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.
I had men come to me every day and offer me the privilege of trapping or hunting on their land without any request on my part. I found the majority of the people of Georgia very kind in regard to this trespass matter as well as other matters. It was only a few sporting "Nabobs" that concocted this stringent part in the trespass law, contained in the game laws of Georgia.
Most other states of the south have as trespass laws, that the land owner must order the arrest. The laws of Alabama allow or at least can not stop the trapper or fisherman from trapping or fishing so long as he keeps within the boundary limits of the river, which is sufficient to give the trapper or fisherman ample ground to camp on.
After leaving the Coosa River I went into the extreme northern part of Georgia where I camped for about three weeks and never met a more friendly class of people than within the vicinity of Oakman and Ranger. After leaving this section, I went into camp near Crandel, Ga. From there I went into the Fog Mountains, where I found game fairly plentiful but owing to bad weather and the condition of my health, did not hit the trap line very heavy.
Well, comrades of the trap line, as I am getting well up to the seventy notch, and as the chills of zero weather chases one after the other up and down my spinal column, like a dog after a rabbit in a briar patch, and as I am unable to shake off that desire for the trap line, I concluded to go south again to trap. I began an inquiry in several different sections, in states of the South, and finally decided upon Alabama, where a gentleman and a brother trapper by the name of Ford had invited me to come. On the last days of October, 1911, I arrived in Alabama where I met Mr. Ford, whom I found to be a gentleman in all respects, and a member of the M. E. Church.
My first day's outing after reaching Mr. Ford's place was on the Tennessee River, raising fish nets, and putting out a few mink traps to ascertain what the complexion of the inner side of a mink's coat was. I got a mink the first night, which I found to be of fairly light color, but not quite light enough to my liking. The setting of more traps was delayed for a few days and we spent the time in tending the fish nets.
I have whipped the streams and drowned earthworms for brook trout and other fish, from my childhood days to the present time. I had never done any fishing in large rivers with nets, so you can imagine my feelings when one net after another was raised which contained many fish of different kinds, such as yellow cat, channel cat, buffalo, pickerel, pike, carp, suckers, black bass (called trout in the South) and many other kinds. These fish ran in weight all the way from one-fourth pound up to twenty pounds each, and occasionally a buffalo or yellow catfish much larger. Mr. Ford informed me that often on trot lines they got sturgeon, weighing more than one hundred pounds.
We intended to put out a trot line and catch a sturgeon that I might get some oil. It is said that the oil from a sturgeon is a sure cure for rheumatism in the joints, but it rained so much, keeping us busy adjusting our traps, that we did not get any time to get the bait and put out the trot line. So I did not get to see one of those large fellows.
Mr. Ford pointed out corn and cotton fields where the corn and cotton was still ungathered and told me that he had trot lines set out all through these fields last spring and caught hundreds of pounds of fish--it hardly seemed possible as the water was then fifteen of twenty feet below the banks of these fields. But in December when it began raining nearly every day, and the water rose so suddenly that I was obliged to leave many of my traps where I had set them around ponds and banks of streams and in the swamps, I could then readily see that it was perfectly possible for the fish to get out into the corn and cotton fields to feed.
The rainy season set in nearly a month earlier this season than usual, causing the rivers and streams to rise so as to flood the whole bottoms (it is called the tide by the people in Alabama).
I will not give my views of the country and conditions in northern Alabama--it would not look well; it is sufficient to say that the greater part of the land is owned in large tracts by a few men and leased out at from $3.00 to $4.00 per acre. Corn and Cotton are the main crops. Any land lying above the overflowing sections requires heavy fertilizing in order to make a crop. The fertilizer is the commercial sort, and all the crop will sell for is put onto the land in the way of fertilizers. These lands are mostly leased to colored people--in fact, I was told that the landlords did not care to lease to white men.
The poor white man in northern Alabama is worse off than the colored man, for he is looked upon as neither white nor black. In this section the population is largely of the colored class. All of the landlords have a store, so as to furnish their tenants with goods of an inferior quality at exorbitant prices.
There is no good water to be found in that part of Alabama. The water that the people use is something fearful--of course the wealthy class have cisterns. The soil is mostly red clay, and terrible to get about in when the least damp. The roads are only names for roads.
South of the Tennessee River is what is called the Sand Mountains; the soil is of a sandy nature, freestone water, and the people are all white--in fact, it is said that they will not allow a colored man to live there. I heard it stated that they would not even allow a negro to stop over night in that section.
