STILL-HUNTING THE FOX.
Many have requested me to give my method of still-hunting the red
fox. As my hair is turning gray and the red foxes are about all gone
here I will give an outline of my method, and will try and not weary
the reader with a long account, thus writes G. O. Green, of Illinois.
Winter is the best time for hunting the red fox, and I have been more
successful in January and February than other months. There are
always some localities where the red fox spends the day, curled up
asleep, and it is generally in a hilly locality as far as he can get
from the presence of man.
The still hunter has only to go to these places on fair days and hunt
as far as possible against the wind. If the wind is blowing some so
much the better--it will help to deaden the sound of the hunter's
tread. When you get into likely ground walk slow, and be sure you
observe every object on the ground, both in front and in fact at
least three sides. The average still hunter hunts too fast and don't
use his eyes in the right direction--if he is a bird hunter he will
be looking up in the trees too much.
[Illustration: BLACK FOX SKIN VALUED AT $1500.]
A red fox is a small animal, and the hunter must keep his eyes always
on the ground while hunting the old Red. If snow is on the ground and
the hunter jumps a fox without getting a shot, the hunter, if he is a
novice, will be pretty sure to go on the run after the fox when he
comes to the place where the fox has just jumped. When you find the
fox has been jumped sit right down and eat your lunch, and wait
twenty minutes or a half hour. The fox will run perhaps 80 rods then
get on a log or stump and watch his back track, and if he does not
see any one following him he will not go far before he will look for
another place to lie down.
When you come to a place where the fox makes zigzag trail, stop and
look very close in every direction for at least one hundred yards.
The fox rarely makes a straight trail when he is going to lie down;
in this he resembles the deer. The fox sleeps most soundly between 11
o'clock and 2 o'clock in the daytime, and I have killed most of mine
during that time. A fox jumped after 3 o'clock in the afternoon will
hardly lie down again that day. A double-barrel shotgun loaded with
No. 4 shot will stop any fox up to about 50 yards; above that
distance coarser shot usually straddle the fox. When the day is cold
and snow is crusty, stay at home, for you will get no fox but plenty
of exercise.
When a fox goes into the ground while you are trailing him, don't try
to dig him out; it is hard work. On three occasions I have got his
brush by going to the burrow about sundown and getting a good
position near the burrow to wait for him to come out. I have never
been disappointed in getting a shot about the time that you can see
half a dozen stars twinkling. But it takes good eyes to see a fox in
twilight.
Now reader, these are not all the points of still hunting. It takes a
peculiar cuss for a still hunter, and still hunters are born that
way; all the education in the world will not make a still hunter.