Raccoons are ridiculous

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my farmer friend HATES them. they get under his house and do the nasty thing which sounds like 2 cats killing each other. they also break into his garage and steal his dog food (in a sealed garbage can), cow pellets (in a sealed 5 gallon bucket), and trash!!!

at least 4x a year i am called to come and dispatch 'dem coons!!!
 
Stepped out on my porch and saw three stealing our cat food. Went and grabbed my 17hmr rifle and stalked them out back of the house as they kept hanging around in the trees waiting to come back. Shot one and blew its lower jaw off (found it dead in the morning). I heard the most craziest screaming and crying. Didnt know that Raccoons could get that vocal.

Kind of unnerved me, especially seeing so many right out on my porch just a yard from my feet.

A person paid me 10 dollars to come out and shoot a coon they had livetrapped the other day.

I have never seen so many coons in my part of the world. They are becoming an epidemic. Coons and rabbits should have open season year round.
 
Kind of unnerved me, especially seeing so many right out on my porch just a yard from my feet.

A person paid me 10 dollars to come out and shoot a coon they had livetrapped the other day.

I have never seen so many coons in my part of the world. They are becoming an epidemic. Coons and rabbits should have open season year round.
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The explosion of raccoons is the result of the anti-fur movement many years ago. If you remember the throwing or red paint on fur coats, picketing, etc.
Before then, the price of raccoon fur was such, the people would actually stop and pick up road-kill raccoons in the fall. I trapped back then, and remember getting $45 for a single large (x-large would have brought more), coon pelt.
However, after the anti-fur crazies did their work, the fur prices dropped to the point where the price of the traps was more than one could get in a season of trapping, effectively ending trapping as source of supplemental income.
Now, instead of being utilized by someone and keeping the population low, we (I) kill them to keep them from destroying my goose eggs, goslings, and throw them into the soybean field as fertilizer. I have poisoned, trapped and shot at least 15 this year (12 opossums), 18 last year. So, anti-fur jerks, you are not "saving" them from trapping, shooting, etc., they are just a resource that is being wasted.
 
We had bandits in the garbage cans and set out one trap and filled it every night for a month - got a second trap and filled both every night for a month - I relocated those guys - do not put them in your SUV they stink.

Gave up on the relocation and built a cage for the Garbage cans to keep them out - they went away when the food source was unavailable.

If you need to bait a trap there is nothing better than chicken scraps and particularly Fried Chicken - no I am not kidding.

When I used fried chicken I often got more than one in a trap.

I had one die that wedged his head under the door and choked itself to death.
 
Relocate hell...kill them. "Relocating" is just making them someone else's problem. I live in the country, just let me catch someone "relocating" them to my area!
 
I and the dog kill several coons a year. Winter and summer. Not for just the sake of killing. Just something that goes with the territory of living in the country, especially in the middle of the woods.

Coons gotta have food, shelter and are no different than any other animal. They'll get that in usually the easiest, most convenient way.

Problem is, around these parts, there's really no natural preditor other than possibly coyote to keep population in check. Nobody traps anymore.

I killed five that were in the barn huddled in a big ball under the steps last winter. The barn seems to attract them although there's no food of any kind in the there. I believe they were there to get out of the extreme, prolonged cold we were having at the time.

They are smart also. I put an electric fence around garden to keep all wildlife outta there. Worked for awhile. One morning I get up, looked at the garden and it looked like someone had destroyed my sweet corn with a vengence like I had slapped their momma or something.

Couldn't figure out how the bandits were getting past the electric fence so I sit out in the yard that night and watched the coons come out of the woods, go straight to a tree located close to the garden where they climbed the tree and went out on limbs overhanging a small corner of the garden and dropped about 12ft or so into garden.:cool:

Had to rig tin around base of tree.

The electric slowed them down but I usually end up live trapping and killing 6-8 a year that still manage to get in the garden.

The fruit tree's. They don't bother the apple tree's. Won't get into how they'll totally strip peach tree's of literally hundreds of peachs in a single night. They know right when those peach's are ripe and you'll wake up with not one peach on a single tree with peach pits piled up under the trees.

I'm retired now so I plan on getting even this year. As I'll be able to stay outside a few nights this year when the peachs are ready to thin the herd.
 
Like I mentioned earlier, coons have been making a mess of my wife's garden and flower beds, so she put a "contract" on them. I'm the contractor. Caught one in the trap last night about 10 pm and was planning to do my contract work this morning. But...it was a momma coon and this morning there were two little ones trying to get their faces into the trap to get milk from momma. My wife got all gooshy and wouldn't dream of letting me harm a hair on their little bandit faces. So we let her go. Geez...
 
'Coons can be tough if you don't hit 'em right. It's amazing how long they'll last, and how much they'll fight with a poor hit.

And one well placed .22 LR or .17 HMR kills them deader'n scat pretty much immediately. I've killed them very effectively with CCI CB shorts from a .22 rifle, but you have to hit them in the right spot on the forehead.

Daryl
 
LOL, And injured raccoon will rip off his own leg and beat you with it...:D


About 5 out of 100 coons will show super-ummm-raccoon abilties even after receiving a hail of bullets from a frustrated hunter...

