Fred Akers, Roxton, And Coon Hunting #1362 December 11, 2014

This week things have been a little slow so let’s go back and see what was happening in 1986. From my ledger. Monday, December 1, 1986. Honey Grove Junior High came to town for a couple of basketball games. The Puppies are rebuilding this year and Mark Miller made our only two points in the entire seventh grade game. In the eighth grade game it was nip and tuck until the last couple of minutes when a Honey Grove player started hitting and we lost by ten. Fred Akers was fired at the University of Texas today.

Tuesday, December 2, 1986. I went to Roxton to see them play Dekalb. In the girls’ game it was 48-6 at the end of the first quarter. Wound up 99-25. Dekalb had some athletic boys and before the game I thought they would win by twenty points. Roxton’s fundamentals, however led them to an eight point victory.

Wednesday, December 3, 1986. Coon prices are up this year so at 8:00 p.m. I drove south of Paul Trapp’s house to the Templeton pecan orchard. Parked and walked down river in a generally eastward direction. Using my headlight I saw a coon’s eyes in a tree near the southeast corner of the orchard. I had some new dogs to see if they would kill a coon if it fell out of the tree only wounded. The dogs were Pete, Repete, and a red bulldog. While the coon was doing its dying kicks the dogs just looked at it and I figured I was in for trouble if one hit the ground a running. I skinned the coon with my new red, bow backed, four bladed Kissing Crane knife I ordered from Tennessee.

After the skinning I found another coon a quarter mile downriver. Saw two coyotes by a dead cow in the southeast corner of the Billy Burden place. North to the “Old Backbone” and Duck Lake west of Ray Wilson meadow. North to the end of the meadow then turned west to Thomas Peters’ pasture. Home at 11:00 p.m. Friday, December 5, 1986. Larry and I went to Paris Hide and Fur just north of Bonham Street in Paris near the railroad tracks. Sold three coon skins for forty five dollars. If over 33 inches from tip of nose to base of tail they bring twenty five. Donald Watson told us that Howard’s in Sulphur Springs was going out of business and everything was forty per cent off. We went over there and bought several things including Schrade Walden LB7 pocket knives.

After returning from Howard’s Larry and I drove to Longridge and left my pickup at the Woodard Corral. Bret and Greg carried us back to the Templeton pecan orchard and we walked east looking for coons. Forty five degrees and no wind. Started walking at 11:00 p.m. Got a coon near southeast corner of orchard. It was barely wounded and hit the ground fighting. Larry got his foot on it and it bit a hole in his rubber boot. Finally we got it subdued. Followed the river to Pop Lile Campground near the mouth of Morgan Creek. On east to Bonner’s Point. On past the Short Worden Hole, Swenson Bend, and Sullivan Campground. To the pickup at 4:30 a.m. with only three coons.

Thursday, December 18, 1986. About dark, Jerry Lowry and I used a rope to lower a small boat over the side of the Highway 19 Bridge near the edge of the river then parked on the levee at the south end of the bridge. As we walked down the levee toward the boat we were surprised to see the water was so high the bar ditch was full and we couldn’t cross unless we wanted to get soaked. It was like we dropped the boat on an island. We went back home, got my canoe, and paddled across the ditch. Drug the canoe out in the woods and hid it. Got in the boat and headed downstream. Jerry was in the back and the current kept taking him under low limbs causing him to have to get down in the bottom of the boat. Saw three deer walking along the edge of the bank but no coons by the time we got to Bluff Bank. Home at 11:00 p.m.

Now back to 2014. Several of us sure wish for the days of twenty five and thirty dollar coon hides again. However, according to a November 21, 2014 announcement from Mansfield, Louisiana’s R-P Outdoors, furs are not going to be worth much this year. Coon will be four dollars and down. No value for coyotes. Otter skins are twenty five and down. Red fox under fifteen. No prices available on other furbearers yet but could be updated later. This company will buy Texas furs in places north of Interstate 10 to the Red River and west to Interstate 35. To find out the closest town the buyer will come to your area you may call them at 318 872 4122. Be sure and check the laws concerning spotlighting for coons.
For the next few weeks Mars remains in the southwest as darkness arrives. Find twinkie-er Fomalhaut three fist widths to Mars’ left. Search the eastern sky for four items of interest. The highest as darkness arrives is the blurry group of stars called the Seven Sisters, wrongly called the Little Dipper, which is attached to the North Star. Drop down from the Seven Sisters to the bright star Antares, part of the V shape Taurus the Bull. Down lower you will find three stars in a row, the belt of Orion the Hunter. The three stars point downward to the brightest star of all, Sirius. Notice this brilliant twinkling, and color changing star.

To write with a broken pencil is pointless. You can tune a piano but you can’t tuna fish. When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate. A man stole a calendar and got twelve months. When fog lifts in Los Angeles UCLA.
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