Foxfire 11: Wild Plant Uses, Gardening, Wit, Wisdom, Recipes, Beekeeping, Toolmaking, Fishing, and More Affairs of Plain Living

by Lacy Hunter;Foxfire Students Kaye Carver Collins

  People depended on animals to survive. Whether it was animals raised on a farm or wild animals in the woods, it was still food. All that they had to help them hunt were intuitions, knowledge passed down from previous generations, weapons, and an occasional lantern. There were no camouflage clothes, paint, masks, flashlights, or any of our modern equipment. Now hunting is mainly for sport rather than survival.

  If a person wanted a deer, a coon, or a turkey, he would go out and hunt one no matter the time of year. Many times hunters would stay for days or weeks in the woods to catch food for their families. As Talmadge York said, “I’ve spent just about as much time in the woods as I have at home, I guess.” Nowadays only a few months of the year are set aside to hunt for certain animals.

  In the past, hunting was a way for families to be self-sufficient. If they could not raise enough meat on their farm, they would hunt for it. Gertrude Keener recalls how her family would hunt for many different animals. “My daddy and brothers would go squirrel hunting and coon hunting and sell the skins. Sometimes they’d catch muskrats. They were pretty bad on the creek banks, so we always tried to trap them and keep them thinned out. My brothers would go hunting in the snow. That was a good kind of boy that would go rabbit hunting in the snow. They ate the rabbits; they never did throw them away.

  “In the wintertime, my daddy would take us bird thrashing. That’s what he called it—going hunting birds at night. We’d take a pine torch or a lantern or something for light.” Hunting allowed families to survive the winters. No part of the animal was wasted. If it was not used for food, it was used in another way. The hide of larger animals was often traded for food or another needed item.

  Many hunters chose to get a little help from dogs. The dogs could find the animals when their owners couldn’t.

  Hunting was also a form of pest control. Many rabbits and other small animals would destroy a garden, and if a farmer killed the animal, he protected his garden and provided another source of food.

  After the animal was caught, it would be prepared at home and put in the smokehouse (see the “Farm Animals” and “The Old Homeplace” chapters).

  As fathers take their sons hunting now, they also took them years ago. The children who learned to survive by hunting have taught their children to hunt, not for survival, but for sport. However, some of the techniques and strategies for hunting are the same as they were in the past.

  The how-tos of hunting are featured in The Foxfire Book, but since hunting was such an important part of our ancestors’ lives, we decided to share with you the experiences and memories of several hunters.

  —Amy S. York

  BEARS

  Adam Foster remembered this story about his grandfather catching a bear. “My grandpa caught a bear one time and raised it. He caught the bear out in the mountains somewhere. It was small when he got it. Well, he kept it around there and made him a scaffold up in a big pine tree in the front yard. He made that scaffold for that bear to climb up and lay on. That suited the bear. He put a chain on him and let him go up there and sleep. So he raised that bear up around there, and he got to where he’d turn it loose. It’d go anywhere around there. So finally it went back out in the field, and some of the neighbors shot it; they didn’t know it was his. Somebody come through and shot it.”

  PLATE 140 Adam Foster with his great-niece

  Frank Rickman remembers encounters with bears for a very different reason. “I like to hunt bears. I don’t like to kill them, but we’ve worked at it pretty hard. The only ones that I’ve helped catch is the bears tearing up people’s beehives. A bear likes honey better than anything. He’ll go for miles and tear up bee gums and get the honey. A lot of people make a living off that honey, and they ask us to come fool with them. I’ve been trying to keep dogs that we could catch them with. I’ve really gotten a kick out of that bear hunting because I’ve always liked to take these young’uns and all these men [to hunt with me]. I always [like] to see how much grit they got, ’cause when that bear stops on them, [those people] will go over the top of something or up something or do something [to get away]. I always liked to do that.”

  COONS

  Shorty Hooper told us about coon hunting. “Most anywhere in these mountains is a good place to hunt. A lot of people don’t like to tell where they catch their coons at or how they catch ’em, but it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t mind telling a man where I coon hunt or where I catch ’em.

