Syracuse.com - Fabius coon hunter shares thrill with beloved dogs

[HuntingNY-News]

Like any kind of hunting, there's no certainty in coon hunting. Sometimes it's fast and furious right out of the box. Other nights it's long and drawn out. Watch video

Jim Commentucci/The Post-StandardDake Esposito poses for a photo at his home in Fabius with Max and Lucy, two of his bluetick coonhounds. The bright, full moon lit up the woods and fields Wednesday in Pompey. The leafless, hardwood trees made for eerie, and sometimes beautiful silhouettes against the nighttime sky.

It would have been a perfect night to hunt raccoons, if not for the wind.

“Nights like this in the moonlight, they should stick out like dark lumps on the top of the trees,” said Dake Esposito, as he let Max and Lucy, his two excited bluetick coonhounds, out of their cage in the back of his pickup truck.

“With the wind being as strong as it is, it’s difficult to hear the dogs, but we’re going to be hunting them into the wind. Hopefully, if they pick up a track we can hear them.”

WILFREDO LEE photo

Esposito, 32, is one of an decreasing number of raccoon hunters in Central New York. His enthusiasm sometimes takes him into the early morning hours as his trained dogs pursue coons on farmlands where he grew up. The dogs tree the coons, enabling Esposito to shoot them out of the trees.

Years ago, raccoon pelts were in demand, fetching as much as $50 each. Raccoon meat was also coveted by certain ethnic groups, according to Lance Clark, a wildlife biologist for the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Cortland office.

Today, raccoon pelts aren’t worth as much and few want the meat. Esposito, who hunts with a single-shot, bolt-action .22-caliber rifle, has been hunting them for more than a decade and doesn’t eat what he shoots. He noted that raccoons are a species with a high incidence of rabies and other parasites and that he wears rubber gloves when he skins them.

Esposito keeps the unfleshed raccoon pelts, rolls them up and freezes them. Last December, he sold nearly 30 to buyers at the annual raw fur auction at the Pompey Rod and Gun Club, getting an average of $13 each.

He said his fascination with raccoon hunting began with his love for coonhounds.

“When I was a kid, I read the book, ‘Where the Red Fern Grows,’” he said. “I’ve always wanted to have hounds.”

The popular children’s novel by Wilson Rawls is about a boy who buys and trains two redbone coonhound hunting dogs.

Esposito’s love for coonhounds carried into adulthood, when he and his wife, Nicole, moved to Fabius and bought three bluetick coonhounds.

“Before we had our two kids, it was me, my wife and our three dogs — Max, Lucy and Harley — all sleeping in a double bed. It was something,” he said. “Max would crawl between the two of us, put his head on the pillow and he was right under the blankets. The other two were at our feet. I couldn’t tell most of the time if it was the dog next to me snoring or my wife. It was definitely comical.”

Wednesday night, Esposito was out for the sixth time this fall. He said he has shot four raccoons so far.

“Like any kind of hunting, there’s no certainty. Sometimes it’s fast and furious right out of the box. Other nights it’s long and drawn out,” he said.

This night, it was the latter.

Raccoons mostly sleep during the day in nests in trees, abandoned burrows or brush piles. At night, they venture out in search of food. Their diet is diverse and includes fruit, berries, grain, eggs, poultry, vegetables, nuts, mollusks, fish, insects, rodents, carrion — even pet food and garbage.

On Wednesday, Esposito was hunting in two patches of mostly hardwood trees, bordered by fields of cut corn.

He had a headlamp on and also carried a high-powered flashlight to help him spot raccoons once the dogs tree them. The wind made it difficult to hear the dogs. Both had radios collars on. Esposito carried a fold-up, antenna-like tracking device attached to a handle to keep track of the direction they traveled.

“Over there,” he said, walking briskly through the moonlit forest.

Max and Lucy were frantically barking at the base of a hemlock tree that stretched some 60 feet upward to the nighttime sky. As the dogs barked, Esposito shined his flashlight from various angles, hoping to see a raccoon in the needle-laden branches. At one point, he grabbed a stick and started whacking it against the tree.

“Sometimes this will get its attention,” he said. “Shine your flashlight up and look for a pair of yellow eyes.”

The wind kept blowing, moving the tree’s branches back and forth. Nothing. Eventually, he put Max and Lucy on a leash and began walking away to try another nearby stretch of hardwoods. The night ended without spotting a coon.

“I’m 90 percent certain there was a raccoon up there in the hemlock, but you just couldn’t see him,” Esposito said. “Sometimes they’ll get on the very top of the tree, just like an angel at the top of a Christmas tree. At times, I’ve actually climbed up the tree myself and shot them.

“That’s when I was younger — before I was married and had kids. Now I have to be responsible.”

Hunting raccoon

The minimum age to hunt raccoon is 12. Hunters must possess either a junior or small-game license. They can be hunted in most portions of the state from Oct. 25 to Feb. 25. There are no bag limits. They may be hunted during the day or night. For more, see the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s hunting guide.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog