Your Best Raccoon Stories...

[caseydog]

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

[Dean in Eureka, CA]

My dog woke me up one summer weekend morning around 5:00am with non stop barking.
Upon further investigation after repeted orders for my dog to hush, I realized he had a coon treed in the back yard.
Only one way for me to get back to sleep... Knock the coon out of the tree so he landed over in the neighbor's yard so he could go about his business without being held at bay by my dog...
I grabbed a shop broom out of the shop and started jabbing the handle up through the foilage, trying to connect.
It was kinda like pin the tail on the donkey, 'cause I couldn't see the masked bandit while standing next to the tree trunk...
The coon let me know when I was getting closer to my target, 'cause he started growling at me.
He kept moving around just enough to keep me from making full contact and it felt like he was grabbing onto tree limbs for all he had when I did make indirect contact ... All the while, giving me that low angry growl.
I finally connected with grand slam results and knocked him over into the neighbor's yard... At which time I happily went inside and went back to sleep.
It wasn't until I was fully awake later on that morning, that I realized just how lucky I was...
If that coon would've decided I had him cornered and gave him no choice but to fight his way down the trunk of that tree... He would have laced me up one side and down the other as all I had was a broom handle and uh... My jockey shorts for protection.
Not one of my brighter moves...

[dmb90260]

and down the other as all I had was a broom handle and uh... My jockey shorts for protection.

So you now recommend boxers?

[hotrod]

All Im gonna say is that they can run suprisingly fast if they need to....

[Dean in Eureka, CA]

So you now recommend boxers?

Absolutely not...

[Aaron Coffee]

Have two stories.
First when I was in high school, dad worked at a cattle feed lot, in moving hay bails they found a family of coons and the mother got ran over by a tractor so dad and a neighbor each took a baby coon home. When ours was the size of a small kittin it ran up my mom's pant leg on the inside. My brother used to ride around town on bicycle with it on his shoulder. We ended up having to set it loose at a local lake, as the neighbors down the street had a coon and it would get loose and hiss and bite at kids, and people would call us saying that OUR coon was loose. We decided to get rid of ours so people would quit calling us and due to liability issues.
Second, when I go camping I hang a plastic grocery bag on my taillight for garbage, one night I forgot to take the garbage to the dumpster and heard a scratching noise, at first I couldn't figure out if it was coming from inside the camper or outside. I took a flashlight and shined it out the window and was able to finally see the coon, I watched it and it pawed through the garbage then jumped on the picnic table then moved on.

[doug hodder]

I hope Joanne chimes in....she's got the best one that I've been witness to...I won't steal her thunder however. She needs to get the mileage out of it.....I would like to thank her though....kept them away from my site! Doug

[Beachbuggy]

I have (2).
I have had numerous encounters with coons over the years camping, these 2 are my favorites.

1- Before being teardroppers we slept in the back of our Element with a tent attatchment and the tailgate and hatch open---woke up in the middle of the night after something was walking all over us----found a coon inside with us! it hightailed it out of the car as soon as we woke up, but the dang dog who was sleeping next to us never stirred.

2-This summer at a campground, did the ritual of putting the garbage away, shutting the galley, NO FOOD around anywhere!
Was awaken in the middle of the night by rattleing & pshssssssssing noises- looked outside to find the coons had got into our ice chest and removed our sodas and were opening the cans and drinking the cokes!
A fellow camper dropped by the next day to tour the TD and told us he left cokes out on the picnic table but they didn't bother them, but they did get into the cold ones in the ice chest and they prefer Coke over Root Beer

[ARKPAT]

Honest we are the Park Official cooler inspection crew where trying to help restack your food in your cooler !
Yea right !



LCG III and Petit JeanI and II. Only once Petit Jean I. Cooler raided and stuff scattered all over the campground early that first night ( 3 AM ). Yep it was me wandering all over finding stuff in the dark.



Pat

[conbrio]

First story -

I was camping with my scout troop and my buddies tent zipper didn't work. Well halfway through the night as my buddy was about asleep a raccoon came into his tent and sat on his face for several minutes. He was scared stiff. After the raccoon left the tent, so did my buddy. He found one with a working zipper.

