Raccoon hunting at night

[Pydpiper]

My wife walked in from day one of her two day hunting course yesterday and the first thing out of her mouth is "why didn't you tell me about this night time raccoon hunting before?"
She went from taking her Firearms course to assist in a gun friendly home, to a hunting course to get her recurve out in the woods, now she has a rifle picked out to hunt coons at night... This is getting expensive.
Anyone in Ontario do the raccoon hunting thing at night? It does sound like fun.
Guns, flashlights and my beautiful wife all at the same time.. Life is good.

[dick195252]

I have a hard enough time affording my Addictions to hunting, I can not imagine my wife wanting hunting toys allso. {might need a part time job to pay for it ]

[Grizzly Adam]

David, I don't know if anyone up there does it, but I can tell you that hunting coons with hounds is a wonderful memory of my childhood. There's nothing like being out on a frosty night and hearing that first bellow of a strike dog ring through the trees ... and the chase is on!

Lots of times the coon gets away. Other times he is let go once treed ... sometimes he is taken. Whatever the outcome, 'coon hunting is good living.

How do y'all hunt 'em way up there?

[Pydpiper]

Coon hunting here is the only exception to having a firearm at night. A license is required for coon hunting at night as well as a licensed dog, breed is irrelevant. The only firearm you can use is a .22 rim fire.
This will be new to me, but apparently it is something I am going to look in to.

EDIT- There is of course regular coon season where they can be taken with a larger firearm during the day, not always easy to find with no dog though.
It's this whole night time thing that put a sparkle in my wifes eye, not your average Sunday school teacher..

[TPM]

I used to help a buddy train Black & Tans for coon trials years ago. He had permission on some farms up near Listowel to run the dogs at night. Pretty exciting stuff! I can't count the number of times we shone our portable spotlights into a pitch black field and saw a large herd of deer staring back at us!
A couple of years ago a guy came through one of the farms we hunt on a Saturday afternoon looking for coons. He took his craft quite seriously despite having no dog and he was only carrying a single shot .22. After a copious amount of gunfire over the next couple of hours I finally saw him coming out of the bush dragging 23 coon pelts! I know that bush like the back of my hand and I didn'y know there were 23 coons in there!

Guns, flashlights and my beautiful wife all at the same time.. Life is good.

Yes it is! I have been hunting with my wife ever since we got married and life couldn't be much better. It's also easier to shop for those "special occasions". Instead of lingerie she likes camo gear, instead of spam knives she likes hunting knives, instead of a bottle of perfume a bottle of Tinks 69 will do. It's also nice to be on the receiving end. She bought me my Phoenix for my birthday a couple of years ago

[Pydpiper]

Yes it is! I have been hunting with my wife ever since we got married and life couldn't be much better. It's also easier to shop for those "special occasions". Instead of lingerie she likes camo gear, instead of spam knives she likes hunting knives, instead of a bottle of perfume a bottle of Tinks 69 will do. It's also nice to be on the receiving end. She bought me my Phoenix for my birthday a couple of years ago

I think that is Awesome TPM!

[sumner4991]

If it's anything like what I used to do in the hills of Virginia . . .you better be in fairly good shape to coon hunt. The dogs and coons will put you through a workout. The dogs would tree one and by time we got there, the coon would be out of the tree and running again. What a ton of fun. A friend of mine had really good dogs, but, never got 23 in one night. We thought 3 or 4 was a good night.

Anyway, congrats on getting your wife hooked!

[hawg hunter]

When we were in middle school many years ago 12 of us boys got together and started hunting coons. That was over 40 yrs ago. I know it"s hard to believe but this same group gets together every yr twice for the a coonhunt. We can't move as fast as we use too but we manaage a couple every nite for three nites. WE will have one of these hunts in two weeks.

[Pydpiper]

That is a great story Hawg hunter, it is nice to have friends like that.

Today I brought Jenn to a couple gun stores in London to buy her a new rifle, her first rifle, she liked two, a Remington model 5 and the CZ 452 American, she left the store with the CZ.
I brought it to the range for her to set it up, whoa! Now I want one.

[Normous]

CZ makes some nice guns. Nice choice Jen.

[Boo]

They make great motorcycles and handguns too!

[JasonPlacer]

Yes it's very nice to look at, and something that you can lean on.

[vixenmaster]

I ain't coon hunted since i was knee high to a grasshopper. I have 8 grown coons after my feeder now half done had babys & bringing them to it. So thar be well over 20 of them durn pests eating my deers corn!

[dutchhunter]

as i grew up al;l my family had dogs and run trials for coon thy would travel to the states on weekends to run down there spen a lot of money on dogs such as redbones and walkers .but then we could get up to 100$ for 1 coon hide i seen a few go as hight as 110$ yes thats right .coon hunting at night is a great game but you can spend a lot of time looking for dogs that run to places they should not ..back then every other farmer and most outdoors guys would hunt coon just for the money .but times have changed and a lot of guys got out of it as the price went down dogs still cost money and vet bills can get very high .shooting coon out of a tree is not very sporting thy just sit and look at the light you must try to hit then right between the eyes with a 22 cal rifle and get them to fall out of the tree as climimg up a tree at night is not fun .there is still a few older guys down here that run at night .it is truly a houndsmens sport and thast is you guys still do it today .as far a shooting a coon you must not waitse the hide as thy are a fur barrer .night hunting ios a great way to enjoy dogs and the outdoors and the feild trailes were a lot of fun if you want to try it once with some guys that have good dogs pm me and i will put you in contact with some good guys DUTCH

[chris4570]

I've done some coon hunting at night, Used my german sheppard as my coon "hound". Like you said breed is irrelevant. He did tree a few. But he was along mainly to make it legit, and give them a shake when they came tumbling down.

I just walked along with a big flashlight looking for the reflection of their eyes, then made my way to them. I just never liked the idea of letting my dog stoll around at night in areas where coons, skunks, porqupines, and the occasional bear roamed.