The Sand Mountain region is a piney country with a sandy soil. The land is not as fertile as the bottom lands along the Tennessee River, but they produce a finer grade of cotton, which brings a cent or two a pound more than that of the bottom lands.
As to game in north Alabama, there is but little large game to be found. In the extreme northern part of Madison county, well up to the Tennessee line, there are a few deer and wild hogs; it was said that there were some bear, also plenty of wild turkeys. There were plenty of ducks, and a good many quail.
There is still some lumbering being done, mostly in oak of different kinds, though a good part is white oak. The logs are cut and hauled to the Tennessee River and taken by steamboat to Decatur in Limestone County, and worked up into lumber and manufactured articles. There is still quite large bodies of cugalo gum left in the swamps, though this timber is not yet used to any great extent.
I wish to say that if the trapper expects to ship his camp outfit by freight to any part of the South, he should start it from four to six weeks in advance of the time that he will arrive at the place where he will use it. The trapper, as a usual thing, is too shallow in the region of the pocket book to afford to ship an outfit of camp stove, cooking utensils, tent and a hundred traps or more of various sizes, by express. Of course, he can take his bed blanket and extra clothing as baggage in his trunk.
Now to make this matter plainer, I will give my experience of the last two seasons. In 1910 I trapped here in Pennsylvania the first two weeks of November before going south. So shipped my camp chest by express to Cameron, N. C, started it four days before I started so as to be sure that it would be there by the time I arrived. But when I got to Cameron there was no express matter for Woodcock.
Five days later while I was standing on the depot platform at Cameron waiting for the eleven o'clock express train, along came a freight train, stopped and put off my camp chest. Now, the express charges on this chest was something over ten dollars on 180 pounds.
The next season I concluded that I would not give the express company another rake-off, so started my camp outfit by freight for Madison, Alabama, four weeks before I started, so as to again be sure that it would be there when I arrived. Mr. Ford met me at the station nine miles from his place with a conveyance to take baggage and camp outfit to his place. And boys, imagine my feelings when I was again told by the station agent that there was nothing there for Woodcock. About a week later, I got the goods. So boys, take the hint and start the outfit well ahead if you wish to get it on time. I have had other similar experiences.
On our way back to Mr. Ford's place the day he met me at the station, he called my attention to several different places along the road to mink tracks in the ditches and in the road. I thought that it would be no trick at all to take three or four mink each night, but I was not reckoning on the disadvantages I had to contend with.
This section of the country is very thickly settled with colored people, and each family keeps from one to three dogs, which are out searching for food all the time. These people never think of feeding their dogs. Nearly every night these colored people are out hunting in droves of five or six, and with six or eight dogs. They think it no more of a crime to steal a trap, and anything found in the trap, than they would consider it a crime to eat a baked 'possum. A trapper must keep a good lookout when setting his traps to see that there is no "dark object" anywhere in sight. If there is, you may expect that that particular trap will be missing the next time you come that way.
In setting a trap, the first thing to do is to select a place where the trap is to be set, then look carefully around to see that no "dark object" is in sight; then go into the bush and get the trap, stake and everything that you will use in making the set. Then you will again look carefully for that "dark object," and will proceed to make the set, provided that yourself is the only human being in sight, stopping your work often to look about you. Do not think that this caution is not necessary, for it sure is. The writer had nine traps taken at one time within an hour after he had been over the line.
We went into our first camp, I think, on the 5th of November, at a place called Blackwell's Pond or Blackwell's bottom, I am not sure which. The first day after we got to camp, Mr. Ford went out and put out a few traps, while I stayed in camp and fixed up things.
The next morning we went out to look over the ground a little while. Mr. Ford went to the opposite side of the pond to set a few more traps, and see parties who owned land along the pond, for we found that the land had been posted "No Trespassing." When Mr. Ford came in that evening I think he brought in five rats. We set nine traps that day and went south along the pond to look over the grounds.
The next morning we had one mink and one coon in the nine traps. I think Mr. Ford brought in four rats and had one coon foot. That evening Mr. Ford went home to raise his nets, and when he came back he brought in two mink; I got two coon. Mr. Ford went home again and made arrangements for a team to come in and move us out to "pastures new." He also brought another mink, and I believe that we got two or three coons that night. I think we got nine rats, four mink and eight coons in the three nights with about twenty traps.
