That's the way most of the families arrived here from Louisiana, Kentucky and as far away as Indiana: A pickup truck with a stack of plastic, wood or metal kennels in the back.
Local Color
Most of the hundred or so people here are from the "high country" of southeastern Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau.Kids learn "football, hunting and church," said Jason Bickford, known around here as "Big 'Un." "And we take one as serious as the other."
His pickup has a bumper sticker that says POSSUM HUNTER.
The location is a concrete block building, home of the Bledsoe County Coon Hunters Club. This time of year it has as many spiders as it does people at any one time. Folks wander in and out to hear the University of Tennessee Volunteers football game on the radio or to get a bowl of pinto beans from the kitchen part of the big room. An old wood-burning stove in the center of the cavernous, dusty room waits for the coming winter.
Everyone seems at home here. They are extremely friendly and curious about any strangers, although most are people of few words.
John Gilbert drove from Indiana to be here.
"You meet great guys here," said Gilbert of Batesville, Indiana. "They are boar hunters, bear hunters and coon hunters. Good people."
Gilbert made plans to come back to Bledsoe County to go boar hunting with Bickford and his dogs. He had also driven teenager Chad Hanna, of Greensburg, Indiana, to the September event, as well as helping Hanna train the boy's pups for hunting.
"I'm trying to keep the sport alive for the next generation," said Gilbert, who belongs to a Christian fellowship group called Coon Hunters For Christ. Gilbert owns six dogs: three Kemmer stock curs, two feists and a walker.
Hanna came to Tennessee with two Kemmer stock curs. At the event he bought his third: A cur pup, named Snoopy. Apparently, the sport will be alive in Indiana into the foreseeable future.
A Squirrel Hunt
Early in the morning on the day of the breeders association's annual meeting at the coon club, about two dozen men and a few teen boys drew lots and broke into five teams consisting of a hunter or two plus a guide."Who is the guide here?" I asked the team of Rev. Roger Burgess of Crossville, and Aaron Bayless, 13, a local kid from Pikeville.
"Me, I reckon," said Aaron, a boy who knows the woods like most kids know the cheats to video games.
The dogs were Burgess' brindle J.J., a black brindle that had a pit-bull look but was much slimmer. The dog was friendly, but when he hunted, he was all business.
"I look for a good 'stay-put' dog," said Burgess. "One that would tree a squirrel and would be there for hours if you left and came back."
Bayless' dog was Miracle's Julie, a young, yellow-coated Kemmer, bred by Wintford Miracle of Kentucky. Both dogs were less than a year old.
The reverend and the boy walked into a rolling hardwood forest dominated by hickories and oaks. The dogs worked the areas, nose to the leaves, sticks, stumps and dirt, then circled about 100 yards around the standing hunters.