Nice Mounts

I'm sure you recognize the deer mount from an earlier post. The raccoon is the latest mount I've added. I shot this one morning in may as I was coyote hunting. I had set up my caller around 5am about 30 to 40 yards in front of me. The sun was just coming up but hadn't broke the horizon yet.

If you've never been up that early and in the woods at that time well you should try it. I think it's the best time of the day. The sounds that are around you are amazing. From silence to birds chirping, grasshoppers flying around, and just all kinds of creatures stirring around.

So I started the caller in hopes of calling in a coyote. About 20 yards away in the opposite direction of where I was, I caught a glimpse of something coming out of a big dugout hole the landowner had dug a while back. The grass and weeds were pretty tall so I couldn't make out what was going towards my caller but I could see it moving the brush So I turned the caller off. The caller I have comes with a remote control that is effective up to 250 feet. When the call stopped that's when I saw what was moving towards my caller. It was a raccoon. It stood up on it's hind legs trying to see where the calls were coming from. The call I was using was a jackrabit in distress.

So this raccoon starts making it's way to my caller and I'm trying to make up my mind if I really want to shoot it or should I jump up and scare if off since it has not seen me yet. Well I had been wanting to get a raccoon mounted so I elected to shoot it the next time it popped up.

I turned the caller on for about 3 seconds and then turned it off and the raccoon again stood on it's hind legs. I took aim quickly and not wanting to cause a lot of damage to the pelt I shot it in the neck with my Remington 700 vlsf, .221 fireball.

One of the guys in my unit is a taxidermist and I think he did a great job on it.