Chapter 235 Draw inferences from one instance
“Uncle, what material is your rope made of? I’ve never seen this before! It looks very thin, but it’s quite tough!”

Yue Feng, who had been watching the old hunter set the trap not far away, couldn’t help but ask after watching for a long time.

Uncle Zhao continued working as he explained, “This is a deer tendon rope, made from moose tendons using a complex production process!
These bundles of ropes were not made by me, they were passed down from an old hunter who passed away!

As long as you use oil and maintain it regularly, the strength of this thing is comparable to that of steel wire rope. However, the single-strand deer tendon rope cannot be used together, and it is easy to break after friction and heat! Therefore, it cannot catch animals that are too large, such as wild boars and red deer!

Do you guys understand the trick of using a stick to lasso?
I just went up the mountain to set up traps. If you want to learn but don’t understand something, you can ask me and I will explain it to you guys! ”

When saying this, Uncle Zhao’s attention was mostly on Yue Feng. His meaning was very simple: if you want to learn, I can teach you!

Yue Feng himself also has a family-inherited skill in trapping. When he had nothing to do, he had heard his father talk about it, but it was all about catching roe deer and wild boars, mountain animals that were relatively easy to find and had obvious animal trails. He didn’t have any more sophisticated trapping techniques.

“I know some basic things about setting traps, but in a situation like today, what I know is not very effective! How do you choose the location to trigger the lasso? After all, there are no animal trails or terrain that can be used as a help around!” Yue Feng asked the doubts in his heart.

“A feeling!”

“Feeling? What do you mean?”

Uncle Zhao tied the last knot and then did not stand up. Instead, he bent his waist, lowered his eyes, and walked towards Yue Feng.

“Feeling is to simulate the thoughts and habits of the animal you want to catch, and put it into the surrounding environment where you want to set the trap.

Suppose, if the prey returns to this area, where will it land actively or passively?
Crouch down and imagine that you are a half-grown leopard less than one year old passing by you!”

Hearing what Uncle Zhao said, Yue Feng bent down and adjusted his line of sight to a position about sixty to seventy centimeters above the ground, and then put himself into the perspective of the prey.

It’s true, after this change in perspective, Yue Feng really discovered a lot of things that he had previously overlooked.

For example, if there is a tree less than 50 centimeters in front of the leopard, when it moves, its body will definitely not hit the tree, it can only climb up or go around it.

If it is climbing up a tree, where should it place its feet to exert force? If it is going around, where should its front feet land to save energy and still achieve its goal of going around?
If you change your hunter’s mindset to that of a prey, many problems will be easily solved.

This thing was like a layer of window paper. Once it was broken, Yue Feng instantly felt that his understanding of setting traps and lassoes had been elevated to a higher level.

“Have you figured it out?” Uncle Zhao looked at Yue Feng with a burning gaze and asked softly.

“OK!”

Yue Feng nodded and went back to the trap that Uncle Zhao had just set. Then he observed it with the mindset of a prey and found that the positions of the nooses were indeed in relatively reasonable positions.

“I’ve figured it out. Then when we find another hiding place, you will set the trap?”

“Okay! I’ll give it a try then!”

“Now that all the dogs have been cleared, I will restore as many traces of the trap as possible, and then we will continue searching the next mountain!”

When everyone heard the noise, they all retreated to a place about ten or twenty meters away.

After everyone stepped back, Uncle Zhao took out a boar bristle brush he had made himself from his bag, bent down and walked backwards, carefully cleaning up all the traces around him bit by bit. After leaving the area where the trap was set, he straightened up.

“The trap is easy to set up and the location is not difficult to choose, but the traces left behind are not easy to clean up! There are too many of us and the dogs, so there will definitely be smells and subtle traces left behind. This is the limit of human power, and there is no better solution!
But don’t worry too much, after sweeping with this hard-bristle brush, and scraping the snow foam for a day or two, the previous subtle traces will be covered up, unless the prey is very vigilant, most of them will not notice it. If you use it to catch leopard cubs, this level is enough!
Now that we have arranged everything here, let’s continue searching! We’ll try to comb through the remaining areas before dark!”

“it is good!”