The land about this pond had been leased by Mr. Edmon Toney, a wealthy young man living near the place. While Mr. Toney is wealthy, he insists in indulging in the meek and lowly occupation of the trapper. We know Mr. Toney to be a successful trapper, for he caught, while we were in camp at that place, one of the wealthiest and most beautiful young ladies in that section. Mr. Toney is a reader of the H-T-T.
Our next camp was on Little Indian creek, at the edge of a large cugalo swamp not the pleasantest place that one could wish for a camp.
The next day after we went into Camp No. 2. I set a few traps near camp. Mr. Ford went down the creek toward his place and set a few traps, and went home to look after his fish nets, returning to camp that evening. Mr. Ford had warned me that the mink in that section would foot themselves equally as bad as muskrats, but as I had never been bothered with mink footing themselves, I paid no attention to his warning.
The next morning Mr. Ford stepped outside of the tent--it was about five o'clock and called to me, asking where I had set my first trap on the creek, and being told, he replied, "Well, you have caught a mink." When asked how he knew, he said, "Come out and hear him squall." I ate breakfast and hastened down to release the mink, but my haste was unnecessary for the mink did not propose to wait for me, I found only the mink's foot--the mink had gone.
I had never had a mink foot itself in this way before and did not think that the mink did, although here in Alabama, we had two mink to foot themselves in one night. Had I heeded Mr. Ford's warning, I would have been several mink pelts ahead.
While there was considerable fur to be found in the vicinity of Camp No. 2, it was a hard place to camp, owing to the scarcity of camp wood and the inconvenience of getting water, so we moved on to Beaver Dam creek, in Limestone county, where we were in hopes of finding a few beaver and quite a plenty of mink and coon. But we were sadly disappointed; we found but little to trap, but found trappers and trap-lifters in abundance, so made haste to get out of that country while we had our boats left. Our catch was only two mink, twelve rats, five coon and one or two 'possum.
We moved from this place back into Madison County and pitched our camp at a point known as the Sinks, where we did a better business. But the rainy season soon set in, so we were compelled to break camp and get out, leaving a good part of our traps where we had set them, now under several feet of water. We shall never see them again.
Well boys, you will excuse me from telling just how many coon we got in an hour and seven minutes. I can only state that during the five weeks that Mr. Ford and the writer were in camp that we got twenty-six mink. I do not remember the number of coons, opossums and rats caught.
Comrades of the trap line and trail, as I have gotten too old, March 1913, and too nigh played out to longer get far out into the tall timber, I will, with the consent of the editor of the H-T-T, relate some of my experiences on the trap line and trail of some years ago.
A young man by the name of Frank Wright was hunting and trapping on the Crossfork waters of Kettle Creek. Frank was a young man barely out of his teens, and had been in the woods but little, but Frank was a hustler and was not afraid of the screech of the owl; the days were altogether too short for him.
We went into camp early in October as we had to do a good deal of repairing on the camp as the cabin had not been used in two or three years, and the porcupines got in their work in good shape. The cabin was built of logs and the "porces" had gnawed nearly all of the chinking out from between the logs and the mud was all gone from around the chinking. Some of the shakes were gone from the roof and the door which was made of split shakes.
First, we split out shakes and repaired the roof and the door. We then split chinking block out of a basswood tree to renew the chinkings that had been gnawed and eaten up by the porcupines. After the chinking was all replaced and fastened in place by making wedges and driving them into the logs, one at each end of each chinking block, we gathered moss from old logs and calked every crack, pressing the moss into the cracks with a wedge-shape stick made for the purpose. The calking was all done from the inside.
After the chinking and calking was done, we dug into a clay bank and got clay, which we mixed with ashes taken from the fire then added sufficient water to make a rather stiff mortar. We filled the spaces between the logs, going over every crack on the outside of the shack.
Now and again Frank would notice a mink or coon track along the creek, while he was gathering moss from the old logs. These tracks would drive Frank nearly wild, and he would double his energy so as to get the shack finished so we could hit the trap line.
After we got the shack in good shape, we went to work getting up a good supply of wood, sufficient to last through the season. We had an open fireplace, so we cut the wood about three feet long. The wood was now up near the camp door, ranked up in good snug piles. We then cut crotched stakes and drove them in the ground on each side of the ranks, and laid poles in, then placed cross poles on and covered with hemlock boughs.
