By Matthew Cumberledge
It’s that time of year when the days are growing shorter and the cool breezes that come with the setting sun find us early these days. What are we to do about it? Enjoy it!
Many of us rejoice as the trees change their colors and give us a visual symphony of bright and beautiful colors, but for some it is what comes after the dazzling display of fall foliage that is of greater interest.
The end of October in Pennsylvania brings with it the beginning of Furbearer season. Hunting for fur is something many of us grew up doing and fur is something that has a history in this region, going all the way back to colonial times. Tradition is something most of us in Greene County aren’t willing to part with.
Raccoon is the most commonly hunted game, but harvesting fur has seen a decline over the last several decades. Most hunt for the sport of the chase and the fellowship that comes with spending an evening in the woods with a few of your closest friends and a hound or two.
More often than not, the only blood that is shed is from the odd scratch obtained from many of the thorny plants that are commonly found in the Greene County woods. Most of our local hunters belong to clubs and groups that host competition hunts, whereby a scoring system is used to determine the hound that performs the best, and killing game is forbidden.
To the unknowing eye, many hunters may seem to be rogue coal miners with lights on their caps and briar proof clothing. In reality, they are engaging in a sport that traces its roots back to George Washington and his pack of English Fox Hounds – many of the hounds used now to track raccoon through the rolling hills and woods of Greene County can trace their roots back to the hounds used by Washington.
As twilight approaches, hunters load their dogs into metal dog boxes in the beds of their trucks and head for the woods. Some prefer to hunt in several locations throughout the course of the evening, while others prefer to stay in the same section of woods for the duration of their hunt. It’s all a matter of preference. Once the spot is chosen, the action begins! In the old days, it was as simple as turning a hound loose, and listening for him to find a trail and eventually chase the game up a tree, but with technological advances, most hunters are content to stay up to date with the cutting edge of the most recent technology.Now, as the hunt begins, it’s very common to see a series of GPS tracking collars being synchronized to their hand held tracking units, an array of lighted collars to keep the hounds safe if they may encounter a road or vehicles in their travels and, of course, everyone wears lights!
Now, with all the preparations made, and all safety precautions taken, it’s time to cut the hound loose! On a good night, our dear canine friend may find a scent track within minutes, but that isn’t always the case. Some nights you’re in for a wait, but a track is always found. Then it happens! Every hound does it slightly differently, but I think every hound’s handler gets the same chill when his hounds sounds the alert that he’s found the track! Some dogs make short “chop” sounding barks, others a long howl, but no matter the sound, the hunter knows what the hound is doing. Hunting with a hound is very much a partnership, both hound and handler must trust each other, and be aware of each other’s expectations and actions.
Once the track has been “struck” in the lingo of the raccoon hunter, we sit and listen to the hound trail his game. Most experienced hounds handlers can identify, just by the sound of the dog, exactly what he is doing, what sort of conditions he is hunting in, and where he is going. You can tell if he is in briars, open woods, crossing water, crossing fallen trees or dealing with any sort of obstacle that may come across his path all by the sound of his voice. Raccoon are wily and intelligent creatures and are very talented at confusing hounds and making their track indecipherable.
The track continues, over hills and across streams, and then there is a sound that even a novice cannot mistake – the sound of a hound finding the tree in which his game as found shelter. Typically, a hound will inform with a very loud, distinct howl, and by that sign the hunt is over. The hunters will gear up, turn on their lights and begin walking to the tree. Most tracks run for a half a mile or so, others less and some much longer. Trekking the hills in Greene County, at night, with only the aid of a small head lamp can be difficult at best, but our hunter friends prevail. They reach the tree, and use their lights to shine up into the sheltering branches and find the raccoon our hound has so diligently tracked. More often than not, the dog has trailed the scent accurately, and a raccoon can easily be found in the late fall and winter trees that are barren of leaves. Occasionally, however, even the best hound can be fooled by the raccoon’s trickery.
Once the tree has been shined, and the raccoon found, that’s when the hunters make a decision. They decide to either take their hounds and turn them loose again after a short walk away from the tree to continue the hunt, return to their trucks and find a new area to hunt, or call it a night and return home to enjoy the reminder of the evening.
Competition hunting has become a large sport, not just here in southwestern Pennsylvania, but throughout the country as a whole. Hunters will gather at a club with their hounds, and are drawn out in casts of 3 to 4 dogs each. From there they set off for a night together in the woods. To the hound, it is exactly the same process as we discussed above, but for the dog handler, there is a lot more happening. The handler must listen closely to everything. Points are awarded based on the order in which the hounds strike a track, and in the order in which they locate a tree. So if a handler isn’t paying attention, he may miss his hounds bark and loose valuable points. The winner of the cast is often awarded a trophy, and in some events with large amounts of dogs, the winners from each cast go off and hunt again to determine who the best hound of the evening is.
The fantastic thing about hunting raccoon and hunting competitions is the family nature of the events. It’s very common to see parents and children both join in together and listen to hounds work their magic on these long winter nights. Bonding as a family is on of the most important things we can do, and creating these strong family bonds is something this sport often brings to those who participate in it.