  PLATE 141 Shorty Hooper and his coon dogs

  “One time we were coon hunting, and we got after an old coon that had gotten away from us before. That old coon would get away every time we got after him. The dogs would run him good and hard for a while, and then they would lose him. They would circle around and never could get it straightened out [as to where he went]. That old coon did us that way for about five or six years. So I got without a coon dog, and I bought an old lemon-spotted dog. I told some of my hunting buddies that this old dog would put John in the sack. [We got after the coon and let him get away so many times that I named him John.] I said, ‘Well, this dog will put the of John in the sack.’

  “So one night it was sprinkling rain, a pretty good heavy little drizzle. I started out, and I was by myself with the old dog that I had bought; his name was Junior. Old Junior struck that coon, and he lost it. He come back, circled back, and he struck that old coon again. There was a dead chestnut tree part of the way down, and it had fallen into the top of a big crooked white oak tree, and that old coon had a den in that oak tree. What he would do whenever the dogs got after him was to go up the dead chestnut tree and jump off the side onto that oak tree. All of the dogs that we had had to run old John would run to that blown-down tree and tree on him there, but the old coon wouldn’t be there.

  “Junior went up in that blown-down tree as far as he could to where that old coon had jumped off; he walked up as far as he could, and he would turn and come back standing on his hind feet. He marched around up in there where the old coon had jumped off, and he struck him again somehow. [The coon come out,] and the old dog run that old coon up the creek there for about a mile I guess, and directly he gave a big ‘boo-oo’ there—a tree bark, I call it. He circled an’ treed right under a big set of rock ledges. ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘there ain’t a tree up in there big enough for a coon to climb—back in under those cliffs.’ Old Junior is looking at that coon, but I walked on up around the edge of the ledge of the cliffs, and there were two big persimmon trees. I guess I hunted ever since I was young up in there, and I had never seen those two big persimmon trees. I bet you that they were fifty or sixty feet tall, and that old coon was curled around the trunk of a little limb where it forked. He was just wrapped around there, and that was the biggest coon I ever caught. And that was the end of old John. I’d run him for about five years, and I finally put him in the sack. He weighed twenty-two and a half pounds. He was a big one!”

  HUNTING COON WITH DOGS

  Shorty Hooper told us, “What matters to me is whether or not another man has got as good a dog as I’ve got. That is the sport in it with me. I’ve had some awful good dogs. I’ve had dogs that would just get out there and coon for me all night long, and I’ve had some that I would give away because they never would make it. They might tree a coon, but I wouldn’t call ’em a coon dog. I’ve had some that really made it, and them I always hold on to unless something bad happens that I have to get rid of ’em.

  PLATE 142 Shorty Hooper’s coon dog Katy

  “Yes, sir, a good dog is the answer to good coon hunting. You can get out here with just any kind of a dog, and you’ll be running these wildcats and deer and everything else besides a coon. But when you one time get you one trained up for a good coon dog, why, every time you hear that ol’ dog bark, you can bet he’s after that ol’ ringtail. And we get after some tough ones that’s hard to do anything with.

  “I loaf through this mountain area here. That way you can get after more old smart coons, these here old longtime t
railers that would be hard for a dog to tree. And that’s what I love to hear—a old dog when he gets after a coon. He’ll ‘boo-oo’ here and he will ‘boo-oo’ yonder, and he’ll go a little farther and mess around, and maybe you’ll plumb quit hearing him for a long time. Directly, you’ll hear ‘boo-oo’ on that ol’ coon’s track again. Just makes you think he has just plumb quit. Then all at once that ol’ dog will set down and give a big howl up the tree there, and he’ll circle around—and that’s the good part about it that I like. Then when you go to your dog, you can look up there and see that old coon sitting up there with them eyes shining like a star looking down at you there.

  “You can tell a pup’s makeup by his head and his ears, and a lot of times [you can tell] if he’s going to make a good coon dog. What really counts, though, is putting them in the brush and wearing out that shoe leather out there training on that coon.

  “The way I’d start out with this young pup is I’d hunt him with my old dog, and I’d try to get him in there with my old dog on every trail or track that he got on—encourage him to go with my old dog and to be with him when the coon was treed.