Frank was so anxious to get to work on the trap line, that he at first objected to putting in so much time in getting up the wood, saying that we could get the wood at odd times. But when told that there are no odd times on the trap line, he then worked the harder to get the supply of wood, including a good supply of dry pine for kindling fires, which we got by cutting a dry pine stub.
The camp now being in good shape, we hit the trap line and began building deadfalls for marten. We went onto the ridges into the thick heavy timber, where the marten were most likely to be found. We would select a low hemlock to build the deadfalls under, so the trap would be protected from heavy falls of snow, as much as possible. Some of the traps we would drive crotched stakes and lay poles in them and then cover with hemlock boughs to keep the snow off.
After we had several lines of marten traps built, we went onto the stream and branches and built deadfalls for mink and coon.
Nearly every day we saw deer, but the weather was still too warm to keep venison any length of time, so we did not carry our guns with us. When Frank would see a deer he would make grave threats that he would carry his gun the next day. We were about two miles from the stage road. The stage made only one trip a week, so there was no way of disposing of a deer as long as the weather was so warm. It took but little persuasion to convince Frank that it would be poor policy to kill deer as long as we could make use of but a small part of a single deer.
After we had gotten out a good line of deadfalls for marten, mink and coon, and as it was now about the first of November and time to bait up the deadfalls, and set out what steel traps we had for fox, I told Frank that we would carry our guns with us and try to kill a deer for bait and camp use. Frank could hardly sleep that night; he was so delighted to think that the time had come to quit the monkey business, as he called it, and begin business.
We climbed the ridge where we knew there were some deer, following down the ridge, one on each side, along the brow of the hill. We put in the entire day without getting a shot at a deer. That night it snowed about an inch, so that in the wooded timber, one could see the trail of the deer in the snow; but in hemlock timber there was not enough snow on the ground, so a track could be followed. We had killed a squirrel or two, and had a little prepared bait, so we concluded to bait a few traps until we struck a deer trail.
We did not succeed in finding the tracks of any deer until well along in the afternoon. It so happened that I got a shot at a deer that was nearly hidden from sight behind a large tree. I shot the deer through, just forward of the hips. We followed it only a short distance when we found the bed of the deer, and there was blood in it, so it was plain to be seen in what manner the deer was wounded. All still-hunters (excuse the word still-hunt; the word stalking does not sound good to a backwoodsman) of deer know that when a deer is shot well back through the small intestines, that if conditions will allow, the right thing to do is to leave the trail for a time and the deer will lie down. If left alone for an hour or two the hunter will have but little trouble in getting his deer. So in this case, as we were not far from camp and it was nearly sundown, I told Frank that we had better let the deer go until morning, when we would have more daylight ahead of us, and we would get the deer with less trouble.
We started for camp and had gone only a short distance when Frank said he would work along the ridge a little and see if he could not kill a partridge.
I went on to camp and when dark came I couldn't see nor hear anything of Frank. I ate my supper, and as I could get no word from Frank either by shouting or firing my gun, I climbed to the top of the ridge so I could be heard for a greater distance, but still I could get no answer. It had turned warmer and what little snow was on the ground had melted. I could not follow his trail in the dark, so went back to camp and built a good big fire outside of the camp in case Frank should come in sight, he might see the light and come in. At intervals of half an hour, I would call as loud as I could. I kept this up until midnight, when I lay down to get a little sleep, knowing that I could not help matters by staying up.
At daylight the next morning I was on the ridge at the place where I last saw Frank, and by close watch managed to follow his trail while he was in the hardwood timber, where there was a heavy fall of leaves; but when he struck into the heavy hemlock timber, I could no longer track him. However, I had tracked him sufficiently far enough to see that he had gone back to look for the wounded deer. I made tracks in the direction I expected the wounded deer would be likely to lie down. After some searching I found the bed of the deer, also tracks of a man, which I knew to be Frank. But I could only follow the trail a short distance from where he had driven the deer out of its bed. There were plenty of deer tracks all around, but knowing that the wounded deer would naturally work down the draw, I worked my way along the hollow, keeping a close lookout for any signs of the wounded deer that I might chance to cross. At different times, I found a few drops of blood, but no signs of Frank.
I had worked down the hollow some ways, when I ran onto the wounded deer; it staggered to its feet, but was too near gone to keep its feet. I finished it by shooting it in its head. I removed the entrails as quickly as I could, bent down a sapling and hung the deer up, and then made tracks down the stream the best I could shouting and occasionally firing off my gun.