Second Story -

My cousin was visiting us back when I was in high school and thought she heard our cat on the back porch. She bent down at the back door before opening it. She then opened the door to say hi to the cat. A huge mama raccoon was eating out of the cat dish. My cousin screamed the loudest scream I have ever heard. The raccoon just looked at her and bent down to go back to eating the cat food. By the time the back door had slammed shut, my cousin was upstairs in the bathroom and had locked the door. She didn't come out for a good little while

[Senior Ninja]

Consider this a short detour and NOT a thread killer. With all the people leaving Detroit, the animals are moving back in. A man on the news admitted to hunting raccoons. He sold them for meat. To reassure his customers that he wasn't selling them cats, he said he left the feet on.
Steve

[robfisher]

We woke up late one night to a the noise of a raccoon chewing on the bottom of the Land Cruiser. Crunch, crunch, crunch. There we were at least 100 miles from the nearest civilization and this large rodent wanted to make a snack out of our transportation. I don't know what he was finding so delicious but we had to run him off three different times that night.

[Rob]

Story 1:
We were romantically camping just a hundred yards or so from the Pacific Ocean just north of Fort Bragg, California in the early 1990s. She Who Must be Obeyed was doing dishes late at night by lantern light while I was tending the campfire and studying for school. Did I mention it was supposed to be romantic? She noticed some bright eyes checking out MY bag of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. As soon as I heard the rustling in the bag, rustling MY chocolate chip cookies, I jumped up and chased said masked marauder away. She thought I was being stingy. Those were MY cookies!

Story 2:
We were still in our soft-sided teardrop with a ten-month-old golden retriever in October 1999 at the same campground discussed above. You’d think I would learn, but nooo. I was a bit pre-occupied with the new dog carefully climbing into the TWO-person tent with said mutt. In the middle of the night I was peacefully sleeping pushed up against the side of the tent when the Lady of the Tent woke me after hearing the SPROING of the ice chest. “Did you put the ice chest in the car?” “Oh, $hit!” I unzipped the soft-sided teardrop about six inches when Le Mutt decided it was her responsibility to defend her morning bacon and cheese stored in the ice chest. She went over my back and out the tent. Why the tent didn’t rip is still a mystery. Fortunately, I was at least wearing my tighty-whities that night because without thinking I ran after her. It was after midnight and very dark. I couldn’t see anything, but could hear the commotion and the growling. I kept waving my hands and arms in the direction of the noise while yelling at them to stop. Years earlier I had been up to date on my rabies, but that was long expired. I could only hope no blood was being drawn. Our neighbors on one side had spent the day abalone diving followed by an evening of enjoying adult beverages. They heard the commotion and yelling, but couldn’t aim a flashlight to save their lives. Our neighbors on the other side were teenagers. The young girls were scared, the young boys were taking advantage of the situation to get closer to protect the damsels in distress. Someone was yelling it was a bear. I’m sure the flashlights bouncing off my tighty-whities must have been quite a scene. I finally got the contenders to go back to their corners, or at least one back into the bushes and one into the tent, while I put the ice chest in the car. I then meekly climbed back into the tent myself to check for damage on Le Mutt. She had apparently sprained an ankle (swollen and limping) and had some blood on the top of her muzzle. She still has the scar on her muzzle to this day. The next morning I took her into the shower to clean her up and confirm there were no other issues. It must have sounded quite interesting in the shower while I am telling her to “sit still, stop moving, don’t lick that…” Fortunately, no vet was required for an emergency call on Sunday morning – nothing personal Mark (Planovet).

