Chapter 886
Entering the Mountain and Finding Traps
Yue Feng pursed his lips: "I can confirm it, they turned themselves in! It's not hard to verify these things. If you don't believe me, you can go to the police station with them and let the police verify it!"
Furthermore, regarding any issues in Xing'an Village, any details can be verified with the villagers who witnessed the events, and we will cooperate fully!
Have you asked all the questions you needed to? Now please step aside and don't delay our normal meat distribution! There are still many villagers waiting!
By the way, officer, Zhou Xueqiang is currently hospitalized at the township clinic. As a village leader, I request that your police station file a case and take serious action against him for the charge of deliberately disrupting the autumn hunting operation!
If my cooperation is needed, I can go to the station to give a detailed statement after we're done with distributing the meat!
Upon hearing this, Zhou Yuansen's expression froze, and he immediately sensed something was wrong.
The only reason he dared to make such a big fuss was because of the fact that Xiao Tao and the Zhang brothers had assaulted someone.
Before Uncle Hat could even investigate, the man voluntarily surrendered himself, confessed, and accepted punishment. Zhou Yuansen then lost his last trump card.
However, as the village secretary and a village leader, Yue Feng still has a hold on Zhou Xueqiang's little tail. If he doesn't let go, Zhou Xueqiang will inevitably have to spend a few days in jail after recovering from his injuries. Seven to fifteen days of administrative detention is not difficult for Yue Feng, given his connections with the local police station!
"This……"
Zhou Yuansen looked conflicted. He had been so confident and assertive just moments before, but now it seemed too late to back down; the relationship had already broken down.
Yue Feng squinted and glanced at Zhou Yuansen with disdain: "I have already explained the situation. Is there anything else I need to add?"
If not, please step aside and don't delay our important business of distributing the meat! If we waste any more time, the villagers will complain!
This trick worked very well; Zhou Yuansen clicked his tongue and completely calmed down.
The police officers who responded to the scene shook hands with Yue Feng, wrote down all the details they had just recorded in the police report, and then signed it.
He then said hello and left quickly.
Yue Feng continued to divide the meat while humming a little tune.
Kindness is Yue Feng's nature, but that doesn't mean he's a blockhead. He'll remember the grudge against Zhou Yuansen and his son for daring to show their teeth, and he'll definitely settle old scores with new ones when the time is right.
The distribution of pork continued smoothly, and the last household to arrive at the village office received their share of the pork.
On the pole where the meat was hung, there were still two yellow-haired wild boars weighing about 100 pounds each.
These half-grown wild boars have more tender and delicious meat, with a good balance of fat and lean. Although they are not as fatty as the larger pigs, they are still very good for keeping for yourself or giving away.
This is the portion that Yue Feng left for the hunting team's gunners. Xiao Tao and the others all got a share, as well as Zhao Hongbo and Li Wentong.
Yue Feng took the meat-cutting knife and quickly removed a whole piece of forearm. He then disassembled the rest of the meat, distributing it to each person in about ten to twenty kilograms.
As the main gunner, he already owned more shares, so it was only right that he got more meat. Although the villagers were envious, no one questioned it.
After the last few portions of meat were distributed, Yue Feng greeted his father-in-law and then carried a whole yellow wild boar hind leg to Zhao Hongbo's house.
Zhao Hongbo came back in the middle of the night, helped with the chores, and then went home to sleep. He's still not fully awake. This morning, when the meat was distributed, it was his grandfather, Uncle Zhao, who collected it. He only took the average portion and didn't take his separate share.
When Yue Feng arrived home, Zhao Hongbo got up from the kang (a heated brick bed) upon hearing the noise.
He had only slept for a few hours and clearly hadn't caught up on his sleep. His eyes, like Yue Feng's, were bloodshot, but he still seemed to be in good spirits.
"Brother Hongbo, this hind leg is the gunner's share! There's also a bone! The whole village gets meat, so we only got a little. Please don't mind!" Yue Feng said politely.
Zhao Hongbo took the pork leg and said with a smile, "In previous years, when all the able-bodied men in the village participated in the autumn hunting expedition, we were lucky to get at most two or three catties of meat! This pork leg of yours weighs at least ten catties! And it's all the best parts, it's already pretty good!"
"Have you finished dealing with things at the village office? How's the situation with Zhou Yuansen?"
Yue Feng curled his lip: "They brought the police officers with them, and they were making a scene with me. Later, I told them that Xiao Tao and the others went to turn themselves in in the middle of the night, and he was dumbfounded!"
Zhao Hongbo continued, "How many days will Xiao Tao and the others stay there?"
"Three days, starting from midnight last night!"
"I'll help you with the clamping! If the two of us lend a hand, we can get it done!"
Yue Feng nodded: "Okay! Dog Pee Spring isn't too far from here. You can take a nap this morning, have lunch, and then we can go down the mountain to get some traps, okay?"
"No need to wait until the afternoon. Do you have anything else to do? No, I'll wash my face and change my clothes, and we'll set off now! If we're quick, we should have some results by tomorrow morning!"
"Sure!" Yue Feng didn't stand on ceremony with Zhao Hongbo and readily agreed.
"Come on, follow me to the storeroom, let's get the clips!"
"it is good!"
Soon, Yue Feng followed Zhao Hongbo out of the north room and into the storeroom. He went to look for the old clips, while Yue Feng observed them in the side room.
Last year, Zhao Hongbo responded to the village's call and used cages to catch a lot of greyhounds for artificial breeding. After a year and a half, the squirrel population he keeps at home has now reached a considerable size.
When a stranger arrived, the squirrels in the storage cages weren't too afraid. After jumping and frolicking around in their cages for a while, they gradually quieted down and cautiously peered at Yue Feng, the uninvited guest.
Soon, Zhao Hongbo came out of the tool shed carrying a large stack of cast iron clamps.
"What are you looking at? Studying a greyhound?"
"Just a quick glance, and it seems the greyhounds have been breeding quite a bit lately! There must be dozens in this cage," Yue Feng asked.
"There are also several large cages in the south and west warehouses! In total, there are almost a hundred! If we keep enough breeding stock next winter, we can slaughter the rest to make money!"
“So many…” Yue Feng was clearly taken aback when Zhao Hongbo mentioned the quantity.
When we responded to the call, I don't recall catching this many. It's only been a little over a year. Could they have multiplied later?
"Hehe, when my dad saw that I was planning to raise greyhounds, he helped me go into the mountains for a while and caught a lot of live ones in the distant red pine forest! With the ones that bred later, that's how many we have!"
These creatures are quite bold, and once you get used to them, breeding them isn't too difficult!
Moreover, these creatures, as long as they are fed and kept warm, can breed several times a year! The largest breeding male in my enclosures produced three broods last year!
"Not bad, not bad! The fur and meat of these things can fetch a good price! Let's expand the scale first, select good breeding stock, and we'll definitely make money later!" Yue Feng couldn't help but exclaim.
"I admire your vision! Then we won't sell today, let's continue to expand the population!"
Zhao Hongbo inspected all the metal clamps one by one, and then chatted idly with Yue Feng.
Yue Feng was also quite interested in these iron traps that could catch wild boar piglets. Different traps had different target prey. Yue Feng didn't know what the traps for catching wild boar piglets were normally used to catch.
"What are these traps usually used to catch? Rabbits?" Yue Feng asked curiously.
Zhao Hongbo smiled and shook his head: "You don't need traps to catch rabbits. As long as you find the rabbit's path, a simple wire snare is enough!"
These traps are for catching badgers! They're barely enough to catch foxes too! To catch live piglets, some minor adjustments will be needed!
"Fine-tuning? Adjusting what?"
Yue Feng continued to ask questions. He didn't understand these details about using clips, and now was a good opportunity to learn.
"Adjust the stiffness of the spring clip! The size of the wild boar lamb will affect the force required to step on the trigger clip!"
In addition, the pressure applied by the clamp's blades after stepping into it is also important! If you clamp too loosely, the wild boar lamb will run away; if you clamp too tightly, you might damage its hooves! This balance needs to be adjusted based on experience!
In our Xing'an Village, when it comes to playing with these traps and baits, my dad is a master. I've been learning from him since I was a child!
Don't worry, with a little adjustment, it'll be fine once you step on it!
Yue Feng highly acknowledged Zhao Da Ye's skills, and Zhao Hongbo was not lying about that at all.
Yue Feng then saw Zhao Hongbo use a prepared strip of cotton cloth to wrap a thin layer around the edge of the clip, and then adjust the tightness of the spring clip.
After a simple adjustment, I tested it with a wooden stick. It clicked and triggered the mechanism. Once I confirmed that there was no problem, I put the clamp away.
"Alright, all set! Shall we go up the mountain? Are you still taking the dog to the farm?"
Yue Feng nodded: "Let's take them! We'll ride our motorcycles up the mountain, and bring the dog along! Let's go!"
"go!"
……
The two men set off from Zhao Hongbo's house, rode their motorcycle out of the village, and then went up the mountain along the Chaiji Road. First, they went to the breeding farm to pick up the three Canglong brothers, along with a litter of hunting dogs, and then headed straight for Dog Urine Spring in a grand procession.