I was chastised into submission on this forum once for sharing one of those stories..... but they happen, awesome shot and all....even with half the face missing.
apart from vaporizing the animal... not much you can do but keep shooting it.

PS. They cannot resist marshmellows
 
I have heard storries about these super raccoons. I have never seen one yet but I have heard multiple stories about them. The best one involved a 223 and a 12ga and about 6 rounds of the 223 and 2 rounds of buck shot.
 
I was telling my grandpa about this thread and some of the stories here. He told me a couple stories that only reassured me how tough some coons are.

He had one that kept stealing eggs and killing chickens. One night he sat in the little fort/house that is built on top of the swing set. After awhile the coon shows up and starts harassing the hens and stealing eggs. Pop said he waited until it started to leave and he drew his recurve and let her fly. (He didn't bring his gun for fear of hitting a chicken or other livestock. In fact he is very proficient with his bow. Something he has loved to do for years until Arthur set in on his hands.) The arrow pinned the coon to the side of the hen house. Dead center chest. The coon squirmed and climbed off the arrow and took off. Pops said he was amazed but figured it would die so problem solved.

A few weeks later he heard a ruckus in the hen house again. He took his pistol out to investigate and found the same coon with a broken front right leg. He killed it and inspected it. He found that his arrow angled in and went through the chest and right front leg. How the animal lived is amazing not to mention how he climbed off an arrow pinning him to the hen house wall.

Just another example the American Super Coon. They take a licking and keep on ticking.
 
Racoons as food

It's not just the Clampett's who eat Racoon, from Wikipedia:

US President Calvin Coolidge's pet raccoon Rebecca was originally sent to be served at the White House Thanksgiving Dinner. The first edition of The Joy of Cooking, released in 1931, contained a recipe for preparing raccoon.
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I think they fell out of favor for eating because more and more people began to think that they're cute and entertaining. It might have been as part of the urbanization of America - I'm not sure. My uncle in Arkansas has always eaten them and still does. He eats everything, squirrels, racoons, turtles, frogs (legs), deer, pheasants, hogs...
 
I just finished a small book about life in the country (east central Louisiana, on the Mississippi, where I grew up) from 1929 through 1932. The book was basically excerpts from the diary of a young woman (early 30's at that time) who was just writing about life and what went on. Her grandson published it many years later. Aside from just being interesting, one thing that was very apparent throughout the book was the constant hunting and fishing they did for food. No supermarkets around in those days. They hunted quail, duck, turkey, rabbit, squirrel, and deer day after day, and they ate a lot of fish and turtle. No mention of raccoon however. And there was a small amount of grumping as she mentioned that the "government said that they couldn't shoot does anymore". Overall, life was much tougher then than now, but she seemed quite happy with her life. A fascinating book. And, with this being a rifle/pistol forum, I will stay true to that and mention that she was friends with General (then a Captain) Chennault, later of the Flying Tigers, and the Captain would often fly his "Pursuit Plane" (twin winged fighter plane) over to visit and play tennis, and he'd practice his machine gunnery in the nearby lake.
 
As a kid, I've eaten coon as well as groundhog.

Varmint hunting on a farm was something we did as kids for entertainment instead of sitting in front of a TV. We didn't even realize we were doing the farmers,(especially cattle farmers) a favor. Groundhog holes and livestock don't mix well.

Same rules apply for both, get the young ones and they're actually good.

Mom fried groundhog similar to frying chicken and she could prepare BBQ'ed coon that was excellent.
 
I used to trap coons when I was a kid. Like anything else you have to hit them with the bullet to kill them. I used .22 short hollow points to fox and coon in the traps. One morning I had a big old boar coon along the railroad tracks. I shot him in the forehead and he went right down. I had a couple traps to check yet so I did not throw him in my pack basket. When I got back he was sitting like the RCA dog and really P.O. I put one in his ear and went home. Turned out when they get really big and old they grow a heavy sheet of muscle across the top of their head. The .22 short hollow point hit the muscle, flattened out on the skull, and was still in there. I was sure glad I did not throw him in my pack. Oh yeah, they are good eating if rack them and broil out all the fat you can. I used to cut all the legs off and freeze them.
 
Coons and Rabies

Last summer I had a raccoon try to come in the barn in broad daylight while I was doing chores. I yelled at the little bugger and then chased him with a shovel. He very slowly moved off and left.

I decided he must be sick with something and so contacted the Missouri Dept of Conservation (thinking he might be rabid). According to Conservation, Raccoons do NOT carry rabies. However, they do carry distemper and that was their supposition in this case.

Fortunately I haven't seen any coons around since that time. Of course I have also gone back to carrying one of my pistols anytime I am outside working or doing chores around the barn.
 
10mm for racoons - that's what I say !

Jeez I can't beleive I was going to go up in my parents attic and shoot them with a .22 - they probably would have torn my face off.
 
A good trap for them is a large piece of pipe capped at both ends. Put a golf ball inside and drill a 1" hole in the side. They will reach in and claim their "prize" but can't fit it back though the hole. They will hang on to it for hours. You can walk right up to them and dispatch them cause they won't let go.
 
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