……

Soon, the five members of the team continued to search the mountain with their dogs, trying to count as many traces as possible around.

At 2:30 in the afternoon, when Gou Zi and the hunters were tracking the scent information, they discovered a special terrain that was suspected to be the leopard’s resting place.

This is a large poplar tree that was blown down by the wind. Due to its age, the trunk is hollow. There are also footprints and scent traces of leopards around it.

Uncle Zhao took out another deer tendon rope from his bag and handed it to Yue Feng.

“This time you set up the lasso, let’s see how much you can learn!”

“Okay, let me try!”

Yue Feng responded, took the rope, then bent down and observed the detailed terrain, as well as the surrounding vegetation.

It was much easier to set the trap in this area with fallen trees than in the previous tree hole. After observing around, Yue Feng quickly determined the location for the noose.

“Here, here, and here! I think it would be enough to set up a trigger-type lasso at each of these three locations. What do you think?” Yue Feng pointed out the locations.

After reading it, Uncle Zhao frowned slightly and glanced at Yue Feng’s choice, then walked to a selection area near the outermost edge.

Uncle Zhao fully approved of the other two positions. If he were asked to set up the trap, he would choose these two positions first. However, the old man did not quite understand the third and outermost trap placement position.

“Tell me, why did you choose this location to set the trap?”

Yue Feng pointed at the wind direction and said, “This is the result I got based on what you just said about using animal thinking to determine the position! And then, I added a little bit of the overall situation!
Most of the time, the wind blows from the northwest on the mountain. This tree hole is located in the downwind position, which is sheltered from the wind. This should be one of the main reasons why the leopard chooses to temporarily live here! It is cold upwind, but there is relatively less snow. It is warm downwind, but there will be snow foam blown over!

If I were a leopard, I would definitely jump over from this side, because this is the most labor-saving, convenient, and in line with its habits.

In addition, if we roughly connect the movement tracks of the leopards we searched before, we can see that the current point of the fallen tree is in a relatively peripheral area. If the leopard is active in the core area and returns to the current location to live, it will definitely come back in this direction!

These two points can be verified, and the results are consistent enough, so I also selected this place as one of the backup lasso traps! “

“Good! You are a kid who can draw inferences from what you have learned. You are a good candidate to be a hunter!!”

After hearing Yue Feng’s answer, Uncle Zhao nodded excitedly. His insight and logical thinking ability were terrifying. His theoretical understanding alone was no worse than Uncle Zhao’s own.

“Hehe! I’ll just try to deal with it, thank you for your praise! Since you think these three locations are all right, I’ll start the arrangement!”

“it is good!”

After getting further approval, Yue Feng began to arrange the ropes like Uncle Zhao did. He used the roots and stems of the low plants nearby to easily position the trigger mechanism of the lasso. Then he also followed Uncle Zhao’s example and tied a wooden stick that was more than one and a half meters long.

“Uncle, do you think these two moves of mine will work? If there is no other problem, I will prepare to erase the traces!” Yue Feng continued to ask.

Uncle Zhao didn’t say anything, but directly handed his brush made of wild boar bristles to Yue Feng. The meaning was very simple. Yue Feng’s skill in setting traps was fully recognized by the old man.

After they finished setting up several traps and snares at the second location, it was already around three o’clock. Everyone had been busy for most of the day and had not even had lunch. However, Uncle Zhao did not say anything and Yue Feng, as the team leader, did not ask any questions. Anyway, it was not an intensive pursuit of prey and they would not starve to death if they skipped a meal and they could endure eating again when they returned to the cellar.

For the next two hours, Dahuang, Heilang and their men circled the last two ridges. Apart from traces of a leopard, they did not find any suspicious terrain, so there was no question of setting up new lassoes.

Uncle Zhao and a few others climbed up the ridge again and said, “Okay, let’s stop here today! I have a rough idea of ​​where the leopard has moved! Xiaofeng and I will get up early tomorrow morning to check for traps in the dark. If the leopard doesn’t show up, we’ll head straight to Luming Valley!”

“Okay! Let’s go home and cook. I didn’t get enough rest last night. Eat early and catch up on some sleep!”

In this way, under the leadership of Uncle Zhao, the group returned to the cave along the ridge.

