Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper: Autobiography, experiences and observations of Eldred Nathaniel Woodcock during his fifty years of hunting and trapping.Woodcock, E. N. (Eldred Nathaniel)
General
Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper: Autobiography, experiences and observations of Eldred Nathaniel Woodcock during his fifty years of hunting and trapping.
Woodcock, E. N. (Eldred Nathaniel)
Hunting; Trapping
Well, to get back to the trap line. We took the Baley waters first.
This was about six miles from camp, and as it was still a little
earlier in the season than we cared to begin to take fur, we would
build the deadfalls and have them ready to set when we thought that
fur was ripe enough to begin to gather. Bill used a good heavy axe,
and would cut the dead pole and bed pieces and the stakes and fit
them all ready to put up. He would then go on and select a place to
build another trap and get the material all ready as before and then
move on to the next place. I would follow him up and build the trap,
make the bait pen and have the trap all ready to set when the right
time came. The triggers we would make evenings in camp. We always
used the three-stick trigger, for then we could adjust the trigger so
that we were sure that the front legs of the animal were over the bed
piece, when the trap was sprung. In that condition there was not
get-away for the animal that tried to snip the bait. We would build traps
on one stream until we had a plenty for that stream. We would take up
another and put in a supply on that stream, and so on until we had
gone over as much ground as we could work to good advantage.
All the time we were putting up these deadfalls we were keeping a
watch out for likely places to set our steel traps for fox and other
animals. After we had gone over the streams we built the necessary
deadfalls in the dark, heavy timbered sections where we thought
likely that there might be marten. As it was now well along toward
the last of October, we set our bear traps on the different ridges in
the sections where the chestnut timber was the most plenty. The
chestnut crop was good and we knew that the first hard freeze would
open the burs. Bill said we got to get a move on us from early in the
morning until after dark when we would get into camp. We wished to
get all the traps out now that we could. Later we were going to put
in some time gathering chestnuts, as soon as they began to fall, as
there was good money in gathering them. At this business there was
lively competition with the squirrels, coons, bears and other animals
to see which could gather the most, so naturally there is but a few
days good picking after the chestnuts fall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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