In 1967, my uncle sent me to Millington, Tennessee, to learn how and why electrons flowed. One of my mess mates was a lad from the northern part of Tennessee, maybe 40 miles from Oak Rigde, named James Good. Well, we both liked beer, and hunting, and similar things 21 year old sailors liked, so James took me home to visit his family, and friends, and do a little fox hunting one long weekend in the late winter. It was February, and darn cold in the evening and James taught me how to use a Tennessee Fox Call.

G ned
Is that anything like an East Texas bobcat call?
You stand arround a fire listening to the dogs run and bouncing empty beer cans off each others skulls. Once an hour you all pee in the fire. The bobcat comes to see what all the laughing and that sizzleing noise is.You catch him in a tow sack. catch the dogs as they pass by on the trail of the bobcat and return home. No firearms involved.
Covey

[ 12-04-2003, 21:54: Message edited by: covey16 ]

No, Tennesseans are much different than Texans, thank ....... Still polishing story language. cont. ned

Sorry
Didn't realize it was a work in progress.
Covey

Life is a work in progress, so is this forum. No need to feel contrite Covey. We wait with bated breath Ned.

Hope you don't mind a kinda dumb question Dan but what kind of critter do you catch when you use breath for bate? derf

Clever question from such a cold clime derf, glad your heater still works.

I don't recall using breath for bait in the past, but certainly remember being repelled by some on occassion.

In this case I think you are baiting me though, which should not be confused with bate and derivatives which can mean anything from a concoction that softens skin or hides to flapping of wings, or to moderate. I will be the first to admit however that more that a few ladies have brought me to heel with bated breath and subtle perfume but that is another story.

I bait cats sometimes with tuna, and have been know to bait liberals with small, time fused mind grenades. In each case I oft suffer bated breath as the climax approaches. It is part of the well practiced and commonly known(in this forum) firing sequence. Too, after the tuna has spent a few days in the sun, bated breath has another purpose. Don't you just love the simplicity of the English language? It says volumes about the originators methinks.

Don't forget to bring in some more wood for the fire!

James Good's parents and grandparents lived and worked a really nice farm of maybe 299 acres. Grain, cash, and fodder crops, small beef herd, pig parlour, chicken house, nice pond, pretty land contours, and several distinct woodlots. A fine farm. I met those folks and his older brother, still at home, and a younger brother too. I'M a galvanized yankeee and was welcomed like a close cousin. Spent a day and a half looking around, chatting, swapping personal things, sorta helping with little things from time to time, and after dinner sipping whiskey with the older menfolk and talking farm and hunting as far as I could. James and his brother arranged an evening fox hunt with me as the guest fox caller. Now I didn't know a damn thing then about calling foxes but they said they would show me. As it came closer to dark, big brother got out the old Stevens 211, 30 inch, full & full, and a couple of #4 shot shells. He and I and James got in the old pickup and started down the path past the barn, sheds, and misc. buildings. At one point the truck stopped and the younger brother jumped in the back with a half full feed bag under his arm. We drove out to a small pasture with an old hay shed and parked behind it. The younger brother jumped out with the bag, walked out about 50 yards to the brushy edge line of a dry branch, pulls a medium sized chicken out of the bag and tied one of its legs to a small bush with a 10 foot long string. A long string is tied to the other leg and then he returns to the hay barn, where we are snuggling in amongst the broken bales and loose hay. Shhhhh! I am instructed that when I get poked in the ribs I have to pull the string enough to make that chicken squawk. Two pokes is to to pull harder, and three is to make that chicken sing. Its gettin' dusky now, and I get instruction to have that chicken tell foxes she is there. Then a pause, then a pull, a little twitch, a good squawk. That chicken is getting anxious. The light is awful dim. Three pokes. More pokes, can't count 'em. That chicken is flapping around like a dish towel on a closeline in a gale wind and singing high opera! All of a sudden , and I'm still conducting that serenade via string, POW, POW, and the older brother yells "stop" and jumps out of the hay heading for the chicken. He stops close by the bird and picks up a fox by the hind leg that I never even saw. And that is how I learned the Tennessee fox call. ned

Worthy tale Ned, good job! Guess you sorta did a low tech, ahead-of-its-time version of what Yotes was talking about. Fox be crafty critters, but not very discriminating.

derf! It's tale, not tail. There is a whale of a difference. "Thar she blows!", comes right before the tail. That is followed by the tale.
Or, "That's one whale of a tale, Jonah. What's the inside of a tail look like?"

What does this have to do with cat hunting?

Thanks Dan. I saw what Yotes was talking about with the tazer and thinking the same thing as you. Even more too. I was thinking of you and claybuster getting in a round or two of tazer car when Yotes explained about lighting them up in a cornfield enough to provide motivation for them to jump as "high as an elephant's eye".

G ned
I was sitting in a bar in the BWI many years ago with some of the locals.We were having a good time except for one of the brothers named Fowlie.
Everyone was giving him a hard time ,so being sociable, I asked why they called him Fowlie.
One of his friends spoke up and said he had a habit of pleasuring himself with the local chickens and they were tired of all the flapping and squawking. It depressed the egg layers and they wouldn't lay.He was not popular with his neighbors, but he could make a chicken squawk.
Just passing this on as a possible tip to lone varmint hunters. I would much prefer the Tennessee string method myself, but it requires a hand to pull the string and might inhibit shooting if you were by yourself.Fowlies method is hands free.
Thanks for the fine story. Sounds like beautiful country and people.
Covey16

Hands free? Fowlie must have been a "real man" of some sort or another. Still, point taken Covey. Makes me wonder though about those guys that 'team up' to hunt varmints. I'm more the solitary kind of guy.

Dan; Although we are a mite country here in Aldergrove my family is a mite more civilized and uses Natural gas. If anyone here would like to see the area I live in just watch the TV show Smallville. The Kent family farmhouse is just a long bowshot from my place and they were making all kinds of noise up there again last night.
Also,I agree,word games can be a lot of fun. I often throw out remarks that can be taken a couple of different ways just to see who notices or picks up on i! derf

Now seems like a good time for one of my favorite "call" stories.

This place is so fuggin' wierd.
No wonder it feels like home.

I thought for a min that they had plans on making YOU the fox call. Ty hem up Jr, bind hem ofer, NOW squeel for me boy !!!

Man o man, PT yuz be right about that! Thought the Klingons had warped me off to ZZerzBLach!

Dan

Pres., TYHC

http://www.GwonaheadNed.WezWaitin

and to think after the first post I was gonna squawk about not finishing the story. well I guess he just knows how to pull my string