Chapter 244: Sable Tracking
The next morning, Yue Feng opened his eyes and got up on time.

After a day of rest yesterday, today is the day when all members of the falconry hunting team will set out to hunt. There are enough falcons at home, so there is no need to worry about Yue Feng taking the Great Blue Kites up the mountain.

While eating, Xiao Tao learned that Yue Feng was going into the mountains to catch large kites and sables, so he wanted to follow him to keep an eye on him, but Yue Feng shook his head.

“It’s not that I don’t want to take you with me, it’s just that sables are too clever. When there are more people around, the noise will be greater. They may have heard the noise in advance and hid early!
I’ll go to the big mountain valley east of Forest Farm No. 21. It will take at most a morning to go back and forth. I can definitely do it with a gun!”

Xiao Tao was worried after hearing this: “Then…let’s take Black Wolf with us. It’s hard to take care of him alone in this season!”

“Okay, let’s take Black Wolf with us! Forest Farm No. 21 isn’t too far away, don’t worry!
Don’t be lazy today, you three brothers. The canteen’s game reserves are running low. We think that next time we go hunting in the mountains, we must stock up on the reserves before we go, otherwise it will delay their normal operations!”

“Don’t worry, Ironback Red and the Chicken Eagle are here with them. No matter if it’s a chick or a rabbit, as long as they don’t fly far away, they won’t run away if they see one!”

“Hurry up and eat. After you’re full, let’s go together!!”

……

The four brothers drank the egg drop dumpling soup made by Meng Yulan and ate meat buns. After filling their stomachs, they took the eagle from the scaffold, put on their hunting bags, tied their leggings, and left the village together.

In comparison, the place Yue Feng was going to was farther away from the hunting grounds of others. The brothers went out of the village and up the mountain. After crossing several ridges behind the village, they parted ways at an intersection.

Yue Feng walked along the mountain road in the direction he remembered and soon reached Chaiji Road. After walking along Chaiji Road for more than an hour, there were no relatively easier mountain roads to walk on.

But this did not pose a problem for him. He took off the hat of the big black eagle with a big crop in his hand and threw it into the sky. Then he held the big blue kite and continued to travel along the ridges and over the mountains in the mountains and forests.

On the No. 21 forest farm side, the number is slightly larger because the area is relatively deep. There are four mountain ridges away from the nearest Chaiji Road.

Also because it is far from the firewood collection road, the trailer owners don’t like to come here to work. The same truck of wood that meets the standards may be pulled four times a day in other forest areas, but here it can only be pulled three times. The work is tiring and there is no money, so the number of forest areas here is almost in a relatively primitive state where the area has been designated but has never been contracted out or felled.

It is precisely because of the natural barrier of Forest Area No. 21 that not many hunters go to the large mountain stream valley in the east. The road here is not easy to travel, and the mountain stream valley is full of shrubs and vines in summer and autumn. There are not many other large prey, but Yue Feng knows that there have always been sables in this area. In his previous life, he followed the old hunter and set up a lot of sable traps here almost every year. After a winter, he would at least harvest one or two sables.

Don’t you think that catching one or two sables in a winter is too few?
It’s true that there are few, but compared to other places, it’s already good.

Except for the breeding season, sables do not have a fixed nest. Most young sables without territory live a wandering life.

Moreover, this thing can climb trees, drill tree holes, expand and dig caves to hide, and it is very small. It is not like a rabbit in the wild, which has a fixed path to ambush and trap.

Sables are extremely alert and suspicious, and will run away at the slightest sign of trouble. This is the main reason why Yue Feng did not take Xiao Tao with him.

After arriving at the eastern boundary area of ​​Forest Area No. 21, Yue Feng roughly determined the direction, and then led the black wolf to continue moving towards the river valley.

Along the way, the black wolf was extremely excited, sniffing here and there, but it was tied with a rope by Yue Feng, so its activity area was extremely limited. After Yue Feng emphasized several times that it should follow him, the dog slowly calmed down and followed Yue Feng step by step, walking steadily in the snow.

After climbing over another gentle slope in the right direction, the terrain in front of us suddenly became clear.

A mountain stream with a north-south span of at least 150 meters appeared in front of Yue Feng.

