I was walking around the backyard yesterday and heard something in a tree,I looked up and found a new addition the the animals that like to call my backyard home, I figure he had just left his mother and is looking for his own territory.

Who was that masked . . . critter?

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Or something like that . . .

that's your new neighbor! His name is Cooney!

I evicted a Ground Hog yesterday from my backyard.
One shot of .177 Premier Destroyer 7.4gr to the brain group housing.

Not to be raining on your parade e3mrk, but I consider those things pests, and treat them as such any time I encounter them on my property.

Best of luck with your new wildlife addition if you choose to attempt some type of mutual coexistence on your property.

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Dave Brown
SWCA #3279

Looks like a load of 12 gauge #4s would deal with easily.

I've no patience for coons. They are disgusting.

My latest "run in" with a coon didn't go well. Early morning driving down the road at about 50 mph, Suddenly something low and furry darts across the road right in front of me. No time try to strattle it. Solid whap. Sorry about that and keep going knowing there was no surviving that hit and hoping it wasn't somebody's little dog. . Ha, wife's little car overheats. Hit lower corner and busted the radiator at its mount. AAA towed to shop and get company truck I am using for a short out of town job. Drove by on way back to motel. Big old boar coon dead right on side of road at that location. I would have rather used a 45 than than a radiator.

They are cute. They get into everything, the latch on something is just a minor challenge. The can rip up a fair sized dog.

Fishing trip, minnow bucket, lot left in evening, bucket well out in lake on rope. Morning comes bucket on beach empty. Coon tracks. More minnows, that night wire lid shut securely. Next morning no minnows. Wire untwisted. Think this guy was a professional minnow robber.

They do not make good pets...You'll find out. Come back in about a year from now and let us know how much you like your new neighbor.....

WuzzFuzz

If he aint bothering you, no need to bother him. Live & let live, they were here first. NO NEED to kill EVERY animal you see. OTOH he could be following you & monitoring your movements.

A couple nights ago I heard some banging in my bird feeder, put a flashlight on it and sure enough a coon was in it. The window was open, so I tried barking at it to scare it off; it just looked at me like I was nuts. Then my wife came over, and she tried barking at it. The coon ran like hell. Wife & I got a chuckle out of that.

Long ago the mrs rented a house next to the foothills and planted a vegetable garden.Neighbors told her not to bother with corn because of the raccoons,but she's stubborn.When they came for the corn she went out to chase them off.They chased her back in the house.It was their corn!

I have had many bothering me and I live trapped them and sent them to parts far enough away that they did not come back. They can be vicious and one I caught in early evening made such a fuss in the live trap in the back of my truck I decided to take him for a ride about 1 AM. My son went with me and when we reached the drop off area he left his truck door open as we removed the cage and let the coon loose. He immediately ran down the side of the truck and tried to get back into the open door. It was pretty interesting for a few minutes until he realized his error and scurried off into the brush. We learned to keep the doors shut until the deed was done.

One dog is OK but a pack of dogs, it is time to leave.

He'll be moving his family into your trash dumpster next. Foul creatures.

Hate them. They fight with cats all night and ruin camping trips

My son in law in Oregon had one in his back yard a few years back. I told him not to feed it as he would be sorry later. Sure enough he borrowed my pump 22 rifle & got 6 or 7 in the next few nights. He used those low velocity shells that don't make much noise as he lives in town. His cats & dogs were afraid to go into the backyard as the coons beat the stuffing out of them.

Their hands, as previously mentioned, are alarmingly dexterous. For that alone, I can almost kind of .... ‘like’?....them. More a fascination, I guess. Careful though. Also as previously stated, they can cause major headaches in short order. On your guard about rabies. Skunks, coons, yotes, All frequent carriers.

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Oui Chef!

Keep your cats indoors (where they belong), and a clean campsite & no problems. When in THEIR WORLD no issues from me. IN MY WORLD causing trouble, = time for them to go. Not a problem, until they are.

I live on 3 acres with about a quarter acre fenced in outside my back door for the dogs. In 40 years, I have never had a problem. I actually keep an acre totally overgrown with a large deadfall on the front edge. Everything lives back there. . .rabbits, possums, armadillos, racoons, squirrels, deer, mice, rats, chipmunks, snakes of all kinds. I have never had a creature come inside the fence with the exception of a black or king snake. I just pick them up and relocate them if needed. . .don't want the dogs to hurt them.