We were in a big wilderness. No roads or inhabitants west of us for many miles, and this was the course I feared Frank was most likely to take.
I now began to think that I had a serious job on hands. I kept up the search all day without getting the least trace of Frank and returned to camp late that night.
Starting early the next morning, and taking a good lunch with me, I crossed the head of Winfall Run and over the divide onto the waters of the Hamersley, continuing to shout and occasionally firing my gun. I had worked down the run some six or eight miles, when I heard some one hollow two or three times in quick succession. I was quite positive it was Frank. It was miles from any inhabitants in a dense wilderness, and hunters were not common on those parts in those days. I immediately answered the call, and soon I could hear Frank coming down the hill at breakneck speed, giving tongue at every jump.
We at once started for camp, Frank eating the lunch I had brought in my knapsack, and telling of his trials, as we made tracks the best we were able to for camp. Frank, in telling his story, would cry like a baby, and then laugh like a boy with a pair of new boots. But he cut no more boy tricks.
We finished the season's hunt, catching a goodly bunch of fox, marten, mink and coon, as well as killing a good bunch of deer. Had fur and venison brought as much in those days, as at the present time, we would have bought an automobile, and put an end to this hoofing it.
I do not remember whether I have told the boys of the H-T-T the story of the white deer, which I had the good luck to get, and the picture of which was shown in one of the sporting magazines a few years ago. The picture was sent to the magazine by Mrs. Prudence Boyington, Roulett, Pa., who was the owner of the deer at the time, and I believe a daughter of Mrs. Boyington still has the deer.
It was in the spring of 1878 or 1879 that a doe and a white fawn were seen on the hill just south of Lymansville. The fawn and its mother were seen almost daily in some of the fields near the village, and often were seen in some one of the pastures with the cows. The fawn would run and play about like a lamb.
It was plain to be seen from week to week that the fawn was rapidly growing, and as the open season for hunting of deer drew near it was generally understood that the white fawn and its mother should not be killed. When the winter came on, the fawn and its mother were all at once missing. The general supposition was that they had been killed, but when spring came the doe and the white fawn (now a yearling deer) again appeared on its old haunts of the year before. They had merely gone back into the more dense woods to winter.
Along in June it was noticed that there were three deer instead of two. Another fawn had appeared on the scene, this time an ordinary spotted fawn. They were again daily seen during the summer the same as they were the year before. Now it had been strongly urged by the people all about the country that these deer should not be killed, and there was none that was more strongly in favor of this than I was. The deer were regularly seen again all summer and up to the last days of October, when they again disappeared and all were anxious for spring to come to see if they would return as usual. When spring came the deer came back as before, but in June "the whole bunch came up missing," and it was generally thought that they had changed their haunts or they had been killed. The latter was strongly suspected.
I had taken a scout through the woods on the hills back of the locality where these deer had been frequenting and had seen signs that convinced me that the white deer, at least, was still alive, although it had not been seen for a number of weeks. Here I wish to explain that Coudersport is two miles from Lymansville and it is on the hill between the two places that the white deer had been seen most, and it was in the former place that the loudest cry for the protection of this white deer came from.
Now about this time I had killed a deer in the big woods where several of us had been on a fishing trip and I took a piece of this venison to a friend in town. It so happened that one of the side judges of our court (Stebens by name) was at the house of my friend. A few days later I was in a store belonging to a brother of the Judge, when the Judge came in and accused me of killing the white deer. Of course I denied, and told the Judge that I would wager two dollars that the white deer was still living. The Judge said "Very well," and at the same time handed a two dollar bill to a man standing by, by the name of Abison, who was listening to our conversation, which was quite heated. I told the Judge at the very first opportunity I would kill the white deer.
The white deer was not seen in the woods any more, and I was charged with killing it. I said nothing in regard to the charge, for I had now made up my mind to kill it if I could. One day three or four weeks after I had made the wager, Mr. Abison came to me and handed me two dollars and said that the Judge had got his money and told him to give me my money back as he (the Judge) did not want to take the money, that I had killed the white deer all right.
Now I was quite positive that the Judge had learned that the white deer was still alive. I had heard that the white deer had again been seen in a field near town. Now this made me all the more determined to kill the white deer. I will explain that I had learned that several of the sportsmen of Coudersport, the Judge included, had had dogs after the white deer several times the previous fall, but it so happened that there were no watchers at the place where the deer came to the creek.