Standing on the top of the gentle slope and looking down, except for an unfrozen spring in the northwest corner where water is still flowing, the entire large area is covered with ice and snow.

Before going down the valley, Yue Feng raised his head and looked around, and quickly selected a small elm tree as thick as a child’s arm. He pulled out the sharp knife from his waist, and chopped it off from the root in no time. He then chopped off the tree stump, leaving only a stick about two meters long.

This stick is very useful. Today, we are chopping the stick not to block the knife, but to find the bottom.

There is water flowing all year round at the Unfrozen Spring. Under the ice and snow in the valley, there are scattered undercurrents. If people want to go down to the underground valley, they must hold a stick in their hand to test it. Otherwise, if they step down, at best they will get their feet wet and affect the search, or at worst they will lose their balance and fall into the water, and they may even lose their lives.

In comparison, the continuous heavy snow and cold weather are much more friendly to relatively small animals such as dogs. Small animals such as sables can move freely on the snow crust without worrying about collapsing.

After cutting the stick, Yue Feng chose a relatively flat area and moved towards the bottom of the mountain stream. With every step he took, he poked the ground with the stick to try. Although the progress was a bit slow, it was always steady.

As he descended to the bottom of the valley, more and more footprints on the snow attracted Yue Feng’s attention.

This is a footprint similar in size to a bobcat’s. It is slightly larger, but very shallow. Because it took a long time and it was windy at night, the snow covered the outline of the footprint so it is not so clear.

Yue Feng was excited at just one look. He found the footprints of the ferret as soon as he reached the bottom of the valley. It was a good sign.

Snow ferrets are not big in size, but in order to facilitate walking and chasing in the snow, their paws are much larger than those of weasels, which are also members of the Mustelidae family.

The presence of footprints is a good thing, as it means that there may be sable activities recently. While ensuring your own safety, you can try to follow the sable’s tracks.

Yue Feng leaned on his stick and moved forward slowly. Every few steps he lowered his head and looked around, looking for any suspicious traces.

If this sable is a newly adult wanderer, it may not have a nest or other place to live for a long time. However, if it is an adult sable that has reached adulthood and occupied the surrounding territory, there are records of it living in fixed caves or other nests.

In this situation, sometimes there is only one chance to hunt, and if you make a mistake, you will never find it again!

Using a Great Green Kites to catch sable can be regarded as Yue Feng challenging the limits of his falconry. It is a huge challenge to the falcon’s ability and the falconer’s ability to find the target prey.

Yue Feng followed the trail stealthily for several hundred meters, and soon the footprints on the ground disappeared.

Yue Feng looked around and found a fallen tree next to him that was blown down by the wind, but was not completely dead and was leaning on a similar branch.

It goes without saying that the sable leaped up onto the trunk of a fallen tree. This is a common way for them to hide their movement traces. The more experienced the sable is, the more they like to use this method.

Yue Feng searched along the tilted tree that had been blown down by the wind, and soon found new footprints under another tree more than ten meters away.

Yue Feng closed his eyes and imagined a sturdy sable in his head. It leaped to the fallen tree, climbed up the trunk, then jumped along the side branches to another tree, finally made a small circle, came down from another normal pine tree, and continued on its way.

Could there be a sable nest nearby? Yue Feng made an uncertain inference based on his own imagination. Generally, only female minks in the breeding season would be extremely vigilant about hiding their nests. Under normal circumstances in normal seasons, it is not worth doing so.

Thinking of this, Yue Feng flattened the big blue kite that had been squatting on his arm and continued to track and search along the footprints.

After chasing for at least a few hundred meters, Yue Feng discovered that there were many similar terrains, but the sables didn’t seem to care much. They kept walking and stopping under the trees, and occasionally jumped through the low bushes to leave a slightly deep footprint.

Something is wrong!
The further Yue Feng chased, the more he felt something was wrong!

I just don’t believe it. If there really is a nest, the rabbits will run all over the hill and will return to the nest sooner or later. I’m going to compete with you today. I must see where you have been and whether you will come back!
So Yue Feng followed the footprints and chased them for several hundred meters.

This sable seemed to be out searching for food, walking and stopping, occasionally crawling under the bushes and coming out from the other side.

