[car revving] [phone ringing] [phone rings, clicks] Hey Puddy?

Yeah?

I'm leaving the house.

Alright.

I got all them coons treed right here.

Have 'em all herded up in one pile.

Alright, alright.

I'll meet you down there at the end of that well site.

Okay.

Okay, boy.

Alright, bye.

This oughta be fun.

Charlie?

Yes, sir.

Yeah, puppy is still a little wild.

Puddy, you ought to have that on your tracking.

Y'all tell me when you're ready.

Easy, easy, easy, easy, easy.

Tell when you're ready.

I'm ready whenever.

Yes, sir.

Alright, let 'em rip.

[dogs baying] That's what I call babbling.

And it's mine.

Thank you, sir.

Y'all still got me mic'd up?

I got a lot of important stuff to say.

[laughing] [country rock guitar music] Coon hunting is a basic sport.

Coon hunting has been done Coon hunting has been done probably since mankind was here.

I used to be a trapper too, but again, trapping was just a trap.

But with hounds, you was interacting with some other animal.

We killed very few coons, but it was the sport of the chase.

It's like, why does someone want to knock a hole in one?

It's the challenge.

So with coon hunting, it's the same way.

It's the challenge of treeing that coon and looking up at that tree, and seeing that coon and saying, I got 'em.

So you're gonna hear somethin'.

I'm fixin' to blow this squawler right now.

Y'all ready?

[dogs barking] [screech] Oh, there he is.

[screeching stops] Well, it probably isn't for everyone 'cause you're gonna be out in the middle of the woods in the dark with nothing but a light and a dog.

in the dark with nothing but a light and a dog.

Sometimes, we don't even take a gun.

And you know, you're out there with whatever's crawling in the woods, snakes, rabbits, deer, hogs.

So you never know what you're gonna encounter.

[soft country guitar music] I'm a member of the Choctaw-Apache Tribe of Ebarb.

My parents, grandparents, their grandparents, we all were trappers and all were hunters from an early age.

Coons was something we ate as subsistence.

It was a family thing.

So I first got introduced into coon hunting through my father.

Most kids get bedtime stories when they're little.

All my stories that I heard were about coon hunting and my dad would tell them in extreme detail.

and my dad would tell them in extreme detail.

So I just thought it was the coolest thing ever.

So I just thought it was the coolest thing ever.

I've always liked dogs in general, but going out at night and a dog being able to run and tree a raccoon with nothing but scent, I just always thought that was pretty amazing and wanted to be a part of it.

[twangy guitar music] Coonhounds come in all colors and shapes, but a coonhound is an animal that you could take out tonight and turn loose and he's going to go hunt a coon.

He has the ability to distinguish that coon track from a deer track, from a possum track, from any other animal.

He is focused on a coon, 'cause the woods are full of opportunity.

That to me is a coon dog.

[dog barking] Good job, buddy.

[dog barking] Good boy.

[upbeat guitar music] Raccoon hunting is different from other types of hunting.

For one, there's nothing glamorous about raccoon hunting.

You know, no, [laugh] You think about other hunters like these big game hunters that go out and they're looking for that big trophy buck.

Nobody's really hanging a raccoon up in their living room.

The goal for me, for hunting, is not to shoot a raccoon or to kill a raccoon.

I couldn't care less about that.

I actually think raccoons are kind of neat.

They're very smart animals.

So I have nothing against raccoons, but they are fun to chase.

[laughs] A raccoon is the ultimate survivor in the wild.

He lives there.

That's his house.

I don't need- him dead.

I just need to say, I got you buddy.

I got you.

Now, next time, he may win the battle.

But that night, that opportunity, that chase, me and the dog won.

Comparing- why we hunt now to why people hunted in the 1800s, early 1900s, they were hunting out of necessity.

You know, they relied on these animals to provide food.

I grew up eating it.

And that is something that still appears on a lot of tables in the southern part of America.

Unfortunately, all of us, perception is probably nine-tenths of what we do, right?

We see a coon on the road or we see him cross the road.

Oh God, I wouldn't eat that thing, but we'll eat a cow [laugh] or we'll eat a pig.

And you know, we all have different taste.

So if you don't like coon, that's fine, but it is a good meat.

And when I try to cook it, I want it as tender as a mother's love.

Mm-hmm.

[chewing] I tell you what, you could, you could turn down a steak dinner for this.

