Chapter 38

Feng Chengmin took all the snares and traps off the cart.

He handed Wang An a sack, carried one himself, and walked toward the path into the mountains.

After walking not far, Feng Chengmin carefully examined the animal tracks on the snow under his feet; these were from a hare. Following the tracks for about a hundred meters, he finally stopped in front of two adjacent bushes.

He placed the sack on the snow and took out a thin wire snare from the sack, the principle being the same as the one used to strangle dogs now.

The wire had been burned black, and he spread the wire loop open to a diameter of about 20 centimeters.

He twisted one end onto a thicker shrub branch, held the wire loop at a right angle to the ground, suspended it above the hare's tracks, and the bottom of the wire loop was about twelve or thirteen centimeters off the ground.

Throughout the process, he didn't destroy the hare's tracks. Feng Chengmin explained why he did this while setting the snare!

It turned out that if the wire wasn't burned black, it would reflect light, especially when reflecting the snow, making it exceptionally obvious, and the hare would see it.

And hares forage by going back and forth on the same path, so setting the snare between the bushes could increase the success rate!

And if there was something unusual on the road, or if their own tracks were destroyed, if the hare discovered it, it would generally change its path directly, and would never walk this path again!

Wang An had also set snares, but he didn't understand these things and had never caught a hare.

The desire to learn this skill was not just strong!

After the snare was set, Feng Chengmin broke off a pine branch and swept his and Wang An's tracks a few times, trying to destroy them as much as possible!

He carved an obscure mark on a nearby tree; this wire was good stuff, so even if he didn't catch a hare, he had to take it back!

A piece of thin wire, making a snare, had so much to say, and the finishing work was done so meticulously! Wang An was impressed!

They bypassed the hare's tracks and continued to look for other hare tracks.

The same operation was performed by Wang An, with Feng Chengmin pointing out things from the side.

And when they reached a slope, the method of setting the snare changed again.

First, look at whether the hare's tracks were going up the slope or down the slope, trying to find those one-way tracks.

If it was a track route that had already been traveled back and forth several times, the success rate of the snare wasn't high!

If the tracks were going down the slope, then when the hare returned, it would be running up the slope, so the wire loop should be tilted down the slope, at an angle of about 70 degrees to the horizontal plane!

If the tracks were going up the slope, then when the hare returned, it would be going down the slope, so the snare should still be perpendicular to the horizontal plane, but it should be higher off the ground, about sixteen or seventeen centimeters!

In some places, there was no place to tie the wire, so he had to cut a piece of wood to make a drag-snare!

That is, after the hare was snared, it would drag a wooden stick, and sooner or later it would get stuck somewhere! Finally, it would be caught by someone!

There was also how to operate at the hare's burrow entrance, some routes required setting two or three snares, what to pay special attention to in the grass, and how to operate, etc.!

In short, a piece of wire must be burned black and required various operations! Only then could the probability of catching a hare be increased!

He didn't know until he learned; he was shocked! No matter what, it was just a piece of wire!

But without someone teaching you on the spot while operating, even if they told you verbally, you might still be confused!

He could never figure out why he set a bunch of snares but couldn't catch a hare!!

The more Wang An learned, the happier he became, and the more perfect his operations became!

After setting more than sixty snares, he began to learn how to set traps; most of the traps were made by himself!

They were also sold at the market, but they were all about the same.

Two thick wires were bent into two semicircles, the connection point of the semicircles was bent into a small loop, and in the middle was a straight, thick wire.

Use hard steel wire to wind a spring of two or three turns, leave long ends on both sides and tie them to the middle of the semicircular thick wires, and then support it with a wooden stick.

What held the wooden stick was a small wooden hook about one centimeter long, and corn grits or grass seeds and sorghum were tied to the small hook as bait!

This trap mainly caught pheasants, hazel grouse, and other birds!