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Dr. B

This reminds me of during my misspent youth, when we lived in the middle of a subdivision but next to the last undeveloped building lot. Right at the boundary line between our lot and the still wooded building lot was a pile of leaves on top of a protruding small log. Somehow the log got shifted, creating a tunnel in the leaf pile. Pretty soon, in this subdivision, a possum took up residence in the leaf pile, and we have a photograph of the possum walking in our back yard like it owned the place. So one day Mom decided to go out to the leaf pile with some sliced baloney to feed the possum. She claimed it hissed at her, so she never went out to the leaf pile again. Just a nice memory of before she got stricken with rheumatoid arthritis and ALS.

You're camping...out in the woods or wilderness or whatever you want to call it...right? And you don't expect to see or hear any wildlife?

Depending on where you are, you might be lucky it's only a coon that "ruins" your camping trip.

I also doubt they fight with cats all night long. There might be a brief accidental encounter, but no cat is going to hang around and fight with an adult coon. And once the cat starts running, no coon's gonna catch it.

Darn racoon came right up to the patio screen door and was nose to nose with our cat,She was hissing and the racoon was growling so I guess the next time it comes around I'm going to put it out of it's misery.

mud footprints on garbage can of coons. used truck bunji chords 1st. a pain to unhook every time you want to put garbage in can. have a Koi pond. last summer i had 29 Koi's. only one left. you can tell when the coons have been there, mulch moved, hobies knocked over, wood fisherman usually knocked down. new trick for garbage can lid, 4"x4" cut to length, 2"x 6" cut across other way of lid, between the both so far they haven't figured it out yet. drill holes for steel spike to remove boards, just easy to remove boards. one big coon tore/ bent my trap. he got out a few times! had to reshape/ bend cage back to shape. ground hogs here, they seem to tear/ dig holes where ever they want, had one did under wooden fence to other yard, solution, 16x16x2" yard block, dug down, buried step stone, she just dug next to it the next day, 4x4 inplanted next to block, she gave up. suggestion, used break rotors fit there digings perfect, they can't move the rotors, house sideing on outside of fence deters them from diging. leave 1 hole for them to enter the yard. when i had the whole back fence lined w/ as my wife calls junk, they would just come in from the driveway side we share, other yard. can't really see the sideing, rotors in backside of fence, just the woods.i trapped 5 ground hogs in 3 days, started to pant them and dolley them to a coldersac maybe 150 yds. from the house, they would be back in 2 hrs. my buddy 2 doors down from me one day related he saw something strange in his yard. a ground hog that looked like a skunk. he just laughed, and shook his head. well i took up enough of time on this subject. everyone have a good weekend. oh yea last summer security light come on front porch, walked out the door, 3 baby skunks 3 feet from my body, SLOWLY went back into the house.

coons can cause a lot of damage to a roof if it wants to get in .. 20 gauge usually works .. them and ground hogs I have no use for ..

I've learned to kick the dumpsters at work before opening the lid.

Them's nuttin' but trouble!
Steve W

My 19 year old son caught a large boar in my live trap. He took it to his buddy's house. His buddy is 6ft 4, 240 lbs of teenage country boy muscle. His name is Clayton. Ole Clayton has the great idea to use this coon to train his new coon dog pup. Now you know this is gonna be better than home movies.

Here is the scene. Young pup running around happy as can be. My son, who weighs 135 lbs, is standing there barely holding back a 140 lb coon hound who is barking and lunging at coon. They are about 15 feet away from coon.

Clayton opens the cage door. Coon doesn't run. He casually steeps out and looks at the pup. Pup goes quiet. Then he looks at Clayton, who is standing there holding a 2 x4. He stared at Clayton for a couple of seconds and then makes a quick dash to the barn.

The barn is owned by Clayton's grandpa who has no idea what these boys were up to. My son said the dog he was holding about broke his arm. The pup just watched the coon run off. Clayton looks at my son and says" did you see the way it stopped and looked at me? Dude I thought it was going to come after me for a second". My son is laughing pretty hard because he told me Clayton eyes were real big! Clayton also told him he didn't think the pup was going to work out.

All I know is it is never boring when them boys get together. I always look forward to hearing the stories.