It is that good.

[upbeat guitar music] What it means to be a houndsman for me is to be able to form a bond with these hounds.

You know, it goes beyond just feeding 'em once a day and really not spending any time with them other than when you need them hunting.

You know, just treating 'em as a tool.

I don't really believe in that.

I know there's a lot of guys that do.

I don't know, I guess I'm like the new softer, kinder, gentler version of hunter that, you know, believes the dogs deserve better than that.

That's what being a true houndsman is to me.

You have to touch that animal.

You have to put your hands on it.

You have to talk to him.

You have to communicate with that.

That becomes a houndsman.

I like my coonhound better than I like any person in this world.

[laughs] I mean, that's a friendship that never ends, there till the dog dies.

It don't get no better than that.

I can go pick that dog up and take him for a ride or hang out with him or whatever.

He's gonna love me no matter what.

That's probably the best bond you can have.

[gentle guitar music] So the word coon is a very controversial word.

In most public settings, if someone were to just talk about another person and call them a coon, yeah, that's not good.

But with coon hunting, you're talking about a raccoon.

I grew up around other African American coon hunters to the point where I didn't start meeting coon white hunters until I was an adult.

I had no idea that there were thousands of white coon hunters.

But growing up, my dad said the term "coon" all the time.

talking about raccoons and only talking about raccoons.

And we do the same things.

In the United States, we're real good at shortening things, right?

But there was never, ever any intent from us or the people that I hunt with, to make that a slur to people.

We wouldn't tolerate it in the first place.

If that become an issue that other people were using that word in a negative way, somebody would talk to 'em about it.

If somebody suggested to me that I should say raccoon, I will most definitely say raccoon when I'm speaking with 'em, because that's the polite and respectful thing to do.

Yeah, that's what everybody should do.

If we don't have respect for one another, then we're gonna have even more problems.

I'm an Air Force veteran.

I love my country.

There's nowhere else I'd rather be, but our history's not perfect.

So yeah, unfortunately these hounds were used as a tool in a very negative way to track down slaves.

I'm a descendant of slaves.

I'm pretty sure Pearson is not an African name.

When we think about putting things into perspective, I think you gotta remember that dogs are not inherently evil and neither are people.

Hate is something that is taught and unfortunately, it was taught to those dogs in early America.

We don't want to give the poor old hound the negative deal.

All these animals, we're just tools of some human being that had some evil thoughts.

History is history.

It exists.

It happened.

You can't deny it.

You don't need to run from it.

And you also don't need to feel guilty from it, but you do need to acknowledge it.

[music fades] [people talking in the background] Who's a good boy?

[inhale] Whooo!

Noah, come here, buddy.

Get your light.

Alright, look up.

Chin up.

Chest out.

Shoulders back.

There we go.

Good to go, buddy.

Okay, go ahead and turn your lights on now, kid.

All right, watch your step down here.

Okay?

Make sure you look at the ground.

Okay, buddy boy.

Go slow, kind of walk to your side.

When I think about coon hunting, I also think about family.

I just really, really wanted to coon hunt when I was younger and I think a lot of that was me wanting to be with my dad.

You know, it's something that my father taught me and it's something that I'm teaching his grandchildren right now, and it's spending time together.

My father also told my wife when we got married, you're never gonna have to worry about him hanging out at clubs or being somewhere he's not supposed to be on the weekends or at night.

If he's not at the house at night, he's in the woods.

And he's absolutely right.

I've been in a lot of trouble throughout my life, [laugh] but I was never in any trouble when I was in the woods.

There's no telling where coon hunting will be in 50 years.

In the last 20, it went from just being a sport.

Now, you can go win a hundred thousand dollars in a weekend, so there's no telling where they might take it next.

I might retire from working, but I'm not gonna retire from coon hunting.

As God willing, and I can still walk, we're gonna keep hunting.

[uplifting guitar music] Coon hunting has been a thread that has helped me sew a tremendous circle of friends.

I'm not good at anything else.

[laugh] I can't play golf, don't know nothing about it.

Not very good at checkers.

Chess, I sure ain't good at.

You do the things that you kind of enjoy doing.

And that's where coon hunting has taken me.

It's been a great trip for me.

If it ended today, if the good Lord took me home today, I'm a-smiling all the way there, and I just hope he's got me a dog when I get there.

[laughs] [gentle guitar music] [gentle guitar strum]