Coon Hunting Techniques

Considered by many one of the most popular hunting activities across the United States, coon hunting is excellent for amateur and avid raccoon hunters, and can be the perfect way to practice your hunting skills. Hunting raccoons offers other benefits except the hunting excitement, such as: eating their delicious meat and bringing peace to farmers (due to the reason that they won't worry anymore about the raccoons that get into their crops and destroy them).

Hunting Raccoons In The Night

Moving on to the coon hunting techniques, hunters must know that coons sleep during the day and are active during the night so it is advisable to find a very good trained coon hunting dog in order to help the hunter spot the raccoons before they spot the hunter. For the same reason, lights are crucial for a coon hunting adventure. Getting back to the dog, he must be very fast and needs to have a very evolved sense of smell.

You might ask yourself why do hunters need a dog partner, the answer is quite simple: when the raccoons climb trees, especially during nighttime, the only way to detect these animals is with the help of your raccoon hunting dog because otherwise your chances of spotting a coon are almost null. Besides the dog matter, the most important issue regarding coon hunting is to make sure that you are aware of the surrounding of the area your targets will be hiding in ahead of time. Simply put, if you don't know the area, your chances of catching any of these animals are very small.

For this reason, a hunter must know where the coons are going for feeding purposes, where they live, which trees they prefer to climb and things like these. A very important aspect hunters must be aware of is that when they hunt on private land they must have the owner's permission to do so. The ideal time for hunting raccoons is during late winter for the fact that the raccoons spurs the heaviest.

Hunters must also know that old raccoons are wily and if they are surprised far from their den, a chase will last for hours. They might climb trees and travel overhead across a patch of timber, leaving the hunter's hound howling at the foot of the first tree. When hunting raccoons, hunters must be aware of the fact that raccoons are known for their swimming capabilities and they will try to evade when pursued in water conditions.

If placing traps is your favorite raccoon hunting technique, you should know that the most suitable places for installation are in areas where there are food sources or around water areas, more concretely put: rivers, lakes, streams, marshes, ponds, creeks and similar areas. The best bushes are the ones that have a river nearby and they have mature "home trees" in them. It is almost obligatory not to destroy any of the den trees or shoot into a den tree, hoping to scare out a raccoon because it will never happen and you will cripple and maim them. It is very easy to detect if a raccoon is in a specific area by checking their tracks. Their front feet are smaller in comparison with the back ones and have longer "finger-like" tracks.