Mules for Coon Hunting

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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
5,344
15,244
Humansville Missouri
The fall 2023 issue of Missouri Times has a photo of a coon hunter’s mule jumping a woven wire fence

IMG_5126.jpeg

A few coon hunters rode mules back when I was a kid. The mule is not a spirited animal and will ride slowly through the timber at night, and when a fence appears will stop and allow the rider to cross and then jump the fence, my father explained.

My mother thought any man who would lay out all night with a bunch of his buddies instead of in bed with his wife getting ready to get up early the next morning to work would never keep much of a wife for very long if he ever attracted a wife in the first place. :)

When there were foxes, my father and a few of his friends would fox hunt at night.

But that was socially acceptable because children could tag along, the fox was never killed, and the men could build a fire and join their families after hounds struck and the fox was on the run.

I can still remember a blanket of a million stars overhead and my parents arm in arm listening to the music of the hounds as they chased but never caught a fox.

There’s no describing, pure heaven on earth.

I did coon hunt a little when I was a teenager. But there’s lots of things a teenaged boy does grown married men shouldn’t even want to do, you know?
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
5,344
15,244
Humansville Missouri
The back story on Max Harsha, the man in the photo, was he was a tire salesman for Montgomery Wards and was married with eight children in 1973, when that famous Missouri photo was taken.

My mother would have completely excused Max coon hunting because that was a mule he was training to sell, and he had eight children to support.

Furthermore, that’s a brand new 1973 Chevy pickup in the background, on Max’s ranch where he trained and sold coon hunting mules and became nationally famous making mule saddles and tack.

Max’s first wife died in 1974, when Max was only 42 years old. He died in 2018 aged 85.

Blessed are those who prosper, by reason of necessity.

 
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prairiedruid

Lifer
Jun 30, 2015
2,058
1,381
Ah the good old days when fur was worth something! Had a furrier who had a shop nearby that would give me $10 for fresh roadkill raccoon that weren't hit by your tires. Got pretty good of lining them up and killing them with the old Ford's oil pan. That truck was built like a tank. Hit a 6 point buck one year; didn't try to hit him just drove straight and he made a poor direction choice. Cost me a headlight but got a freezer full of venison.
 
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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
5,344
15,244
Humansville Missouri
That photograph was taken in 1973 by a photographer who made trips across the USA driving a Morgan British sports car (seen in the background of the photo).

That winter I’d sometimes go coon hunting with my buddies and a really good, heavy pelt brought $15-20. A $20 hide in 1973 would be about $140 today.

Later on in the seventies the best hides hit $40. $40 in 1978 is almost $190 today. No wonder they coon hunted so much, and the wives and kids could live with it.:)


What put the big decline in coon hunting was the collapse of fur prices plus those horrible NO TRESPASSING signs new land owners were so fond of.

A mule can’t jump fences if there’s one tract in a five mile radius with an owner ready to call the law if he sees lights in the timber and hears hounds.
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,211
60,662
One classic version of raccoon hunting involved neither horses or mules, nor much walking on the part of the humans, but involved the hunters sitting around a fire listening to their dogs hunt coons.. They could tell when the dogs were tracking, when they were closing in, and when they had a raccoon treed, when presumably the hunting party would bushwhack in to dispatch the raccoon. Much beverage was consumed, and many stories told, and if nothing edible resulted from the hunt, it seemed a lucky evening. Hounds were the hunters and described the action by their baying. A good hunting party could clearly distinguish individual dog's baying so knew which was leading the action.
 

prairiedruid

Lifer
Jun 30, 2015
2,058
1,381
Speak of the devil just got a youtube update and it looks like the western (basically west of Michigan) raccoon and beaver seem to have demand again. Furrier said that the Chinese market is buying all of his beaver right now. Muskrat and otter are good but coyote is basically worthless.

He'll even buy green beaver, which is beaver that is skinned but not stretched and dried.
 
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Green Hill Hermit

Can't Leave
Feb 1, 2023
391
2,732
Ah the good old days when fur was worth something! Had a furrier who had a shop nearby that would give me $10 for fresh roadkill raccoon that weren't hit by your tires. Got pretty good of lining them up and killing them with the old Ford's oil pan. That truck was built like a tank. Hit a 6 point buck one year; didn't try to hit him just drove straight and he made a poor direction choice. Cost me a headlight but got a freezer full of venison.
That's foul. You kill animals for fun?
 

Peter Turbo

Lifer
Oct 18, 2021
1,549
12,469
CT, USA
They are such pests, they get blasted on site around here.