Story 3:
We were in our teardrop again on the coast a year or two ago, but this time at a different place. We have a strap that attaches to one door runs under the bed and attaches to the other door. This allows us to leave the doors slightly open for air, but not open enough for critters to get in or out – we thought. Le Mutt was sleeping next to me with her nose near the ajar door for cool fresh air. In the middle of the night She Who Must be Obeyed heard a masked marauder going through the garbage that yours truly forgot to put in the car. You’d think I’d learn, but noooo. She just watched as the garbage was ransacked. Once the garbage bag was thoroughly searched the little critter came to the other side of the tear where Le Mutt & I were peacefully sleeping/snoring. “What’s that noise in there?” it must have been wondering. Up came the nose through the ajar door and into the trailer. It was now nose-to-nose with a golden retriever. I suspect Le Mutt got a whiff of something unusual and finally woke. Well, we are now off to the races. She wanted to enforce the ‘Only one four-legged creature in my campsite, and you are not it’ rule. The door was pushed hard enough to tighten the strap on the other side pulling it to her side opening her door some more – enough for a golden retriever to escape. I woke enough to figure out how to unlatch the strap and again jumped out after the melee. This time I was wearing dark-colored boxers – no bright reflection this time! I was calling her back the entire time. I looked left in the dark, I looked right in the dark. Then from behind me arrived Le Mutt proud she had chased that waskly waccoon from HER campsite.

Story 4:
Okay, last one with a slight change of cast of characters. This past weekend She Who Must be Obeyed and I are enjoying a glass of adult beverage about 8:30 at night next to the camp fire. Le Mutt is peacefully sleeping nearby on her 20’ lead attached to the picnic table. Le Mutt suddenly jumps up growling and barking and runs to the end of her lead in the bushes. I hand off my wine glass and chase after. At least this time I am wearing more than just my unmentionables! I didn’t see what she was growling at, but I SMELLED it! Yep, she met a relative of Pepe Le Pew, and she STUNK! It was a first for her, and I suspect/hope the last. Well, that didn’t help the relaxing evening by the campfire. We didn’t have tomato juice, tomato sauce, or even tomato paste. We did have tomato salsa, though. After I got her to stop rolling on the ground to get rid of it I gave her a bath in salsa. That was followed by connecting the shower attachment to the water heater and a warm bath. It helped a little, but only a little. She then received a spritz of perfume. When we got home the next day we took everything out of the trailer and put all the bedding in the washing machine. The mattress was pulled out and shot with fabric deodorant as were the curtains and anything else that may have absorbed the odor. When we left the campground I apologized to the ranger at the booth of the stench in that campsite. She told me that some people had luck with Listerine. In the back yard at home a tomato juice bath was not successful so I tried a Listerine bath. That wasn’t successful either. She sleeps on the floor next to me and I could smell her all night long.

[planovet]

One summer when I was in high school, we went to a church camp in central Texas for a week. There was one tree-lined trail that couples liked to stroll down at night. I was with a gal that I had met at the camp and we were walking hand-in-hand down the trail one evening when we heard a scream up ahead. It turns out that another couple was walking about 100 yards in front of us when a raccoon came flying out of the trees and landed on the female's head. Don't know if the raccoon jumped, fell or was pushed out of the tree. The raccoon left some claw marks on the gal's head before jumping off and running into the woods. The said masked bandit was never located so the poor girl had to endure a painful round of rabies shots. That pretty much killed that trail for the rest of the week for everyone.

[robertaw]

Rocky Gap - Western Maryland

The racoons there are the largest I have ever seen. I had just bought a new cooler set that came with one of those round ones with the spigot on it that you can put tea in or something. I had it filled with ice with a bag of reese cups in the center to keep the chocolate from melting. The lid on this thing was TIGHT. I couldn't even budge it without a leverage bar so I thought I had no worries about anyone/anything else getting into it. I left it on the picnic table. We were awakened to a loud bang which turned out to be the lid hitting the ground.

I looked out the window of our tent in time to see a big racoon heading down the path with our entire bag of reese cups. The next day on the trail were all the wrappers - neatly removed. Never under estimate a park coon!

#2 Same park - differnt trip.

Roasting hot dogs on sticks late one night I noticed that under the cover of darkness a very large racoon had joined us. He was just sitting around the fire with the rest of us like one of the family. I guess he was waiting to be handed his hot dog on a stick!