Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints Raccoons Do they serve a purpose?

I don't know what they are good for.
Maybe just target practice. If they eat baby grouse or ducks they are living on borrowed time.
My land can only support so much.

Can't very well have a coonskin cap without them.

They are good eating if cooked right. Years back our church had coon supper fund raising events...along with dressing...good stuff.

coondogs would be outta bizness.....

As would drahts.

Raccoons are a natural part of nature.

Raccoon fur makes a very nice coat.

Who would chase the coon hounds?

I prefer beaver.

I have heard that it can be quite tasty.

And they like watermelon!
Ronnie

I remember when I first joined this site Seafire gave me chit for killing Coons because he had one for a pet....

So i guess you could say they make good pets....................for those without a life....

Lots of young trappers cut their teeth trapping muskrats. I did as a new young trapper back in the early 70's. Raccoons were big game to a young trapper. A little harder to trap, at least to a kid, and requiring a little more knowledge and a bit more equipment. When I started catching coon on a regular basis I felt I had arrived as a trapper. Of course from raccoon I graduated to fox, coyote, bobcat, beaver and otter. So to me back then, and to a host of young trappers today, raccoons do serve as a benchmark or a measure of one's growth as a trapper.

Looking back from this side of a long life of trapping, raccoons might not seem like that much of a benchmark. But remembering those times from the other side, back when I was yet to catch my first they seemed like a tremendous prize. I'm sure to a new 11 or 12 year old trapper just starting out, they still are.

We'd probably be overrun by frogs and crawdads if there were no raccoons.

I'd get to eat a lot more of my nectarines though. Seems they love them.

Geno

Corn stealing bastids.

10, looks like you were about over run!!!

They cleanup leftover cat food. [img:center][/img]

Whelennut: In Montana they are classified as "Varmints" no license needed, no limit, no closed season!
I have shot quite a few of them.
Here's a quick story about Raccoons and their nest robbing.
This past spring I was asleep and I hear this great big thump/thud noise outside my bedroom window.
I get my light and gun and go to see what was going on.
I had a "Bluebird" style bird house attached to a tree with heavy plastic slip-ties!
A family of Raccoons had climbed up the tree 6 feet and gnawed through (or they might have used a switchblade knife?) the plastic slip ties and the bird house crashed to the ground.
The largest Raccoon had his arm inside the bird house and was "fishing" for eggs/birds!
I put an end to that in short order.
Indeed Raccoons are nest robbing experts and as such have earned Varmint status with me (and the state!).
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

To All: And this... my local pawn/sport shop recently got in a batch of "dog proof" Raccoon traps!
They really are quite ingenious and according to some recent purchasers they work very well - again with no chance of a "dog" being entrapped in it.
The trap consists of a steel tube about 8 or 10 inches long with a spring and trigger mechanism inside it - a dogs paw cannot get inside the tube or if small enough to get the paw inside the tube then the leg (arm) of the dog is not long enough to trip the trigger!
Once the Raccoon smells the bait in the tube he sticks his arm down the tube and gets stuck there.
The shop sold out quickly but more are on order.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Coons are only interested in three things... Can they eat it? Can they screw it? Can they chit on it? That's all they care about. I kill every one of the little bastards I legally can.

A coworker started losing chickens, a little doctored up grape soda and he found 22 coon in his yard in the next 2 weeks.

That could be read wrong. They were raccoons.