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

* * *

Leaving Tryanna, Alabama, by wagon, I went to Farley, eighteen miles. There I took a train to Huntsville, then by the Southern R. R. by the way of Chattanooga to Dikes Creek, Georgia, where I went into camp. I camped at this place about two weeks, building two boats, one a good large boat, sufficient to move my whole outfit from point to point, as I moved down the Etowah River, then the Coosa River. The other boat was much smaller, being suited to the trap and trot line. Boys, you who have trapped on the rivers and large streams of the South, know that the traps and the trot line go hand in hand and with only two or three trot lines, to one who is onto the job, you will find them quite profitable as well as a pleasure. In most places you will find ready sale for the fish you catch at 10 to 12 cents a pound. If one runs his trot lines two or three times a day and takes in from 20 to 100 pounds of fish, it is a little item along the financial trail. But, boys, there is a knack in running a trot line in a successful manner as well as a trap line. Where the trot line is run in connection with the trap line, it makes quite an addition to the trapper's job, for he will be out as late as 9 or 10 o'clock before going to bed to run the trot lines, take off the fish and rebait the lines. It is also necessary to put in any spare time that happens your way in digging wigglers, hunting crawfish and other bait.

E.N. WOODCOCK AND SOME OF HIS 1912 CATCH OF ALABAMA FURS.

The boat is an absolute necessity in trapping in the South, as the most of the fur-bearers are found along the rivers and large streams. It is next to an impossibility to make a successful set for mink and coon along the soft, slippery and sloping banks without the boat. And boys, the conditions on the trap line in the South are altogether different from what it is in the North on the clear, gravelly and rocky streams of the North and East sections. It requires a trap one size larger in the South in successful trapping than it does in the North and East. This is owing to the soft, muddy, clay banks and streams. Another thing that is a necessity along the rivers and streams of the South is the trap stake, while on most streams of the North the clog or drag is far better than a stake.

I did not find the fur-bearers in Georgia as plentiful as I expected, from what I had been told and trappers were numerous, many of them in house boats. I expected to find some beaver on Pumpkin Vine Creek, a branch of the Etowah River, but they failed to show up on investigation. There is but very few otter in northern and central Georgia and in Georgia, as in Alabama, many trappers began trapping in September. The best catch in one night at our camp was while we were camping at Coosa, on the Coosa River, but it was nothing in comparison to what we did in Alabama last season in a single night's catch. The catch at Coosa in one night was two mink, three coon, three rats and two opossum. This was done with about 20 traps. It was raining at this time, so we kept this bunch of furs three days and until there had been several more pieces added to the bunch. We wanted to get a picture of this bunch of furs and the camp at this place but it continued to rain and we were compelled to skin the animals and let the pictures go.

The steamboats are a serious drawback to the trappers on the river in the South. The average trapper plans to get out on his line and fix up as many of his traps as he can after the steamboat passes. On most rivers there is not more than one or two boats passing daily and on some of the rivers, boats do not make more than one or two trips a week. It was the intention of the writer when going to Georgia, to work the trap line all winter, going nearly the entire length of the Alabama River, to the Mississippi line, but met with unexpected conditions that I was unable to endure and was compelled to give up the greater part of the trip, which was a sad disappointment. But comrades, you know that there are but few trappers but what meet with disappointments at times.

The game laws of Georgia are a little hard on the trapper and fisherman. The non-resident trapper has to pay a license of fifteen dollars and the local trapper a license of three dollars. (This alludes to the laws of 1912.) That is not the worst part of it. In fact, the license fund, if justly used in the protection of game and game birds and the propagation of game and birds, I would not object to the license.

The hard part of the game law of Georgia is the trespass part of it. The trapper must have a written permission from the land owner to trap or fish on any man's land and where the river is the dividing line between different parties owning the land, the trapper or fisherman must have the written permit from both land owners, even though he does not leave his boat to set a trap or place a trot line. Now it is a very difficult thing for a stranger to learn who owns the land and often the owner of the land lives in some city of the North, or elsewhere. Now here is where the shoe pinches the hardest. The fine for trespassing on a man's land is $40.00 and it is the duty of the game warden to arrest any one he finds hunting, trapping or fishing on any man's land without a written permit. Here is the worst of all. The game warden must make the arrest without any notice from the land owner and if the game warden fails to make the arrest, he is liable to the same fine as the one who is doing the trespassing. This is a law that the average land owner never asked for.