Is the sticker my dad had in the back of his truck window for as long as I can remember.

I have to admit I love the sound of the bawl of a coon hound. Coon hunting season has started and of course growing up in Southern Iowa, I have been coon hunting.  My dad, brother and my brother-in-law still go quite a bit. Coon hunting has always been part of my childhood. Dad and my little brother Andy would go, sometimes buddies or my cousins would go, while mom, my little sister and I would wait up. I probably didn't make it too late a lot of nights before I gave up. Now that we are all out of the house, grand kids sometimes get to go and mom is still waiting up. (Dad has a tendency to get turned around, he says he doesn't-but Andy and I know better) I have pictures at home of dad with his furs strung across the chicken house at home I will bring and post. (Please feel free to send any hunting photos of your own! ksib@ksibradio.com)

One thing I remember going to was the coon dog trials.  I don't remember where a lot of them was at, I can remember one around Lamoni and one in Osceola. Of course there was the concessions (plates of homemade lemon meringue pie is the first thing that comes to mind-go figure!), flea market and new kids to play with, plus there was usually a crick to play in and trees to climb in. We had a plott hound-Sandy, she was Grand Show Champion and was in the coon hunting magazine Full Cry (If you are a coon hunter you know what an honor that is).

At these trials, there were performance competitions too. My favorite was when they put a coon in cage suspended across a pond and the guys would stand on one side with their dogs.  They would start the coon across the pond on a cable-then the dogs would be turned loose.

The dogs had to swim across the pond to get the coon.

Now, one of my all time favorite books is Where the Red Fern Grows, I have I think 3 copies of it at home and I don't know how many times I have read it. If you have read it, then you will remember the significance of Tahlequah, Oklahoma.  As much as I have loved that story, I never knew such a celebration existed. 

The Red Fern Festival

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This is Buck and Bo: From April of 88

This is Dad and Shorty

My dad and Sandy from somewhere late 80's????

Share your hunting photos-ksib@ksibradio.com