CHAPTER XX.
STILL-HUNTING THE FOX.
Many have requested me to give my method of still-hunting the red fox. As my hair is turning gray and the red foxes are about all gone here I will give an outline of my method, and will try and not weary the reader with a long account, thus writes G. O. Green, of Illinois.
Winter is the best time for hunting the red fox, and I have been more successful in January and February than other months. There are always some localities where the red fox spends the day, curled up asleep, and it is generally in a hilly locality as far as he can get from the presence of man.
The still hunter has only to go to these places on fair days and hunt as far as possible against the wind. If the wind is blowing some so much the better--it will help to deaden the sound of the hunter's tread. When you get into likely ground walk slow, and be sure you observe every object on the ground, both in front and in fact at least three sides. The average still hunter hunts too fast and don't use his eyes in the right direction--if he is a bird hunter he will be looking up in the trees too much.
BLACK FOX SKIN VALUED AT $1500.
A red fox is a small animal, and the hunter must keep his eyes always on the ground while hunting the old Red. If snow is on the ground and the hunter jumps a fox without getting a shot, the hunter, if he is a novice, will be pretty sure to go on the run after the fox when he comes to the place where the fox has just jumped. When you find the fox has been jumped sit right down and eat your lunch, and wait twenty minutes or a half hour. The fox will run perhaps 80 rods then get on a log or stump and watch his back track, and if he does not see any one following him he will not go far before he will look for another place to lie down.
When you come to a place where the fox makes zigzag trail, stop and look very close in every direction for at least one hundred yards. The fox rarely makes a straight trail when he is going to lie down; in this he resembles the deer. The fox sleeps most soundly between 11 o'clock and 2 o'clock in the daytime, and I have killed most of mine during that time. A fox jumped after 3 o'clock in the afternoon will hardly lie down again that day. A double-barrel shotgun loaded with No. 4 shot will stop any fox up to about 50 yards; above that distance coarser shot usually straddle the fox. When the day is cold and snow is crusty, stay at home, for you will get no fox but plenty of exercise.
When a fox goes into the ground while you are trailing him, don't try to dig him out; it is hard work. On three occasions I have got his brush by going to the burrow about sundown and getting a good position near the burrow to wait for him to come out. I have never been disappointed in getting a shot about the time that you can see half a dozen stars twinkling. But it takes good eyes to see a fox in twilight.