Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper / Autobiography, experiences and observations of Eldred Nathaniel Woodcock during his fifty years of hunting and trapping.

by E. N. Woodcock

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I notice that some of the comrades are complaining that they do not get a square deal from some of the fur buyers. Shame! shame! brothers. Do you not know that the Fur Dealer is not even making a living profit out of your pelts? That is the reason why there are so many in the business. And do they not always urge the trapper to send in his furs early for fear there will be a drop in the price, and the poor trapper will lose on the price of his furs? Now, boys, can't you see that the average fur buyer is awfully good to the poor trapper? But comrades, are not we, the trappers, partly to blame for this unfair deal? Are we careful that our furs are at least fairly prime and carefully cured and handled? Are we always careful when making our estimate to give a fair grade ourselves?

This, comrades, we should always be careful to do, and then we should never ship our furs only to parties who are willing to hold them until they have quoted what price they can pay for the bunch. If the prices are not satisfactory, the fur dealer should have agreed with the shipper before the furs were shipped to him to pay one-half of all express charges, and either return the furs to the shipper or to any house in their city that the shipper may designate.

Now, comrades, make some such bargain with your dealer, and if you do not get a square deal do not be shy in giving the transaction with the dealer's name.

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Comrades of the trap line, come down to camp and let us talk over this question of the fast disappearance of the furbearing animals. The fact of timber becoming scarce has made nearly every one timber-mad--no, that is not right, I mean money-mad--and they wish to secure this money through the fast increasing value of timber. In the late sixties, right here in sight of where I am sitting, I saw as nice white pine cut and put into log heaps, burned up for the purpose of clearing the land, as ever grew.

Now, boys, I liken the trapper and the dig-'em-out and the dog-hunter to our ancestors in the wasting of timber, only our ancestors at that time could not see the value of the timber that they were wasting. The trapper, the dig 'em-out and the dog-hunter are all money-mad, made so by the high prices of fur. But unlike our ancestors, the trapper, dig'em-out and dog-hunter should be able to see the folly in taking the furbearers when in an unprime condition, because we all know the difference in the value of a fox, a skunk, a mink, or the skin of any other fur-bearing animal taken in September or late in the spring when unprime, than the same skins would be worth if taken in November or any month during the winter.

I trapped in three different states in the South last season (1912) and I met with trappers and dog-hunters who admitted that they trapped and hunted in September. We saw one trapper who had four large mink also quite a bunch of other furs, consisting of coon, muskrats, civet and skunk; the trapper said that the mink were caught last September or the first of October. He wanted six dollars for the four mink. Just think of those four large mink being offered for six dollars and he could not get a buyer at that price. The rest of his early caught furs ranked with the same grade as the mink. Comrades, just think that over and see how foolish we are to begin trapping so early in the season. These same mink, had they been caught the last of November or in December, would have been worth, easily, six or seven dollars apiece. This same party had two mink that he had caught the first of November and he asked five dollars apiece for them and they were not near as large as those caught in September.

Now, brothers of the trap line, the most of us will admit that we are not overstocked with worldly goods and we are not to be blamed for getting a little money-mad; but when we get so money-mad that it makes us so blind that we not only destroy our pleasure but we throw away from twenty-five cents on a muskrat and four to six dollars on a fox or mink we should stop and think!

While out in camp on our fishing trips this summer, let us invite all of the boys of the neighborhood to come and let us talk this matter over with them and show them how lame we are to indulge in this early and late trapping and hunting of the furbearing animals. Let us induce the boys to become readers of the H-T-T, one of the greatest sporting magazines of the world, and through the columns of this magazine, put up their fight for the protection of the furbearer and the song birds. Unless the trapper puts up his own fight for the protection of the furbearers, they will soon be exterminated. The dog-man is now trying to place a tariff on the trappers' bread and butter in placing a bounty on the furbearer to induce the money-mad trapper to destroy the furbearer during the summer when their fur is worthless.