This thing was relatively simple to learn, mainly finding a place, finding bushes with grass seeds underneath, the bigger the better.

Just put the trap down and that was it, no need to even disguise it, but you had to tie the trap to the bush with thin hemp rope to prevent the trap from being dragged away!

There was another type of trap, also called a guillotine, like a rat trap, but slightly larger than the biggest rat trap!

But it was much smaller than a wolf trap, belonging to a medium model!

It mainly caught badgers, raccoon dogs, yellow weasels, sables, or foxes!

And to catch sables, to prevent damaging the fur, wooden board traps were generally used, but no matter what trap was used, the success rate was not worth mentioning.

Being able to catch one or two a year was the kind of thing where the ancestral graves were smoking blue smoke!

However, even if you could only catch one a year, it was enough for the whole family's living expenses for a year!

A perfect sable skin was more valuable than the iron gall in a bear gall, belonging to the kind that instantly solved the problem of food and clothing!

Of course, at this time of year, badgers and raccoon dogs were hibernating, so setting traps was useless!

And wolf traps, also called big guillotines, weighed about 20 catties, and the price was also quite expensive. In the Northeast, they were generally used for defense, and were rarely used; if they were used, they were set in the fields to hunt wild boars!

What Feng Chengmin taught Wang An today was how to hunt yellow weasels and foxes; Feng Chengmin also had some taboos about hunting foxes and yellow weasels.

So he set three traps, mainly to teach Wang An how to operate them, to be used for catching badgers in the autumn!

And he told Wang An that he would teach him how to set big snares tomorrow.

After setting the snares and traps, Feng Chengmin led Wang An back the way they came, drove the sled, and walked into the deep mountains!

After walking for more than an hour, Feng Chengmin called the big stallion to stop again, got off the sled to observe the hoof prints left by several roe deer on the road.

There were many such hoof prints on the road, but Feng Chengmin had never stopped.

Only for these few did Feng Chengmin stop, looking at Wang An's inquisitive eyes, Feng Chengmin smiled: "Look at these hoof prints, aren't they different from the ones we saw before?"

Wang An squatted down to observe, looked for a long time, but felt there was no difference, and looked up at Feng Chengmin in confusion.

Feng Chengmin said: "These prints show that the roe deer didn't pass long ago, they haven't been shaped by the wind, and there are still fine crushed particles inside, not blown away by the wind."

Wang An lowered his head to observe again; there were indeed fine snow particles, and he couldn't help but nod.

Feng Chengmin said again: "The shaped hoof prints have snow particles blown into the bottom, but the ones just stepped on have the snow particles scattered inside the hoof prints."

Wang An suddenly realized, and compared them with other hoof prints not far away; they were indeed completely different!

Actually, these were the basic abilities of mountain-trekking people, called tracking, also called pinching tracks!

But Wang An knew and had heard of it, but just didn't understand and couldn't do it. Besides, ordinary villagers didn't know how to do this stuff either.

Seeing that Wang An seemed to understand a little, Feng Chengmin called Wang An to get on the sled and continued to follow the tracks for a while.

After walking for a while, he observed the hoof prints again, and Wang An also got down to make a careful comparison.

Walking and stopping like this, after forty or fifty minutes, Feng Chengmin finally stopped, tied the horse to a tree, and took down the forage to feed the horse!

At this time, Wang An also discovered that the hoof prints were very, very new; he estimated that the roe deer shouldn't be far away!

After Feng Chengmin finished, he asked Wang An: "Can you tell how many roe deer there are?"

Wang An counted and said: "4, they should be two big and two small!"

Feng Chengmin nodded with a smile: "Mm-hmm, that's right, let's go, we have to go around, we're downwind now, you know what that's about, right?"

"Mm-hmm, I know that. When I hunt those wild animals, I always walk upwind, otherwise the wild animals would have run away long ago!" Wang An replied.

Feng Chengmin nodded without speaking, leading Wang An to walk against the wind!