That fall as soon as the first snow fell I went after the deer. I did not strike the trail until quite late in the afternoon, and as the deer left the woods where it had been accustomed to staying and went into the big woods farther south, I left the trail for that day. I would have got a shot at the deer if my attention had not been called in the wrong direction by the chirping of several blue jays which I thought were excited over the presence of the white deer.
I was working the trail to the best of my ability and knew that I was close to the game, when my attention was drawn by the chirping of those blue jays which were down the side of a hill. I was working the trail so as to be on vantage ground and could see from where I was standing that the trail had turned slightly down the hill along the side of a fallen tree and in the direction of the chirping of the jays. This led me to think that the jays were scolding the deer, so I cautiously advanced a few steps down the hill, expecting every moment to see the deer. While I was watching down the hill, I heard a slight noise to my right and partly behind me. I looked in the direction in which the noise came from and was surprised to catch a glimpse of the deer jumping the log near where I had last seen the trail. The log hid the deer from my sight so that I was unable to get a shot at it. The deer had lain down close to the log, and had I taken a few more steps in the direction I was going instead of giving attention to the jays I would have seen the deer and made my word good the first time.
It was too late in the day to follow the trail farther at this time, knowing that the deer would run a long distance before stopping. As I had a team engaged to take me to my camp and I was anxious to get there on the first tracking snow, I concluded to give the white deer a rest a few days until I returned from camp in the big woods. I was in camp only a few days when the snow went off, so I came home. I had only been home a day or two when a man by the name of Hill came to my house in great haste. He had been cutting logs en a hill, and looking across onto a hill opposite where he was working, saw the white deer, so came to tell we what he had seen. I at once took my gun and started after the deer. I went up the hill in the direction that Mr. Hill had seen the deer until I was quite sure that I was well above the deer, then cautiously worked my way down the side of that hill. There being no snow on the ground and the deer being white, I soon discovered it lying in its bed. I cautiously crept up within shooting distance and fired, killing the deer instantly.
I will explain how it happened that these deer disappeared so suddenly at the time Judge Stebens accused me of killing the white deer and the wager was made between the Judge and your humble servant. A man by the name of Frank Williams had shot the deer breaking a foreleg at the knee joint, and this caused the deer to remain hidden away until it recovered from the wound. The leg or joint was stiff when the deer was killed and the force of the bullet was so spent that it lay against the skin after shattering the knee joint and I still have the ball which I took from the knee. I had the deer mounted and Mrs. Boyington took it as she was collecting freaks and curios of this country.
Every hunter of long experience could tell of the ups and downs along the trail consisting of good, bad and indifferent luck and as usual tell of our hits and let others tell of our misses, I will tell of a day of good luck. It was in November and there was no snow on the ground. I was camping on the Holman branch of Pine Creek in Pennsylvania and one night, just at dark, a party of several men came to my camp and asked to stay over night. They stated that they were going to camp on the opposite side of the ridge on the Sinnamahoning waters. My camp was small but I made room for the hunters the best I could.
This party was going into a section of country where I had several bear traps as well as a good number of smaller traps set for fox, mink, marten and other fur animals. As I wished to look these traps over the next day before this party got scattered about the woods where my traps were, I got up early the next morning, ate a hasty breakfast and put a lunch into my knapsack and was ready to start out before the party of hunters was up. I cautioned the hunters to see that the fire was safe when they left camp and then started on my day's hunt without the slightest idea that I was starting on one of the luckiest days I ever had.
I had to climb a high ridge, then my route was for some distance on a long ridge, which I would follow for a distance of a mile and a half, when I dropped off the right hand side of the ridge into a ravine where I had a bear trap set. This ridge was a clean open one of beech and maple timber. I knew it would keep me busy the entire day to get over the trap line, the best that I could do, so had no intention of spending any time looking after deer. When I got to this open ridge, I took a dog trot along the ridge.
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.
I promised some of my old trapper friends back East, that I would let them, who were fortunate enough to be subscribers to the H-T-T, hear from me. I will say that this is a mountain region of the first magnitude. A man that cannot mount a donkey and ride over a trail where the river is hundreds of feet below, or as it looks to be nearly under him, and the trail not more than twelve inches wide, hewn out of the solid rock, he had best remain in the East.