  “A lot of people will hold their old dogs ’til the young dog catches the coon, but that’s the wrongest thing a man ever did. The thing to do is when the young dog trees and gets to staying in there a little better, leave that old dog loose there and cripple that coon and make it walk out of that tree, and that old dog, he knows exactly what to do—he ain’t gonna back up. He’s going in there and get ahold of that coon. When he does, that’s gonna encourage this young dog, and he’s going to fall in there. Nine times out of ten he’s gonna get bit and eat up a little bit. But still as long as Grandpa stays in on that there coon, why, this young dog ain’t gonna back up much. It’s too exciting for him to stay out of it, and he can’t help hisself. He’ll just go right on in there.

  “Be good to your dog. Treat him right, and every time he trees one, why, just pet him. Love him up. Hug his neck if you have to. Show that dog he’s done the right thing. Then the dog gets to know you, and he gets to know what you’re hunting for, and then he will get out there and coon for you all night long. And he won’t fool with nothing else if he’s trained right.

  “The best coon dog I ever had was one I called Little Red. He was half redbone, a quarter cur, and a quarter walker. He was just a straight-out coon dog. That’s just all you could make out of him. Take him hunting anywhere, and he’d find you a coon. He didn’t come back ’til he had a coon. A lotta times I could turn him up a branch [creek] and wouldn’t even have to go with him. If he didn’t come, I’d start up the branch ’til I heard him tree or found him somewhere treeing, and many a time with a gang [of coons] up a tree or one big ol’ barren sow [that’s a coon that never raises up no kittens]. I guess, to my notion, Little Red is the best dog I’ve ever had in my life.

  “A man likes his dogs, and he don’t want to part with them. That’s the reason they cost so much. Everybody likes a good-trained dog. A good-blooded pup at three months old would cost you anywhere from seventy-five to one hundred dollars. A good trained dog now would cost you—well, from the prices things is today, and by coon hunting being such a good sport that people really loves and enjoys [that brings the price of a dog up]—from five to seven hundred dollars to a thousand, twelve, fourteen hundred. And there have been a few coon dogs sold for more money than that. If you take and train him up, why, you have worn enough shoe leather off to get whatever you can out of him, and it wouldn’t be too much. So that’s one reason why coon dogs are so high. It’s just a good sport that people likes, and always has been—from our old grandparents’ days back to now—and always will be, I guess.

  “Now, I have had my dog to run a coon a couple or three hours before he ever treed. And I have had it to just cold-trail one from say about nine or ten that night when I first hit the woods until about four that morning before he ever dragged him down. It would take all night to track him down and tree him. A lot of times, maybe nine times out of ten, one like that will be up an oak tree, and you can get him.

  “I’d say just on a straight run and race on a coon, he wouldn’t last but fifteen or twenty minutes ’til a dog would tree him. But the old coon tricks the old dog. What takes a long time is getting a beatened-up track where he’s been or a track that’s been rained on, and where he’s been feeding around.

  “If a dog strikes a good track and gets the coon to going, I’d say fifteen to thirty minutes, why, your dog will have him treed. It’s just according to how young or old the coon is and how much he’s been dogged and the kind of rough country you’re hunting in and how quick the old coon will tree. And an old sow, she’ll take care of her kittens. She’ll stick her neck out taking care of them. She’ll put her kittens up a tree and maybe try to fool a dog and go on a pretty good piece.

  “You take a fellow that loves his coon dogs, and he loves to coon hunt for a sport, why, he ain’t going to shoot ever’ coon he sees noway. He’s gonna want to go back and get some more fun out of ’em later.

  DEER

  Adam Foster’s memories of stories about his grandfather seem larger than life, like Paul Bunyan. “Grandpa was a big, stout, long-armed man. He didn’t care. He’d catch a bear as quick as he’d catch a groundhog. There used to be a big mill dam right over the hill there, and his dogs got after a deer. They run it into this mill dam. It was a big old buck deer, and it was a-fightin’ his dogs, ’bout to drown ’em. And, of course, Grandpa was stout, and he just pulled off his coat, and into that dam he went to where the deer was. And them dogs was tryin’ to catch it in the water there, but it was about to drown them. [So] he just reached in and got them big horns and put it under the water and held it ’til it drowned. He was a big stout man—bigger than I am and longer-armed.”

