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

I was making good time when on looking ahead along the ridge I saw a good-sized buck come from the left hand side of the ridge. He would take a jump or two then drop his head to the ground and then take another hop or two and again drop his head to the ground. I knew that he was on the trail of other deer. I had hardly time to bring my gun to my shoulder when the buck wheeled and disappeared back over the ridge from where he had come. I started on a run to where the deer had gone out of sight, thinking that possibly I might catch him before he got out of range down the side of the hill. Imagine my surprise when just as I reached the top of the hill, where I saw the deer disappear from my sight, I almost ran against the buck. He had turned back to cross the ridge when I met him. He whirled down the hill but I was too close onto him and I caught him before he could get out of reach. I took out the deer's entrails and bent down a sapling and hung the deer up, then I crossed the ridge and started down the ravine to look after the bear traps.

I was hurrying down the hill near a jam of fallen timber, when all at once out jumped five or six deer from this timber. In an instant the whole bunch was out of sight behind the jam with the exception of one large doe. I could see, one of her hips standing out from behind a large hemlock tree. Without hesitating a moment, I fired at what I could see of the deer and it dropped out of sight as the gun cracked. I hurried through the jam of timber to where I saw the deer and there the doe lay, trying to get on her feet. I soon ended her misery by shooting her in the head. I soon had her entrails out and hung up as I had the buck. It was the trail of this bunch of deer that the buck was on when he ran into me.

After I had hung up the deer I hustled on down the ravine to the bear trap. When I got to the place where the trap was set it was gone. The trail led down the ravine and was easy to follow as I hurried along and I soon found a small bear tangled up in a thicket of small brush. It was only the work of a moment to fix bruin in shape to skin. After I had the hide off, I cut the bear up into quarters and hung the meat up in the trees. I toted the trap back up to where it was set and reset it then I went back down the hollow to where I had left the bear skin and took it on my shoulder and made tracks down the hollow to the main creek where I had a string of deadfalls set for mink and coon. The bear skin was about all the load I cared to tote, but I had not gone far down the creek before I had the skins of two good sized coon and one mink tied to my load. The coon and mink skins I could get in my knapsack so they did not bother much.

After following the creek a distance of about one mile I left the creek and went up a long narrow sawtooth point to cross the divide to the Cross Fork waters where I had some bear, fox and marten traps set. When I was about two-thirds of the way up this point I stopped at the side of a large rock which would shelter me from the cold wind. The point was covered with low laurel. I had been watching down the side of the hill to see if I could not catch sight of some animal on the move, but I had not got a glimpse of even a squirrel.

I had about finished my lunch, when I saw the motion of something move in the laurel, forty or fifty yards below me. I picked up my gun and stood watching, when I again caught sight of the animal and in a moment I saw the horns of a deer. I could get the outline of the deer's body so I said, "Now or never," and let go the best I could at the bunch, but when the smoke from the gun was gone, I could neither see nor hear anything but stood ready with my gun to my shoulder. I again saw a part of a deer move in an open space in the laurel. I again fired at the bunch with the remark that I guessed that I could drive him out of there after a while.

I left the bear skin and knapsack at the rock, knowing that the rock would be a good landmark to find them by and went down through the laurel to see what effect my shot had. When I got to where the deer were, when I shot, I readily saw plenty of blood on the green laurel leaves and I only had a few steps to go when I saw the buck lying dead. I cut his throat and stood waiting for the blood to stop flowing and saw a trail that was fresh. I could readily tell by the way the leaves and ground were torn up that the trail was of some animal that was having a hard time to keep on its feet. You can imagine my joy and surprise to get two deer so unexpectedly. I had only a few rods to go when I found a good big doe dead.

Well, you may guess that I lost no time in getting the entrails out of these two deer and swinging them up as I had the other two for it was getting well past noon. I would be a good five miles from camp when I got to my first marten trap.

After I got to the top of the divide, I made the best time that was in me. I looked at several fox and marten traps but none had been disturbed. When I got to the first bear trap on the divide I had an occasion to scold and scold hard, but all to no purpose. I found the limb of a tree jammed in between the jaws of the trap. Of course, I thought some hunter had done me the favor and having as hard a stunt ahead of me, you can guess that the trick was not pleasing to me. Well, here I learned how foolish it was to fly off the handle before you know what has been doing. Now, after a little investigation, I found that the limb had been broken from the tree by the wind and it so happened that it fell right onto the pan of the trap and sprang it. Setting the trap, I hurried on to the next bear trap and here I had another chance to be disgusted, even more than in the first case. This time it was a porcupine in the trap but there was nothing to be done, only reset the trap and hurry on again. None of the other traps were disturbed, neither the small traps nor the bear trap until I came to the last marten trap which had a marten in it. It was now too dark to see to skin it so I was obliged to dump the carcass into the knapsack and tote it along with the coons and mink pelts.

I had about one mile to go to reach the road, then four miles to camp and I often thought what a hunter and a trapper would endure and call it sport. It must have been nearly nine o'clock when I got to camp, where I still found the hunting party. They had taken a part of their outfit to their camp grounds and had worked on their camp until nearly night when they returned to my camp to stay for the night and get the balance of their outfit.

Well, I was pleased to find them still in camp for they volunteered to go with me the next day and help me get the deer and bear out to the road in return for venison and bear meat. This ended one of the luckiest and hardest day's work that I ever did on the trail or trap line.