In before triggered animal activists chime in

nO NoT mUh rAcOoNs
 

RookieGuy80

Part of the Furniture Now
Jul 6, 2023
734
2,718
Maryland, United States
That's foul. You kill animals for fun?
For fun? You missed the part where it was $10 a pelt. That's both meat on the table (if raccoons are edible, I have no idea) and money for the house/ family.

It can be said I kill animals for fun as well. Even in this janky backwards city I live in, there is no reason at all to fish or hunt. Food can be easily purchased at any number of grocery stores. But I still fish, I haven't been hunting in a few years, for enjoyment as well as to eat the fish I catch. Would it be better if I practiced catch and release? Just torture for a bit, along with weakening the fish for a while?
 

Green Hill Hermit

Can't Leave
Feb 1, 2023
391
2,732
For fun? You missed the part where it was $10 a pelt. That's both meat on the table (if raccoons are edible, I have no idea) and money for the house/ family.

It can be said I kill animals for fun as well. Even in this janky backwards city I live in, there is no reason at all to fish or hunt. Food can be easily purchased at any number of grocery stores. But I still fish, I haven't been hunting in a few years, for enjoyment as well as to eat the fish I catch. Would it be better if I practiced catch and release? Just torture for a bit, along with weakening the fish for a wh

For fun? You missed the part where it was $10 a pelt. That's both meat on the table (if raccoons are edible, I have no idea) and money for the house/ family.

It can be said I kill animals for fun as well. Even in this janky backwards city I live in, there is no reason at all to fish or hunt. Food can be easily purchased at any number of grocery stores. But I still fish, I haven't been hunting in a few years, for enjoyment as well as to eat the fish I catch. Would it be better if I practiced catch and release? Just torture for a bit, along with weakening the fish for a while?

For fun? You missed the part where it was $10 a pelt. That's both meat on the table (if raccoons are edible, I have no idea) and money for the house/ family.

It can be said I kill animals for fun as well. Even in this janky backwards city I live in, there is no reason at all to fish or hunt. Food can be easily purchased at any number of grocery stores. But I still fish, I haven't been hunting in a few years, for enjoyment as well as to eat the fish I catch. Would it be better if I practiced catch and release? Just torture for a bit, along with weakening the fish for a while?
Seems like if you are not eating them there is a easier way to get ten bucks than mowing down animals that are just trying to survive. I am not a animal activist, so before the hunters start rabble rousing, I am a firm believer in responsible and respectful culling. I do however rehabilitate injured animals and currently care for fifteen racoons, who are very intelligent and kind animals. My problem honestly is that I am a marine corps combat veteran and I have had a crash course in the value of ALL life. If you feel the need, let it be so.
 
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anotherbob

Lifer
Mar 30, 2019
17,135
32,175
46
In the semi-rural NorthEastern USA
The fall 2023 issue of Missouri Times has a photo of a coon hunter’s mule jumping a woven wire fence

View attachment 254991

A few coon hunters rode mules back when I was a kid. The mule is not a spirited animal and will ride slowly through the timber at night, and when a fence appears will stop and allow the rider to cross and then jump the fence, my father explained.

My mother thought any man who would lay out all night with a bunch of his buddies instead of in bed with his wife getting ready to get up early the next morning to work would never keep much of a wife for very long if he ever attracted a wife in the first place. :)

When there were foxes, my father and a few of his friends would fox hunt at night.

But that was socially acceptable because children could tag along, the fox was never killed, and the men could build a fire and join their families after hounds struck and the fox was on the run.

I can still remember a blanket of a million stars overhead and my parents arm in arm listening to the music of the hounds as they chased but never caught a fox.

There’s no describing, pure heaven on earth.

I did coon hunt a little when I was a teenager. But there’s lots of things a teenaged boy does grown married men shouldn’t even want to do, you know?
looks to me more like that man is throwing the mule over the fence.
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
5,344
15,244
Humansville Missouri
looks to me more like that man is throwing the mule over the fence.
Look close. That’s a dummy fence, only to train mules.

It’s woven wire, with a rail on top, and way higher than anything the mule will ever encounter in the woods.

In the background is a brand new pickup and the Morgan of the photographer who not only took that photo (which is famous among Missouri history lovers) but he wrote up an article about coon hunting with mules.

The fences in the wild the mule would jump in the timber would be nearly always unforgiving barbed wire. Hurta would have started them on that dummy section with a wood rail top over woven wire, then on to barbed wire.

A Missouri mule wasn’t glamorous or fleet or beautiful.

But they are smart, and trainable.

Where a horse will spook, a mule just plods along.


Perfect for a coon hunter ten miles from no place in the pitch dark timber.
 
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