Chapter 38

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

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

Not long after walking, Feng Chengmin carefully examined the animal marks on the snow under his feet; these were hares'. He followed the footprints for about a hundred meters and finally stopped in front of two adjacent bushes.

He placed the sack on the snow, took out a thin wire trap from the sack, the principle of which was the same as the one used to strangle dogs now.

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

One end was twisted onto a thicker bush branch, the wire loop was set at a right angle to the ground, suspended above the hare's footprints, 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 footprints. Feng Chengmin explained why he did this while setting the trap!

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

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

And if there were abnormalities on the road, or if their footprints were destroyed, if the hare discovered it, it would generally change its path directly, and it would never walk this path again!

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

The desire to learn was stronger than usual!

After the trap was set, Feng Chengmin broke off a pine branch and swept his footprints and Wang An's footprints a few times, destroying them as much as possible!

On a tree not far away, he cut an obscure mark. This wire was good stuff; if he couldn't catch a hare, he had to take it back!

A piece of thin wire, making a trap, had so much to say, and the finishing work was done so meticulously! Wang An sighed in admiration!

He bypassed the hare's footprints and left, continuing to look for other hare footprints.

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

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

First, see if the hare's footprints were going up the slope or down the slope, and try to find those one-way footprints.

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

If the footprints were going down the slope, then when the hare came back, 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 footprints were going up the slope, then when the hare came back, it would be going downhill, so the trap would 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 and make a drag trap!

That is, after the hare is trapped, it drags a wooden stick, and sooner or later it will get stuck somewhere! Finally, it will be caught by someone!

There were also operations at the hare's hole; some routes required setting two or three traps in the grass, and one must be very careful about what to pay attention to, and how to operate, etc.!

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

You don't know until you learn; you're shocked when you learn! 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!

Always unable to figure out why he set a pile of traps but just couldn't catch a hare!!

Wang An was more and more delighted the more he learned, and more and more perfect the more he operated!

After setting more than sixty traps, he started learning to set clamps; most of the clamps were made by himself!

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

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

Use hard steel wire to wrap a spring of two or three turns, leave the long sides tied to the middle of the semicircular thick wires, and then use a wooden stick to support it.

The one that catches the wooden stick is a small wooden hook about one centimeter long, and corn dregs or grass seeds and sorghum are tied to the small hook as bait!

This clamp mainly catches pheasants, 'flying dragons,' 'silly half-jin,' and other birds!

This thing is relatively simple to learn; the main thing is to find a place, find the kind of bushes with grass seeds underneath, the bigger the better.

Just put the clamp down and it's done, no need to do any concealment, but you must use a thin hemp rope to tie the clamp to the bush to prevent the clamp from being dragged away!

There is another kind of clamp, also called a guillotine, which is like a rat trap, but slightly larger than the largest rat trap!

But it is much smaller than a wolf clamp, belonging to the medium model!

It mainly catches badgers, raccoon dogs, yellow weasels, 'big skins' (sable), or foxes!

And for catching 'big skins,' to prevent damage to the fur, wooden board clamps are generally used, but no matter what clamp is used, the success rate is not worth mentioning.

Being able to catch one or two in a year is the kind where the ancestral grave is smoking blue smoke!

However, even if you can only catch one in a year, it's enough for the whole family's food and expenses for a year!

A perfect 'big skin' is more valuable than the iron gall in bear gall, belonging to the kind that solves food and clothing instantly!

Of course, at this time of year, badgers and raccoon dogs are hibernating, so setting clamps is useless!

And the wolf clamp, also called a big guillotine, weighs about 20 jin, and the price is not cheap. In the Northeast region, it is generally used for defense and is rarely used. If it is used, it is also set in the fields to hunt wild boars!

What Feng Chengmin taught Wang An today was catching yellow weasels and foxes. Feng Chengmin also had some taboos about catching foxes and yellow weasels.

So he only set three clamps, mainly to teach Wang An how to operate them, for catching badgers in the autumn in the future!

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

After setting the traps and clamps, 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 to stop the big stallion again, got off the sled, and observed the hoof prints of several roe deer on the road.

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

Only for these few did Feng Chengmin stop. Looking at Wang An's inquisitive eyes, Feng Chengmin smiled and said: "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, and they haven't been blown into shape by the wind; there are still crushed fine powder inside, not blown away by the wind."

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

Feng Chengmin said again: "In the hoof prints that have been set, the blown-in snow powder is at the bottom, but in the ones just stepped on, the snow powder inside is scattered in the hoof prints."

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

Actually, these are the basic abilities of mountain-roaming hunters, called 'code tracking,' also called 'pinching tracking'!

It's just that Wang An knew and had heard of it, but didn't understand and couldn't do it. Besides, ordinary villagers didn't know this stuff.

Seeing that Wang An seemed to understand a little, Feng Chengmin greeted Wang An to get on the sled and continued to walk along the marks for a while.

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

After walking and stopping like this, after forty or fifty minutes, Feng Chengmin stopped, tied the horse to a tree, and took down the fodder to feed the horse!

At this time, Wang An also found that the hoof prints were very, very new, and estimated that the distance to the roe deer shouldn't be far!

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

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

Feng Chengmin nodded with a smile: "Yeah, that's right, let's go, we have to go around, now we are downwind, you know what's going on with this, right?"

"Yeah, I know this. When I hunt those mountain animals, I always walk upwind, otherwise, the mountain animals would have run away!" Wang An answered.

Feng Chengmin nodded without speaking, led Wang An, and walked upwind!