Now I was so infatuated with my new gun, that it was a case of love at first sight. This was in the late 70's. I have used several different makes of guns. I also had a .30-30 Savage, which I considered a good gun for big game, and in fact, I can say that the most of the guns that I have tried were all good. I however am still married to my little .38 Winchester. I can say that in all these, considerable more than thirty years, I have never run up against a subject but that this little Winchester was equal to the emergency.
Now I wish to ask, why it is that a hunter cares for a high power gun that will shoot into the next township and kill a man or a horse that the hunter was not aware of existing, when a gun of less power will do just as good execution in deer hunting? The ammunition for the gun of lower power costs much less and there is far less danger in killing a man or beast a mile away. We hear men talk of shooting deer 200 and even 300 yards. In the many years that I have hunted deer, I believe that I have killed two deer at a distance of from 50 to 75 yards, to one a distance of 100 or 150. I believe most deer hunters will agree that there are far more deer killed at a distance of 50 or 60 yards than over that distance. I think that if those hunters who kill deer at a distance of 100 or 200 yards will take the trouble to step off the distance of their long shots, instead of estimating them, they will find that 100 yards in timber is a long ways. Yes, boys, 20 rods through the timber is a long ways to shoot a deer. Why? Because the deer can not often be seen at a greater distance, where there would be any use of shooting at all, and the little .38 will do all of that and more too.
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Perhaps the average beginner at trapping makes his greatest mistake in listening to those who have had more experience in handling the pen than the trap. For instance, someone advised readers to use a No. 2 or 3 Newhouse trap to catch marten and said that marten frequented marshy places. Now if they had asked the editor of Hunter-Trader-Trapper, he would have told you that the Pine Marten frequented the higher and dry grounds in dark, thick woods and that it was their nature to run on old down trees and to run into hollow stubs, trees, etc., and that these were the places to set your traps. Unless you were in a country where the snow fell very deep, then you should use the shelf set. He would have also told you that the No. 1 and 1 1/2 Newhouse trap was plenty strong enough for the marten, that many use No. 0.
SPRING SET FOR FOX.
The average trapper also makes a mistake in listening to some one's ideas about scents in trapping the animal, instead of going to the forest, the field and the stream and there learn its nature, its habits and ways, and its favorite food. He also makes a mistake by spending his time in looking after scents, rubber gloves to handle traps with and wooden pincers to handle bait, instead of spending his time in learning the right way and the right place to set his traps. For one little slip and the game is gone if the trap is not properly set. It is like hunting in the days of the percussion cap gun. I have tramped all day long over hills and through valleys to get a shot at a deer, and just at night get the coveted opportunity, taking every precaution to see that there was no bush or obstruction in line. I would take deliberate aim, holding my breath that my aim might be sure. I trick the trigger, flick went the hammer, up goes the deer's tail and away he bounds beckoning me to come on. Come on, and my day's tramp has been in vain all on account of a damp gun cap. Now in these days of fixed ammunition, such mishaps rarely occur.
It is so in setting the trap, one little misfit and the game is gone. In the Hunter-Trader-Trapper, I read, undoubtedly written by a trapper of many years experience, telling the true way of setting the trap in front of a V shaped pen. He said that the trap should always be set so that the animal had to pass over the jaws of the trap and not between them. Now mark my mistakes, for of late years I have been very particular to set the traps so that the animal passed between the jaws, not over them for I reasoned like this: I thought that the animal might step on one of the jaws and turn the trap up without springing it. In so doing be frightened away, or that the animal might have ball of foot resting on the jaw of the trap, while it set the trap off with its toes, or the ball of the foot might rest on the latch, while the trap was sprung with the toes on the pan. In either case, the animal's foot would be thrown entirely from the trap or so that it would only get slightly pinched, which would put a flea into the animal's ear that he would never forget.
In days long since past, I was not particular how I set the trap, just so I got it planted, but in those days I also made the mistake of running after scents. We make a mistake in thinking that the fox is more sly in some states than in others.