This is a sportsman's paradise, and the trapper will find here prey in the way of bear, both black and brown, fisher, mink, raccoon, fox, otter, panther, or as the natives call them, mountain lion, wildcat, skunk, civet cat and many other fur bearing animals and all quite numerous. Deer seem to be very abundant. I counted thirteen in a lick this morning, and it is not an uncommon thing to see from ten to twenty in the licks at one time.
The fishing is said to be the best in the spring and fall. It is not an uncommon thing to catch salmon, weighing from six to thirty-five pounds, and as it is only thirty-five miles to the Pacific Ocean, they are of the very best quality. Mountain trout are plentiful.
Another animal that is plenty is the mountain goat. Bear, mountain lion, and other signs are as numerous as those of rabbits in the East. I am not prepared at this time, to say how shrewd these animals are to trap, but if they take bait as readily as they are reported to, they must not be very hard to catch. There is a bounty of $4.00 on wolves and the writer has seen numerous signs of them.
Will say to my friends in the East that while on my way from the coast to the ranch, a distance of only fifty miles, and the most of the way over mountain trails, I stopped often to watch the deer feeding along the side of the trail. When they saw you they would trot off a short distance and begin feeding again.
Only last evening, Mrs. Evie Newell, shot and killed a large mountain lion that started into the yard after a pig. It seems to me panthers are thicker here than wildcats in Pennsylvania.
I have experimented with scents for years and have found scents of no particular benefit for trapping the fox. I have tried the skunk and muskrat scent, the matrix of the female fox taken at the proper time. I have had a female fox and have lead her to my trapping place, and I have tried many so-called fox scents and all to no purpose. Fox urine may, in some particular places, be used to some slight advantage. It is not so with other animals in regard to scents, for they do not use the same acute instinct that the fox does.
I do not wish to insinuate upon those that do use scent, but for me, I would not give a cent for a barrel of so-called fox decoy. I boil my traps in soft maple bark, hemlock boughs or something of that nature. I do not do this because the fox can be any more readily got into the trap, but because it forms a glazing on the trap and thereby prevents them from rusting and the trap will then spring more readily. It makes no difference how rusty the trap is, so far as catching the fox is concerned.
No boys, no scent for me, the fox soon learns to associate the scent business with the man, then you are up against it. With me there is nothing mysterious about trapping. It is simply practical ways of setting the trap, learned from many years of experience.
I have had fifty years experience as a hunter and trapper. I have netted wild pigeons in the Adirondack Mountains, in New York, to the Indian Territory, so you know that the articles in H-T-T are very interesting to me. I would say that no young trapper should be without this journal, although I would advise them not to take too readily to scents and decoys.
As to the discussions that have been in H-T-T, one writer says he has twenty ways to catch the fox; now I have just as many different ways as there are different conditions. I would say that no one can become a successful trapper until he learns to comply with the natural conditions, which will differ with almost every trap he sets when trapping fox, mink, etc.
I will tell my brother trappers what I have been doing this fall (1902) along the line of trapping. In August I took a trip through portions of Montana, Idaho and Washington, to look up a site to do a little trapping this winter. There is much more game here than in the East, but nothing like you hear talked of. I found the mountains too steep and the underbrush too thick and from what I could learn, I was afraid the weather was too cold for one of my age and condition of health, but, oh boys, what trout fishing I found in the Clearwater; this is a branch of Snake River and empties into that river at Lewiston, Idaho.
As I found things, I thought I would return to old Potter County, Pennsylvania, and have a little fun trapping the fox and skunk as that is about the only game there is in this section when we have no beechnuts, for that is the only mast we have here. We have no beechnuts this season and most of the fur bearing animals have migrated south of here where there are chestnuts, acorns and hickory nuts.
Brothers, I will tell you where my camp is, and you will always find the latch-string out. My camp stands at the very head of the Allegheny River, 1700 feet above sea level. From the cabin door you could throw a stone over the divide to where the water flows into the west branch of the Susquehanna. In a half hour a person can, from my camp, catch trout from the waters of the Allegheny, and the Susquehanna.
As we have no beechnuts we have no bears, so I have not set my bear traps. This will cut my sport considerably short. I have put out but about sixty small traps, so I spend my time about equally between camp and home.
I will send a picture of myself and my old dog Mage, who I believe knows more about trapping than some families. But poor old Mage is 13 years old and is following the down trail very rapidly. He is quite deaf and gets around with difficulty. Poor fellow, he is nearly to the end of the trail.