After following for at least one kilometer, Yue Feng found that his guess was right.

After circling around, the sable went back to the tilted and fallen tree from the boundary between trees and bushes on the other side of the valley.

The movement traces form a closed loop of searching-hunting-returning home.

Now Yue Feng knew what was going on.

So, Yue Feng stood on the side of the fallen tree for the second time and observed it carefully.

The bottom was normal, covered with a little snow foam, and the bottom of the trunk was normal, but about two and a half meters above the ground, a part of the trunk that originally had snow foam on it was now gone.

Hum! I finally discovered it!
Yue Feng quietly walked to the side of the fallen tree, then used his hands to enlarge his external earlobe, and put it directly against the tree trunk to listen carefully.

At first there was only the low-frequency hum of wind blowing through the branches and trunks, but Yue Feng held his breath and listened for a while, and soon made a new discovery.

Inside the tree trunk, there were rustling sounds, as if a mouse was moving around.

Now it has been confirmed that this fallen tree must be the sable’s hiding place.

Thinking of this, Yue Feng took out a small hatchet from his waist and chopped at the bottom of the fallen tree without hesitation.

In a short while, a hole about the size of a fist was cut into the tree, and the inside of the trunk was filled with a rotten but not completely rotten core.

Yue Feng tried to take out a little bit. It was soft and had almost no strength, but it was basically dry. If this thing was used to make a nest, it seemed to be quite warm.

Thinking of this, Yue Feng lowered his head and rummaged in his bag, and soon took out a bomb.

This time, Ma Leizi did not light the gun directly and stuff it into the hole like he did when he killed Xiong Cangzi before. Instead, he left the fuse, sealed the soil on Ma Leizi’s buttocks, gently knocked it apart with the back of a knife, and then poured out the sealing soil until the black gunpowder inside was seen.

The next second, Yue Feng held the match in both hands and lit the fuse of the bomb.

Whoosh!
bang~~~~
Because the back seat was knocked open, the lit fuse directly ignited the gunpowder in the mine, and a pungent smell rose instantly, accompanied by a large amount of white smoke.

Any normal animal will be afraid of the smell of burning gunpowder. Even strong animals like brown bears and even Siberian tigers are very afraid of these smells.

Sable is no exception.

In the rotten tree trunk, although the core of the tree is rotten but not completely rotten, there must be small gaps connecting the bottom to the top. After the firecrackers are ignited, these gaps act like chimneys, drawing the irritating gas upwards.

Less than five seconds after the firecrackers were lit, a squeaking sound was heard from the tree hole. Soon, a dark brown head poked out from the tree hole hidden in the trunk of the fallen tree.

After discovering that there were people and a dog standing under the tree, the sable immediately retracted its head.

But this is enough. Can a mere fallen tree protect you?
Yue Feng decisively took out the second bomb.

This time, Yue Feng repeated the previous process.

bang~~~
After another burst of white smoke, the even stronger and more pungent smell of burning gunpowder was sucked up into the tree hole.

The sable hiding in the tree hole was really unbearable. After crawling out of the tree hole, it climbed up quickly by stepping on the trunks of the fallen trees, as if running on flat ground. Then it jumped from a horizontal branch and jumped onto another pine tree next to it.

Yue Feng knew that now was not a good time to release the hawk. If the Great Green Kitten went to chase it, the branches were dense and the sable would shake it off in one round at most. By then, if the hawk landed on the tree and the sable ran away from somewhere else, Yue Feng would need at least several hours of preparation to organize a new round of attack.

I saw Yue Feng, holding a exploration stick in one hand, standing in place and knocking on the tree trunk continuously.

Bang bang bang bang bang!

The dull air was filled with a few rapid knocking sounds, like a soul-stirring war drum, which gave the little sable a great sense of oppression.

The little sable, which was running away, was affected by the knocking sound. After circling around the second pine tree for a few times, it jumped onto the third tree, then ran down in circles. Soon, it used a side branch more than two meters above the ground as a springboard and jumped directly to the ground.

Seeing this scene, Yue Feng knew that the time was ripe, and he held the Big Blue Kites against his waist and crossed his waist to merge into one.

Leave you!

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(End of this chapter)