After working outside for almost a whole day and not having eaten, the young people were frozen. They returned to the house, lit a fire, boiled some hot water and drank a few sips, and their bodies soon warmed up.

For dinner, we again made stewed venison. Uncle Zhao’s cooking skills were just so-so, but with the various seasonings and condiments that Yue Feng and his friends brought up the mountain, the flavor of the stewed venison was already very good.

Several people gathered around a big pot of venison. After eating and drinking their fill, they started to prepare for a rest before it got completely dark.

Yue Feng was in good spirits. He listened to the radio and chatted with Uncle Zhao for a while. Yue Feng asked, “Uncle, if this leopard doesn’t leave, will it find a way to come to our cellar?”

“Well, it’s possible! Red Dog is on the leopard’s hunting list. As long as the leopard doesn’t move, it will definitely continue to come to our place in order to consolidate its territory! I’m not afraid of this. With a gun and a house, the leopard can’t do much to us!”

“Then if we find a spot outside the yard and tie a bait, will the leopard be fooled? For example, if we catch a roe deer, a deer, a small wild boar, etc., we can tie it outside the fence, where it can be seen and aimed by the gun!
This leopard has a cub, so it must have food and drink! Let’s tie up a bait and prepare in advance, then we have a chance!”

Yue Feng’s idea is actually similar to taking pigeons and tigers to the mountains to hunt eagles. No matter whether the dogs or red dogs raised at home are hunting dogs, they certainly cannot be used to feed leopards. However, if you want to get a roe deer or some other animal, it is definitely possible as long as you put in some effort.

After listening to this, Uncle Zhao pondered for a few seconds and shook his head: “If its tail had not been broken, this trick might have really worked! But now it has suffered a loss at the hands of humans. It will definitely be more cautious, and this trick will definitely not work!
If we can catch the leopard cub with the lasso during the day and tie it up there, that would be fine!

But I don’t think the chances of catching the cub with the lasso are very optimistic!”

“Well, okay then! Leopards are so hard to kill, if our target is a tiger, it will be even more difficult!” Yue Feng’s thoughts diverged and he changed the topic to the even more powerful tiger.

“Tiger? In 55, Ma Huazi, Kong Erqiang, I responded to the commune’s call to join the village hunting team and killed a tiger!

Let me tell you this, when a tiger runs in the woods, it’s almost impossible to lock the sights with a gun! We dispatched more than 30 people and more than 50 hunting dogs, almost all the hunters in the whole township, but the tiger still escaped!

A local hunting dog weighing over 100 kilograms was hit hard. The dog’s head was so hard, but when people found the dog, its skull was shattered!
We formed a hunting team at the time, and in addition, we also had people searching the mountain with driving sticks to help, a total of about a hundred people, but we still couldn’t trap them all!

Although the leopard is difficult to deal with, its attack power is limited. As for the tiger, it is fast, large, and has exaggerated strength! You can understand it as having the size of an old ox at home, and the terrifying agility of a leopard!
The mountain god is not called that for nothing. If your aunt’s grave is not here and a tiger has taken possession of my cellar, I will move away immediately and hide far away instead of trying to kill it with a gun!”

After listening to what Grandpa Zhao said, Yue Feng was a little silent. He had seen tigers in captivity in the zoo, but as for the purebred wild tigers in Changbai Mountain, Yue Feng had never had the chance to encounter them in his previous life.

For a terrifying feline weighing five or six hundred kilograms or even more, even if you have a 56-and-a-half in your hand, you need the right time, place, and people to have a slight chance of defeating it. The slightest mistake will lead to eternal damnation.

The father and son chatted for a while. Yue Feng felt sleepy, so he wrapped himself in his thick fur coat and closed his eyes.

That night, the three guns in the room were placed in convenient positions in advance, but until it was slightly light outside and Yue Feng was awakened by Uncle Zhao, the leopard did not come all night.

Uncle Zhao and Yue Feng, each carrying a gun, set out from the cellar and headed straight for the two places where the traps were set.

A few hundred meters away from the first tree hole where the leopard cub might be hiding, a terrifying, low leopard roar was heard.

There is a situation! !

There is another chapter of 4000 words in the afternoon

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(End of this chapter)