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
The third day we worked on the fire place, laying it up to the jam of
stone, then we finished the chimney with logs and mud. We had a
fairly comfortable camp with but two exceptions. These were, no
windows, and for a door we had what I called a "hoghole," that was a
door so small that one had to get down on all fours to get in or out.
On the fourth day we intended to cut wood all day, and were at it
before it was fairly light, but before 10 o'clock it began to snow.
In a couple of hours there was a good tracking snow and the boys were
bound to go out and see if they could not kill a deer. I tried hard
to get them to stick to the wood job, but it was no use, they must go
hunting.
There was no partnership business in this hunt. It was every man for
himself, and the dogs, take the hindermost. I told the boys I would
stay in camp and do something at the wood job.
I had been along the creek a little the day before, poking my nose
under the banks and old drifts to see what manner of signs I could
see, and I had noticed several mink tracks. The boys had no more than
gone when I had a fishing tackle rigged out. It consisted of a line
braided from horsehair, out of a horse's tail, and a hook baited with
some bits of fat pork. It did the business, for the stream fairly
swarmed with trout. Taking three or four trout for bait, I was soon
at work building deadfalls. It was not long before I had three or
four built close up under the banks and behind logs where I thought
the boys would not see them.
I then scampered back to camp and went to cutting wood like a good
boy. I had only just got to camp when I heard a gun shot away up the
creek, and in about an hour Charley came dragging a yearling deer.
Will did not show up for some time after dark, but had nothing,
though he said that he had a fair standing shot at a large buck, but
his gun snapped on him and he lost.
The next morning we were out at the peep of day, each one going his
own way. I went down the creek so that I could take a peep at my
traps. None had been disturbed until I came to the last one. There,
to my satisfaction, I found a mink. As I had passed a small run that
emptied into the main creek I noticed that some animal had gone over
a pole that lay across a little run and partly in the water. The
animal had brushed the snow off the pole in going over it. I gave it
no particular attention, thinking that it was a coon, but when I got
the mink I thought I would go back to camp, make a stretching board
and stretch the mink skin and get a trap and set at the run for the
coon, as I supposed.
I will mention that furs were bringing about the same prices then as
at the present time, 1907, a good No. 1 mink being worth about $10.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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