It’s not as dire as it sounds; Dolly was the last coon hunting dog that Shell Lake’s Bob Ostenson owned over a span of years starting in 1966. His wife and children said now that he was age 85 they didn’t want him running through cornfields and swamps in the dead of night anymore while hunting raccoon, so he started writing about all the people and places he got to know instead, thanks to his faithful canine companions.
Born in 1931, Bob grew up on a farm and always had a dog. Bob was always a hunter even though his brother and father didn’t hunt, or fish for that matter.
He started out with a BB gun, which wasn’t really good for rabbits. Being a clever young man, he adapted the gun to become a kind of 22 with a special gadget and the first time he used it he shot his own hand.
Next was a 16 gauge shotgun that broke into three pieces each time he shot it and eventually, because of persistence in hunting, his mother bought him a 12 gauge single shotgun when he was 12. The year was 1943 and being a farming family, there was always need of meat for the table and Bob supplied his share of rabbits and pheasants and other small animals, but never a deer.
When he was 19 he signed up with the Army Air Force and it wasn’t until he was discharged in 1954 that he shot his first buck, a 6 pointer.
He met his wife Ilene while he was driving around in a car full of guys. He was the red headed one who shouted out to her, “I joined the Air Force.”
The couple went out for coffee and he gave her a ride home. Their first official date was held on the water fishing. She probably figured he was an outdoors kind of guy, but certainly didn’t realize that he would spend many hours hunting and fishing while they raised their seven children, who have given them thirty grandchildren and thirty one great grandchildren; not bad for sixty four years of marriage to an outdoor man.
He left the Air Force when his time was up because he was lonesome for the farm. When he bought the family farm his father gave him a $21.00 milk check to get him started. The first electric bill came in at $23.00, which meant he started his farming career two dollars in the hole.
When he found out about the Jerome turkey plant in Barron looking for help, he applied. Back in 1922 when the company was formed, the turkeys were free-ranged instead of raised in barns like they are today and Bob was hired as a trapper to eliminate the badgers that were killing the valuable birds. He made a whopping ten cents a mile and a dollar an hour, but it was right down his alley, this country dude.
As the children multiplied, Bob took a position with the Postal Service at $2.16 an hour and eventually the Ostenson’s bought a Stone Lake Laundromat which they ran for twelve years. Their business was in Stone Lake, their home in Shell Lake and their church, Spooner Baptist, in between.
It was his church associations that started it all. It was the church Harvey Spaulding, another Shell Lake man, attended. “It was 1965 or 1966 when my friend Harvey drove in my yard and hollered, ‘Bob, I got a pup for you!’”
This begins his stories about 50 years of ‘cooning’, never missing a season in all that time, and loving each and every dog he ever had. If you venture downstairs in their home on the Yellow River, you’ll see each dog’s collar hanging on the wall as a living tribute to each dog who left indelible memories of exciting times running through rough corn rows at top speed with corn leaves whacking away at his face while listening to the baying of his hounds grow fainter and fainter in the pitch black night right before he’d fall into a freezing swamp.
Ostenson begins his book’s introduction like this: “Harvey was excited about the pup. It was real small, black with some tan markings and long, floppy ears. Harvey says that this pup was the runt of the litter and no one wanted her. Now at this time we had six children running around, so maybe in Harvey’s mind this could make a good pet dog. I knew Harvey was a coon hunter, and so maybe he was also thinking about training this pup for coon.” Bob named the dog Nikkie after a friend of his wife.
“I did not know what a coon looked like so I asked, ‘How do I train this pup for coon?’
“Harvey says, ‘Just take the pup out at night in a corn field and let her go.’ ”
Fifty years and a dozen dogs later he’s harvested hundreds of coon, coon that provided many an exciting night running through cold dark woods, but also generous checks each year when the family took the skins to the local buyers in the late fall who bought furs for the big markets in Korea, Russia and China. The going price was $50 per coon and on a good night hunting Bob could bring in $300 with just six.
The day they took the skins to market, everyone in the family dressed up so when they received the large check they would look nice at the restaurant where they celebrated. The money also went for Christmas presents and necessities.
These were the years that living was often a venture in a subsistence existence and with a scarcity of jobs; funds were raised in many creative ways.
Eventually Bob found employment with the fisheries department at the DNR, a position he kept for 26 years.
Even though he no longer goes into the woods as leader, he’s got friends that take him along when they go coon hunting. Meanwhile this 85 year old, and still very active, man put pen to paper one day and wrote about exciting times hunting the raccoons that were the Bain of the local farmers as the animals made their way through their fields ruining the ripening corn by taking a bite here and there instead of just choosing a cob or two and eating the whole thing.
One story from the book gives a hint into Bob’s humor; “I was hunting alone with 2 dogs. I was getting tired and again it was getting cold out. As I was driving toward home, I remembered a small corn field only about a mile from my home. I said to myself, ‘Why not turn out the dogs. We are real close to home.’
“I drove on to a side road, stopped the car. I got out, opened the back door to let the dogs out. I stayed next to the car waiting for some action.
“A small corn field, those 2 dogs could have covered in 5 minutes. After 15 minutes, I blew my whistle, no dogs. I hollered, no dogs. I shot my gun off, no dogs. At this point in time I was shivering. It was cold with a cold wind.
“I decided to get back in the car. I opened the car door and could not believe it. There were my 2 dogs, sleeping in the back seat. I must have been too tired to notice no dogs left the car. I don’t mention this too often.”
His book is called Ostie’s Trails and is only available from the author at this time. Its $12 well spent for the entertainment value and the history of making a living while having fun in northern Wisconsin.
There are only a limited amount of books available and the number to call is 715-468-2075.
Last Update: Dec 27, 2016 7:00 am CST