In fact, most ordinary hunters in the mountains do not follow the tradition of hunting in spring and autumn.
The term "ordinary hunter" as used here refers to those who do not rely on hunting for their main livelihood, but instead farm and occasionally venture into the mountains to hunt wild game.
Setting traps, snares, poisoned bait, and entangled explosives are common hunting methods with low investment and high returns. They are far from the formal and professional hunting methods that people imagine, such as getting a gun and taking hunting dogs into the mountains.
There are no rustling leaves on the mountain yet; it will be at least another month before the peak hunting season.
Yue Feng, with seven hunting dogs and Zhao Hongbo on the back, rode his motorcycle around the mountains, and soon they started making a ruckus in the areas around Dog Urine Spring.
Yue Feng and his group first rode their motorcycles to the nearest location on Chaiji Road and hid by the roadside. Then, with Gouzi carrying guns and tweezers, they walked to Gou Niao Quan (Dog Urine Spring).
During this walk, the dogs following us into the mountains sniffed around, made a ruckus, lifted their legs to urinate and leave marks, and seemed quite excited.
Yue Feng's purpose in bringing the dogs was not to have them catch wild boar piglets, but simply to scare them away and make them run around to exhaust their energy; his goal was quite clear.
At first, when crossing the ditches and ponds, they didn't find anything. But when they were less than a kilometer away from Dog Urine Spring, Zhao Hongbo frowned and stopped.
"What's wrong, Brother Hongbo?" Yue Feng asked curiously.
"Look at the ground! These are fresh pig footprints, they must have been left last night!"
Zhao Hongbo parted the shrubs that had left a few traces on the ground, bent down and blew on a few fallen leaves, revealing relatively clear hoof prints underneath.
"These...these are the wild boars that didn't go to Erdaoliang last night and survived!" After a moment's thought, Yue Feng determined the general situation.
"Yes! From here, to get to Erdaoliang, you should have to go around about three mountain ridges!"
We fired a shot at Erdaoliang, and the pigs that didn't arrive immediately took a detour this way!
"Look at the hoofprints, they're moving towards Dog Urine Spring!" Zhao Hongbo concluded logically.
Yue Feng nodded: "Yes, that's a good thing. At least the surviving pigs haven't moved and are still active around this water source! This is advantageous for us to set traps to catch the piglets!"
"Let's go, hurry up and go to Dog Urine Spring, let me see if there are any fresh traces there!"
The number of large and small pigs in the herd varies, the group structure is different, and the strategy for placing the traps will also differ. We need to assess the actual situation before making a decision!
"Okay, just hurry up and go, I can keep up!"
After a brief exchange, Zhao Hongbo sped up. Yue Feng, having honed his skills through several hunting seasons in the mountains, had also developed strong legs and kept up with him.
The two hurried on their way and soon crossed the mountain ridge to the area of Dog Urine Spring. Standing on the sunny slope and looking down, even before they got close, Yue Feng noticed large areas of trampling and rolling marks.
“Look! The pigs have really come. There weren’t any signs of them when we came here yesterday!” Yue Feng said.
Zhao Hongbo nodded: "The big pig was startled, especially the boar, which will take a mud bath! Look at the marks around the puddle, that's where the big pig rolled around!"
"To block out odors? To prevent being hunted down?" Yue Feng asked, a thought suddenly occurring to him.
"Yes! These animals are very clever. When they are ambushed, they will try to avoid the risk! Rolling in mud can mask part of their scent and prevent us from following them by scent!"
Let's remove the clips first!
"it is good!"
The two walked down the hillside and soon tiptoed to the vicinity of Dog Urine Spring.
I carefully circled around it. The shallow mud area was a mess, with countless wild boar footprints of all sizes, clearly the traces of a large group of pigs rolling through the mud pit.
Zhao Hongbo continued walking along the pond and arrived near the relatively clean shallow sandy shore.
The muddy soil here has been washed downstream by the water flow, leaving only some relatively coarse silt. The water quality is significantly cleaner than near the mud pit.
“The mud pit has already been rolled over, so setting up traps there won’t be effective. We need to set them up in areas with shallow sand!” Zhao Hongbo said.
“Okay, I don’t know the intricacies of setting the traps, just follow your experience!” Yue Feng nodded again.
"Now I'll get to work. If you don't understand anything, you can ask me! I'll also teach you how to use the clamps! My dad specifically told me this morning not to hold back!"
"Hehe, my uncle mentored me!"
Soon, Zhao Hongbo took out a metal clamp from his satchel and a handful of pre-prepared bait, and got to work.
He didn't notice anything else, but Yue Feng's curiosity was piqued when the bait was being prepared.
What is this thing made of? The taste is so weird! (End of Chapter)