Your Best Raccoon Stories...

[mechmagcn]

One night in north AR, at Buffalo Point Nat. Park campground, after everyone was in bed we heard a strange sound. It was like rattle, rattle, thump, rattle, rattle thump. This went on till the sound went out of hearing range. Next morning we learned that a large coon had stolen an unopened package of cookies from our neighbors, the noise was her rolling the package down the middle of the road
Another time, same campground, we had been feeding the coons some caramel popcorn before going inside. We heard a noise at the door to discover a small coon standing at the screen door and rattling it to get our attention. It was like, "hey, I wasn't through yet"

[EffieRover]

I'll keep 'em short...

- we had a mama raccoon living in the tree between our yard and the neighbors. Never go near a mama with babies. We smacked her on the head with a shovel before she decided not to actively attack any longer.

- then there were the ones begging at my campsite when I was in college. I was annoyed, so I threw them each one caramel. 45 minutes later, they're still chewing away ...

- and my favorite, the night that someone in our camping party got the bright idea to soak the marshmallows in beer before throwing them to the raccoons. My sides hurt for a week from laughing...

[emiller]

Oh man nightmares, can't even talk about it.

[Jim55]

One night in Buckhorn, Ontario our neighbours, a whole lot of teens, were having too much of a good time and too much to drink. Afterwards they all went sleeping in a drunken stupor and left all their food and booze outside.

Needless to say, a couple of raccoons had a ball of a time. After eating (and I suspect drinking), they came over to our place to continue their feast. One big fellow thought that the door to our camper was open and he jumped right through the screen that was held in place with velcro. He landed on my wife’s legs. She was so startled that she gave a couple of hard kicks and a loud scream, which send him flying right out the same door. That was good, for raccoons bite ferociously!

Startled she wanted to know what landed on her, and would not believe that it was a ‘coon until I showed the frightened male high up in a tree.


And here is a skunk story: We camped at Cochrane in Northern Ontario when I heard the patter of tiny feet on the tent’s floor. Then I smelled the unmistakable odour. Because my daughter was sleeping alone in the tent, I went to look. There it was, a mature skunk smelling her until it reached her nose. With my full light blasting on it, the skunk turned towards me and walked right past me through an open tent flap that I held ajar for it.

We brought our daughter into the camper and a little while later the skunk returned, but finding nothing to eat, left.

As soon as school started my son informed everyone during speech of his sister’s “Skunk affair” ending with “She smelled so bad that she chased the skunk away”.

So much for brotherly love!

[ARKPAT]

I have a new story:

The other night ( about mid-night ) in the yard I had just drove up in the driveway. I was listening to the radio while setting in the driveway with the motor off. I Skunk wandered into the yard and shortly a Raccoon followed. I stayed put in the truck watching to where the Skunk was. Then I seen the skunk come around the corner of the house with the raccoon right behind him. Skunk was digging up grubs and the Raccoon was eating them as the Skunk uncover them. Well you guessed it the Skunk just turned around a sprayed him while he was eating. The Raccoon just kept on eating; like nothing had happened. The Skunk started digging another and the Raccoon had another free meal. Yes the Skunk sprayed him again. This happen several times as I stayed in my truck watching this all go on. The next night I could smell the Raccoon coming and I'm shure the Skunk could also. No free lunches that night. ;-)





Pat

[Joanne]

Almost all of us have encountered raccoons while camping, and I have heard some good stories. Post your best, or funniest, scariest, most aggravating, or whatever raccoon stories here for all to enjoy.

CD

CaseyDog, you are one sick puppy! I have post-traumatic-stress-syndrome from that night and now I have to relive it again.

So a couple of years back Kathleen, David and I decided to attend the inaugural SLO gathering. Dave and Kathleen hadn't finished their trailer yet so we all piled into my Trooper and headed west.

When we arrived, the talk was about the pesky raccoons running wild throughout the campground. Now I had never seen a live raccoon before and they look pretty cute in the pictures I've seen. It wasn't long before I got to see a few of them scurrying around the campground. They looked pretty harmless. The night was uneventful and I slept really well in my newly finished trailer. The next morning I heard more stories of raccoons pestering other campers and even scratching the side of one trailer. I chuckled to myself thinking about the undisturbed nights sleep that I got. Little did I know that it was a plot to lull me into complacency.

Throughout the day conversations often returned to the little banditos. That evening we decided to take precautions and load all the food into the Trooper. No reason to tempt fate! Kathleen and Dave loaded up their cooler and all their other food into the back. I put all of my extra food in there too. Off to bed for another good nights sleep....

Tonight was different. It wasn't long before I heard raccoons scurrying around outside my trailer. Thank goodness we had loaded up all of the food in to the truck. It wasn't long before it sounded like there were coons on the truck. Could they smell the food that well? Wow! As tired as I was, I finally fell asleep...but not for long. I was jarred awake to the sound of coons on the roof of my trailer! I could also hear their claws on my aluminum fenders. It wasn't just one or two, it sounded like a whole heard of them. At this point I'm getting a bit irritated by these guys keeping me up half the night. Finally I grabbed my flashlight and pointed it out the front window only to see a coon belly sliding down the window! OMG!

After a long night of raccoons all over the trailer the sun finally started to shine over the mountains and I decided to climb out and see what was up. I wasn't ready for the sight that was waiting for me. The trailer was covered with muddy little coon prints. The hood of my dark green Trooper was brown! Little did I know that the worst was ahead. When I walked around the front of the truck I noticed that I had left the driver's side window open!!! The seats were a muddy mess and a quick look into the back confirmed the worst...they had gotten into every bit of food we had carefully stored away. Kathleen noticed that there was one bag of food that wasn't hers and it wasn't mine. They had even brought their own food to the party! Evidently the coons had been having a grand party on the inside of my Trooper. They had been climbing up on top of my trailer and jumping onto the truck, then climbing in the window.

Needless to say that I was beside myself. I figured that my interior was ruined and the three of us would starve to death with our food being gone. Ok, so I didn't think we'd actually starve but I was plenty mad that they ate all of Kathleen and Dave's food. It wasn't long before there was a crowd of teardroppers standing around the campsite pontificating about who would be dumb enough to load all the food in to a vehicle and leave the window open.

After a trip into town to clean up the truck and reprovision the groceries, things didn't look quite so gloomy. I also knew that I would carry the scars of this incident with me for my remaining years. Short of changing my name and moving out of the country, I would have to learn to live with this....

I now have a growing collection of stuffed raccoons that my teardropping friends have bestowed on me (and that I proudly take to every gathering). My friend want's me to rename the Desert Dawg to the Coon Dawg.

When all was said and done, we have had a lot of laughs about the "Coon Incident". It often comes up when we are all sitting around the campfire telling stories. Now I have one too. (Too bad I have to tell the story about MYSELF rather than someone else's dumb mistake!)

Soon after the attack the SLO Angels arrived to chase off any remaining marauders.




Here's a couple of photos of the aftermath. They really don't do justice to the mess the coons lift but they are a reminder for me to roll up the windows.










Joanne


I can see the inscription on my headstone now, "Don't forget to roll up your windows!"

[emiller]

Joanne that's funny I carry that same SLO Angels picture in my teardrop.