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

"Why did you not use stones to build this pen?"

"Old chunks are just as good and much handier to get, and there was plenty of moss on the old logs near to cover it with."

"Why do you not use old bushy limbs here?"

"You see this trap sets in the mouth of a small spring run; we will cut some little twigs and stick them up in the ground, in place of the brush, to make the runway, as we call it. We will now skin the mink. Rip straight down the hind leg from the heel to the vent. Now lay the knife down and start the skin loose on the legs with the thumb and finger; work the skin down the leg to the root of the tail then take knife and cut the skin loose around the vent working the skin free around the roots of tail until you can get your fingers of the left hand around the tail bone. Now with the right hand near the body of the mink pulling with the right and you will strip the tail clean from the bone. With the knife make a slit on either fore leg about one inch from the heel and around the leg. You are now ready to strip the skin down the body to the fore legs and with the thumb and finger work the leg out. Strip the skin down to the ears and with the knife cut the ears close to the head, continue to strip the skin down to the eyes, cut around the eyes close to the bone and use the knife on down to the end of nose. That was a short job. Now we will put this mink carcass in the back end of the pen and cut the balance of the rabbit up and put it in the pen back about six inches from the trap."

"Don't you use any scent; I have heard people say that you use some kind of scent?"

"I use none, only of the animal itself. It did not take long to take the pelt off that coon; we will strip some of that fat from the carcass and do it up in the skin and put it in the knapsack; hang the carcass up on that sapling. We must be moving now. Our next trap is a bear trap; it sets up in that little sag you see and in a spring that comes out of the side of the hill. I like to set traps in those springs for they never freeze up and the bait keeps much longer. No, there is nothing in it, I can see the clog there all right. Yes, there is something in it; it is a coon and it is dead. Look, there is a fox in a trap."

"Where was the trap set, I do not see any bait pen?"

"Fred, you take this stick and walk up slowly to him; go up close and give him a sharp blow across the back of the neck--that will fix him. You see that big mossy log laying on the bank over there? That was where he was caught. We will now set the trap again. See this little sink in the log? That is where the trap was set; this limb is what the trap was fastened to, one end on the ground and the other comes just up to the log where the trap is set and we will staple the trap to it. We will now cover it with moss, just like on this log, but we will get it from another log. No one could tell that there was a trap there."

"Will not the fox smell it?"

"He might if it was not for this fox carcass. We will skin the fox, just as we did the mink. Look out there Fred, do not disturb the moss or anything on that log where the trap is. Keep away from that. We will put this carcass in the little hollow and will drive a crotched stake straddle of its neck; drive it well down; now take this stick and rake some leaves over it, cover the neck where the stake is quite well, the rest of the carcass only slightly. You have done it very well and the fox will not notice what scent there is on the trap as long as that carcass is there."