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
I had trailed the doe along the side of the hill for some distance.
She was feeding alone and I was working along very carefully, keeping
along the ridge several yards above the trail, to always be on
advantage ground. I had not seen the trail of any other deer during
the morning although it was in the height of the mating season, or as
us common folks call it, the running season. I was trailing the doe
along through a small basin where the timber was nearly all hardwood,
beech and maple, and the woods were very open. I was quite positive
that the doe was not far in advance for she had just been feeding on
some moss from a limb that had blown down from a tree and the tracks
were very fresh. About this time one of those snow squalls had come
up. I was standing by a large maple tree waiting for the squall to
pass by so that I could look the ground over well before I went any
farther.
After the squall had passed I looked the ground over closely but
could see nothing of my deer. Forty or fifty yards farther along the
side of the hill and below me there was a very large maple tree which
had turned up by the roots. This tree hid from view a piece of ground
close to the log. I could see that the trail led directly up to the
tree. I could see a slight break in the snow on top of the log that I
took to be made by the leg of the deer in jumping the log. I could
see nothing of the trail beyond the tree so I worked very cautiously
along until I could see past the root of the tree and as I suspected,
there stood my game with head down, apparently asleep and standing
broadside to me. I drew the gun onto a point just back of her
shoulders and let go and the deer dropped almost in her tracks.
I cut the deer's throat and began to skin out the foreparts. I had
only partly gotten my work done when another one of those snow
squalls came along. I was bending over the deer, busy at work when I
heard a slight noise, and straightened up to see what had caused it.
I looked none too soon to save myself from a terrible thrust from the
horns of a large buck deer, for as I straightened up the deer shot
past me like a shot from a gun, barely missing me and landed some six
or eight feet beyond me. I had stood my gun against the log 8 or 10
feet from me. I sprang for my gun but I was trembling so that I could
do nothing and I could scarcely stand on my feet. The buck stood for
a moment looking back over his shoulders. Every hair on his back
stood up like the hair on the back of an angry dog and I well
remember the color of his eyes which were as green as grass.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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