Treed! - Larry Weishuhn

“They’re treed! Let’s go, let’s go, lets go!” Urged my dad taking off at a fast trot. I did my best to

follow. My six-year old legs were not long enough to equal my Dad’s stride. I followed as best I

could at a near all out run. Soon Dad was a hundred yards ahead, somewhere in the darkness.

Thankfully I could hear the “chopping bawl” bark of Daddy’s treed hounds.

“Over here!” I could barely hear Dad. “Follow the trail through the yaupons. It’ll lead you to the

tree.” I quickened my pace. My path illuminated by a carbide hand-lantern.

Finally, at Dad’s side as he shined his “6-cell” flashlight into the tree looking for the raccoon

hidden somewhere in the taller limbs.

“There it is! See a right eye shining. Left one is behind a limb.” Dad continued, “We’ll give the

dogs a little time to tree, then we’ll catch and tie them. You grab and hold on to Blue and Cry.

I’ll catch the rest then crawl the tree to see if it’s a boar or a sow. If it’s a boar, I’ll make him

jump. We’ll give him a little time then turn the hounds loose again. If it a sow, we’ll leave her in

the tree, pull the dogs off and go hunt elsewhere.”

My dad, Lester, crawled trees like a squirrel. He continually amazed me. Sometimes the big

white and red oak trees, often 60 or more feet tall did not have low-growing limbs until at least

twenty feet off of the ground. Dad crawled those trees like he had claws at the end of his

fingers.

“It’s a sow.” Shouted Dad from above, “Looks like she probably has little ones. We’ll leave her.”

Dad loved hunting ‘coons with hounds but also respected the animals he hunted. The last thing

he wanted was to kill a female with young.

Dad, back on the ground, we lead our hounds away from the treed ‘coon.

“Know where our pickup is?” Asked he after we stopped a couple of hundred yards from the

coon tree. I listened intently, remembering we had left the pickup near an active oil field pump-

jack that made quite loud engine noises.

I could hear what I thought might be the pump jack then pointed in that direction. A smile

shown on my Dad’s face, just before we headed in the direction I pointed. The two hounds I

was leading dragged me along behind them as we “walked” back to our pickup.

Blue, Cry, Man, Arkansas, Sadie and Dora, our Bluetick, Treeing Walkers and Black & Tan

hounds loaded in the dog box (kennel) we drove a couple of miles to another of Grandpa

Weishuhn’s properties.

Shortly after again releasing Cry and Sadie, Dad asked “Recall your first hunt?” At the time I was

the grand old age of six! I thought really hard, but could not remember the first time I hunted

with my Dad. I did remember being four, sitting in a cedar tree with him hunting deer. This back

when simply seeing a deer’s track was a successful hunt. We hardly had any deer in the gravel

hills just north of the Texas Gulf Coast until screw worms were eliminated during the late

1950’s. That is when we finally started actually seeing deer. But that earlier lack of hardly any

deer had not stopped us from hunting for them, knowing we might not even see a deer during

the entire six-week season.

I did remember my Dad carrying me on his back when I was really small as he followed his ‘coon

hounds at night, and also fishing and hunting squirrels with my maternal granddad, A.J.

Aschenbeck. But I could not recall my first hunt…

During my early nighttime hunts with Dad he often started a small fire after turning loose his

hounds. When his hounds treed a ‘coon he would instruct me to stay by the fire while he went

to where his hounds were treed.

Being left alone in the darkness made for some “interesting” times. Flickering flames created

images of bears and lions. I remember clutching my hunting knife, removed from its sheath, so I

could bring it into action should I need to defend myself against darkness marauders.

Just before disappearing into the darkness Dad going to where the dogs were treed he would

say, “Stay awake Son. If I shout, answer me so I can find my way back to you and I’ll know you

are OK!”

Thankfully Dad was seldom gone more than 30-minutes. At times that seemed like years. When

Dad left I dragged sticks and logs and put them on the fire. By the time he returned I usually

had a much bigger fire than the one Dad had started for me.

One night when it took Dad longer than usual, I fell asleep. My fire burned down to mere

embers. When I woke up, I was surrounded by fireflies. I knew all about these illuminating

insects, but there were some many it was eerily spooky! I was really glad when the walking,

crunching of leaves I heard turned out to be my Dad.

As I grew taller with longer legs, I ran with Dad following his hounds. I often “accused” him of

our getting to the treed ‘coon before the hounds did.

At an early age I learned to distinguish the bark of each of Dad’s hounds, as well as when they

were cold-trailing, had jumped the ‘coon and when they barked treed.

Long before such things as GPS Dad taught me to use a compass to find my way around and

through unfamiliar woods night or day, and, how to “navigate” at night using the stars and the

moon. He also taught me to pay attention to sounds created by vehicle traffic, trains, and oil

field equipment both near and far to help oriented myself.

Dad always had ‘coon dogs and I learned very early in life to appreciate their symphonies of

“mountain music”, the howls, bawls and chops while trailing and treeing. There is old talk about

a “city guest” who accompanied a couple of houndsmen on a nighttime ‘coon hunt. Hounds

barking as they followed the scent trail of a raccoon one of the houndsmen commented, “Ahh,

listen to that beautiful mountain music.” To which the “cityslicker” replied, “I’d love to hear it

and probably could if only those blasted hounds would quit that incessant barking and

howling….”

As a young tyke I sat on my grandfather’s porch listening to he and his cohorts tell stories told

to them by their fathers and grandfathers about hunting black bear in the gravel hills of the

Zimmerscheidt Community, just above Texas’s Gulf Coast and the Colorado River, where I grew

up. Back when I was quite young people got together, long before television and such things as

the internet, and talked. Those I was around told stories, occasionally fueled by homemade

wine or a glass or two of locally distilled spirits. Those elixirs loosened their tongues.

Hearing their stories, I became enamored with hunting black bear at an early ag. Back in the

early and mid-1800’s most of Texas had sizeable black bear populations. They were hunted for

meat, bear grease and hides. Unfortunately, by the late 1800’s they were essentially gone.

I kept talking about wanting to hunt black bear. Thankfully I convinced my father and his cousin

Crockett Leyendecker they should start training their ‘coon hounds to trail bear even if there

were no longer bear anywhere near our part of Texas. Using commercially available bear scent

they trained their ‘coon hounds to hunt black bear. The process was relatively simple; live-trap

a raccoon, dunk it in a bucket of black bear scent, then release it for their hounds to trail and

tree. In a matter of a few short weeks Dad and Crockett were convinced their hounds would

indeed scent, trail and tree black bears.

Our first bear hunting trip took place near Ruidoso, New Mexico where thanks to an invitation

from then New Mexico Game Warden Ron Porter, whom I had met a couple of years earlier

hunting mule deer in southeastern New Mexico, we hunted bear on the Bachelor Ranch,

between the Ruidoso Quarter Horse Race Track and the Mescalero Apache Reservation. That

hunt culminated with us taking a couple of bear, including my first. Both Crockett and I shot

bears. I shot mine sitting watching a water hole. Crockett shot his in front of the hounds.

Unfortunately, Dad did not take a bear, but that did not dampen his enthusiasm and enjoyment

listening to his hounds chase and tree a bear…

Both my dad and Crockett are now gone, no doubt following Ol’ Blue, Cry, Sadie and Arkansas

as they chase ‘coons and bear across the celestial skies. Me? The memories of our hunts

together are as vivid as if they happened last night.

When my time comes, I hope to join Dad and Crockett sitting around the fire telling tales,

listening to “mountain music” and going to where the hounds are treed.