  BOBCATS

  Talmadge York remembers going hunting for small game, but coming home with much more than he bargained for. “I went squirrel huntin’ one time up on Glassy Mountain. I’d killed six squirrels, and they’s some boys scared up some turkeys. So I decided I’d hang my squirrels up and call these turkeys up. So I got down behind a tree; I called a few times, and I looked down below me, and there was the biggest something a-comin’ toward me I ever seen. Scared me nearly to death, but I seen it was a bobcat. I had a shotgun, so I shot him off. He wheeled down this way and come right back up on this log. I shot him out again and knocked him off, and the next time he got up he started right toward me. I shot him in the mouth, and that killed him. I was so excited I tied him up and put him around me and started off the mountain with him. [I] got about a half a mile, and I forgot I’d left my squirrels I’d hung up. Instead of laying my cat down—he weighed about twenty-five pounds—and goin’ back and gettin’ my squirrels, I toted the cat and all back. I had him mounted and kept him for a long time.”

  PLATE 144 Talmadge York with the bobcat he killed and mounted

  FOXES

  Edd Hodgins shared his unusual method of catching foxes barehanded. “I’ve shot a lot of foxes, but when I could get one treed, I’d try to get him alive lots of times. If you can get him treed in a hole or something, he’ll come out with smoke. You get a little smoke, and they’ll run out. [When they] start out, grab them by the back of the neck, and they sull up just like a possum! Then I had him!

  “One time one jumped out too quick for me. I didn’t think I had fire enough. He was in a big hole—hollow log—and boy I was gonna give him a good one. So I turned my back around to get something more to put on the fire—just had got it started—and out come that thing. Boy, he was out of there! He was one of them big yellow ones. I was glad I had my back to that one! One of my dogs grabbed him, but he was as big as my dog, and it was a big dog! That fox jerked loose, and he got in another hole. I could hear him, but I never could smoke him out. But I would have grabbed him before I seen what I was a-grabbing, and that thing was as big as any dog I had. If I’d grabbed him, I’da had a fight sure enough, so I was glad I had my back to t
hat one!

  “My wife’s daddy come up here one day, and he wanted to go a-hunting. He was getting old and couldn’t hear too good, and them old foxhunters always hunted of a night. I’d go in the morning. My dogs was just as good in the day as their dogs were at night. Them other fox-hunters had high-thoroughbred dogs, and they thought they had the best; and I had old stock dogs—just black and tans and blueticks—but my dogs would catch ’em, and theirs couldn’t. I knew that. Anyway, he corne up to stay all night with me and go foxhunting in the morning. He’d say ‘You think you can get ’em up of a day?’

  “I’d say ‘I can get up one or two.’

  “So we went up this ridge here the next morning and jumped one, and one of my boys brought him on up to us dead, and about that time the dogs jumped another one off in there. I said, ‘There’s another one, Grandpa.’

  “He says, ‘I’m going after it.’ He said, ‘You take this one on to the house.’ And about that time, he heard them tree down there on the other side of the mountain. I said, ‘You take this one to the house. I’ll go get that one.’

  “He said, I ain’t going to the house. I’m a-goin’ with you.’ So we went on to where that one was treed in an old mica hole, and I crawled in. It scares me yet to think about it. The hole was a little sloping; it had been a tunnel, but it was about filled up. You could go fifteen or twenty feet back, but the dogs were still on back beyond that. I figured I could crawl in there as far as I could, and start a little smoke, and give him plenty of room to get the dogs out of there and out of the way, and get back and catch him. But I crawled down in there and started me a little smoke, and the smoke backfired on me worse than it was going the other way [the way he planned for it to go], and me fanning it with my hat. But I couldn’t get it back, you know. I got back out of there—I had to back out—but I seen that fox a-comin’ directly, and I just lied still. He come out and had a great big hole—four foot square I reckon—to get around me. Had a lot of room to dodge me, but I guess the smoke had his eyes about shut, and I got him. Old Grandpa was sitting over there on the bank, and he went to laughing. He said, ‘I’ve foxhunted all my life, and I’ve caught more today than I’ve ever caught!’