We don’t like to admit it. We don’t want to talk about it. Heck, the hosts weren’t so sure they should even talk about it. It’s grossly overstated in organized competition hunting but the there’s no denying that it happens in coon hunting as in all organized sports. Deflated footballs, performance enhancing drugs in bicycle races, lead sinkers in bass bellies, and template tomfoolery in motorsports happen because someone wanted to give themselves an edge.
We’re taking about cheating. When Steve was with the registries he dealt with it on a fairly frequent basis. Determined to keep coon hunting in a positive light, he rarely wrote publicly about the subject, choosing to let the system deal with perpetrators behind the scenes. Now, unburdened by what was before, he and Corey spotlight the pencil crooks, the blind voters, the dog pitchers and catchers, and the movers and switchers in a sport that was built, and owes its very survival to the premise that honor belongs to whom honor is due.
You’ll enjoy this eye-opening look at the sport behind the scenes and, believe it or not, may come away feeling better about it in the process. There’s no substitute, no better remedy, for correcting the ills of dishonesty in competition than a good working knowledge of the rules of the game by all participants. The problems and solutions of keeping a level field are all here in this episode. We not only see the elephant in this episode, we skin it out and tack its hide to the wall.