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

All this made me hungry for the day that I too could hit the trail and trap line that I might get some of those wolves and with the bounty money buy traps and guns to my satisfaction.

A number of persons at our place (Lymansville) had gone several miles into the woods to the headwaters of the Sinnamahoning and taken up fifty acres of land. An acre or two was cleared off and the timber from this clearing was drawn and put in an immense pile to be used for the camp fire. The camp was simply a shed or leanto, open on one side, and in front of this shed the fire was built of beech and maple logs. Brook trout and game of all kinds were in abundance. Two or three times during the summer a party of six or eight persons would go out to this clearing and camp a week, killing as many deer as they could make use of, jerking a good portion to take home with them and having a general good time feasting on trout, venison and other game, and amusing themselves shooting at marks, pitching quoits, etc. I will add that the main reason they went to this camp was for a good time rather than the game, as game was plentiful right at their homes in those days.

Well, it was at one of these outings that I killed my first bear. I was about thirteen years old, and, of course, in my own mind, it made a mighty hunter of me, not to be compared with Esau of old. It was in June and shortly after we got to camp there was a heavy thunder storm, but it all passed over before sundown, the sun coming out nice and bright. I was determined to go with some of the men to watch a lick (there were three or four licks not far away), but none of the men cared to have my company, and they said it was likely to rain again and made many excuses why I should not go to watch a lick with them. Just before they were ready to start out to the lick we heard a wolf howl away off on the hills and they (the men) put up the wolf scare on me and said that there would be no deer come to the lick so long as wolves were in the neighborhood. I took their stories all in but insisted that I would watch a lick all the same. There was a lick only a few hundred yards from camp, but for some cause deer rarely ever worked it. When they saw that I was going to watch a lick in spite of thunder storms, wolves or all the rest of the excuses that they could make, they finally said that I could watch the lick which I have mentioned and get eaten up by wolves.

There was a blazed line from camp to the lick and when the men started for the licks that each one had decided on watching, I started to the lick that was given me to watch.

There was one man left in camp to watch the horses and to keep camp. This man said that when he heard me shoot he would come up and help me bring in the deer.

The blind at the lick was a scaffold built up in a tree twenty or thirty feet from the ground. I climbed to the scaffold and placed the old gun in the loops that were fastened to limbs on the tree to give the gun the proper range to kill the deer, should one come to the lick after it was too dark to see to shoot.

Nothing came round the lick before dark, but as soon as it got dark I could hear animals walking and jumping on all sides of me and one old inquisitive porcupine came up the tree to see what I was doing. He perched himself on a limb not more than two feet from my face and sat there and chattered his teeth until I could stand it no longer. I took the large powder horn that I had strung over my shoulder with a cord and gave the porcupine a rap on the nose that sent him tumbling down the tree. I remember well how other animals scampered from under the tree when the porcupine tumbled down. At that time I wondered what it all was, but later I learned that all these animals were only flying squirrels, rabbits and porcupines, but I imagined that the noises were made by anything but squirrels and rabbits.

Well, about eleven o'clock I heard something coming towards the lick with a steady tread like that of a man and again I was taken with a chill that caused the scaffold to shake, but the chill only lasted for a moment. Soon I heard the animal step in the soft mud and directly it began to suck the salt from the dirt and I was sure that it was a deer and that it was the right time to pull the trigger, which I did. When the report of the gun died away all that I could hear were the same noises that were made when I knocked the old porcupine from the tree. I now feared that I had pulled the gun on some other animal rather than a deer. I thought the report of the gun would frighten all the deer in the woods, so that no deer would go to the licks the men were watching. I was afraid I would get a terrible scolding by the men who were watching the other licks when they came to camp in the morning.

After waiting some time and hearing no noise of any kind, I concluded to get down and go to camp. Upon getting down from the tree I decided that I would go and look in the lick and see if I could tell what it was that I had heard there and had shot at. As it was so dark that I could not see from the blind, you can imagine my surprise when I got to the lick to see a large buck deer lying broadside as dead as could be.

I immediately lost all fear of being scolded by the other men, so I claimed first blood. I began calling for the man who remained in camp but could get no answer from him so I went down to camp and found him fast asleep. I awakened him and we immediately made a torch and went to the lick and dragged the deer to camp. Then we took out the entrails and bunked down for the rest of the night.