By Jamie Ham
Guest Columnist
At a very young age I was intrigued with the outdoors. After all, there were no smartphones or tablets and setting in the house just wasn’t for me.
Sometimes I would just go walk through a random patch of woods and observe the critters, never wanting to get lost but feeling drawn to go deeper and plunder a little farther. I’ll never forget the first time I found a tree that had been struck by lightning. It was a monster in the middle of nowhere and had burned to a crisp.
By the time I was 12 years old I had explored every patch of woods around my house and my grandparents as well. At 14 years old I was introduced to coon hunting by a friend from school. The very first night I was hooked.
I mean not only could I traipse through the woods, I could do it in the dark! I just had to have a coonhound. It didn’t matter what breed or bloodline, just as long as I could go along with my friends and spend time in the woods.
Looking back, it would be years before I actually owned a decent hound. But at the time I didn’t worry about all that: I was in the woods. As I grew older I realized that in order to have a “good” hound there were lots of obstacles. I also realized that I had a passion for hunting.
Trailing along behind a coonhound occupied much of my time through my teenage years and kept me out of many places where I had no business.
I’ve learned so much from the hounds I’ve hunted. They’ve taught me as much or more than I’ve taught them. I prefer a “Go Yonder” type of hound, meaning they don’t come back. You get them off of the tree, whether it’s 100 yards or two miles away. This type of hound will put you in strange places and oftentimes uncharted territory. They will also keep you out all night if the raccoons aren’t moving.
There have been many nights that I’ve hauled my butt in late and gotten minimal sleep only to do it all over again the next night. There’s just something about a quiet night under the stars, listening to the bawl of a hound dog as they strike a track and start trailing it off into the swamp, only to throw out a big “locate” and have the hound start chopping on the tree.
Sitting there waiting on a hound can give you time to reflect. It’s also a great time to talk to your Maker. I find that when I’m feeling stressed, burdened or just have a lot on my mind, coon hunting is where I get my relief. I couldn’t help but laugh recently when my daughter just as serious as could be, told me she didn’t understand my hunting language.
When I asked what she meant, she said “Daddy, I watch the videos you make and the way you’re talking and I have no idea what’s going on. It’s like you’re talking in another language. Struck, strike, holler, cut ‘em loose, treed…..”
But if you talk with enough hunters in our area, every type of hunting has its own slang. Some may call coon hunting a dying sport. With concrete and asphalt coming from every direction and purple paint and posted signs on every other tree, I will admit it’s getting much harder to find land and get permission. But I’ll never call it a dying sport. At least not as long as I’m able to go.
The friendships and memories made along the way will last you a lifetime. The talks with God will last you an eternity. You can spend some very valuable time sitting on a tailgate and just listening. Whether it’s listening to a hound work out a cold track or maybe listening to a friend that’s tagging along who needs someone to talk to. You can also explore some of God’s most beautiful creations just by following a hound to a tree. And might I also add, it’s kept me in pretty decent shape walking through the swamps of Eastern North Carolina.
Priorities have changed for me over the years; I don’t hunt nearly as much as I have in the past. But I still get the same rush from my childhood every time I unsnap a coonhound and think of the woods I’m about to plunder. Occasionally I’ll find an old beaver trap or some other artifact from long ago that someone who came through before me left and I’ll prop it up or leave it hanging in a tree in hopes that maybe someday someone else might come along and wonder, “Now how did that get there?”
I seldom see many new faces in this sport, but I always try to be encouraging to anyone that shows interest. My local club holds a UKC sanctioned youth hunt along with two other local clubs every year in hopes to peak the interest of as many young people as possible.
Ole Possum said it best when he said, “Who’s going to fill their shoes?” – or in this case, waders.
