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Summertime, summertime, sum, sum.....
6/8/2010 9:41:13 AM
Summertime!
Many of you know that I've had a Walker female for the last 8 years. Stone’s Stylish Kelly is her name and in my view, she's a good one or I wouldn't have kept her. Most of you know that Plotts are my breed. Actually my buddy Pete Holt who is a died-in-the-wool PKC-hunting Walker man has been keeping her and hunting her for me. Pete isn't hunting much anymore and when I offered to give Kelly to him he said he would rather let someone have her that would hunt her more and I agreed. Recently I picked her up and took her to my hunting buddy Courtney Risk's place and he's now her owner. I'll still get to hunt with her regularly, actually more now than ever but she now belongs to Courtney.
A few nights ago I took my Plott female Tory out for the first time after coming out of heat and she acted a little screwy. I think the hormones haven't lined up properly. She struck the two tracks we hit that night and treed half-heartedly behind Kelly on the first tree but didn't like the second one. The last tree was .7 mile from us in rolling hills.
At one time early in the hunt Tory came in to me and stayed around for a minute or two, something she just doesn't do. It was 80 degrees and she's fat so that may be part of it but I think it was the effects of her being laid up for a month and the hormonal thing. Anyway it was good to be out. Incidentally, we didn't see the coon in either of the trees but the first was a huge oak and the second was a leaning pine that went into a lot of other trees. I still think if the coon was there we had at least a 75% chance of seeing it. Ticks are thick down here and I had two on me when I got to the truck.
Summertime...and the livin' ain't easy! Courtney and I went out to our favorite coon hunting spot just before dark the next night to trim some brush and to check the feeders. We carried Kelly, the Walker female and my Plott female Tory along for company. After the work was done we cut 'em loose. Kelly is a little tight-mouthed and gives up the first strikes to Tory. When the coon climbs she's scorpion quick with an unmistakable locate.
The first track left the creek and trailed across an open field and into the edge of the woods, about 400 yards from the truck. Tory didn't like that tree but she didn't take the track out of there either. That's something I don't like in a dog. If you aren't going to back the other dog get the heck on with the trailing and put it up a tree you do like.
Anyway we didn't see a coon there and led them back to the creek and cut them again. They went about 500 yards according to the Garmin and Tory struck again. They worked this track around in a big circle with Kelly opening occasionally. Tory was doing most of the work. Finally she straightened it out and went about 250 yards farther and I heard Kelly throw her world famous locate and Tory backed her. The dogs were treeing hard in the 84-degree heat when we arrived after a 750 yard hike. They were treed on a pine that was about 2 feet through the base and surrounded by hardwoods with limbs that were intertwined. We searched awhile and squalled but couldn't see it. Courtney was concerned the dogs were going to overheat and pulled Kelly off. I left Tory treed and continued to search. I finally got to an open spot on the backside of the tree and when I looked up there were two orange balls blazing in the light of my LED headpiece. Score one for the girls!
It was terribly hot and we decided the dogs had done a good job and we would quit on that note. Summertime coon hunting is tough but when you see two looking down at the end of a long track it can be like a breath of cool, mountain air.
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