's where the Queen's live