Chapter 887
New Discoveries
Zhao Hongbo brought two kinds of medicinal bait into the mountains.
The basic ingredients are all processed corn kernels, but the taste is completely different.
Its natural flavor is sweet and fragrant, like the taste of milk candy combined with sweet white sugar, making people want to take a bite as soon as they smell it.
Another type is corn kernels that have turned dark brown. Compared to the first type of bait, these corn kernels don't smell as good.
It emitted an indescribable earthy smell, as if it had been boiled in a liquid like pig's blood, mixed with eels or earthworms. Yue Feng took a few in his hand, but after just a slight sniff, he couldn't help but frown.
This flavor is incredibly addictive.
Seeing Yue Feng studying the medicinal bait he had brought into the mountains, Zhao Hongbo chuckled and explained, "These medicinal baits were specially processed by my dad using a secret recipe passed down from our ancestors! This sweet-smelling one is for catching piglets! The one next to it with the stronger smell is more effective on adult pigs!"
"Huh? There's a difference in the taste between pork lamb and wild boar?" Yue Feng scratched his head. This was the first time he had ever dabbled in this kind of knowledge, and it completely touched on a blank area of his understanding.
"Of course, the bigger the wild boar, the more timid it is, and the more cautious it is when it comes to food in the wild. Nine times out of ten, big boars will not dare to eat this kind of sweet and fragrant medicinal bait!"
Inexperienced and daring piglets are more susceptible to these sweet-smelling medicinal baits!
As for the other type, with its fishy and pungent smell, it contained eel blood and minced meat, which was much more appealing to large wild boars, while the piglets were less interested!
"Okay, I understand!" Yue Feng nodded after listening and kept these details in mind.
Zhao Hongbo walked around the beach area and then chose a spot to place the trap.
This is a spot next to a shrub slightly thicker than a child's wrist. The fine sand is very even, and only a few plants grow here and there.
Zhao Hongbo grabbed the short-handled shovel used for setting the clamps and got to work.
After selecting a location, dig a shallow pit, then arrange the clamps according to the preset positions, and finally lock the fixed wire rope to the main trunk of the shrub.
After completing the basic steps of setting the animal trap, he took out a brush made of pig bristles from his bag and meticulously brushed away the loose sand, trying his best to restore the trap to its previous state.
Next, the second, the third, and the fourth!
He brought a total of seven medium-sized clips and two large-sized clips, which he carefully arranged in a circle in the area not far from the Dog Urine Spring.
Yue Feng carefully observed and learned how to set up hunting traps, paying close attention to even the most inconspicuous details.
To be honest, setting traps is an art. Yue Feng used to know some basic things, but compared to a true trap-setting expert, he was far inferior.
After setting up all the traps, Zhao Hongbo grabbed two large handfuls of bait and casually scattered them around the area where the traps were set.
"Brother Hongbo, you pay so much attention to detail when setting up the traps, but you can just scatter the bait anywhere?" Yue Feng asked, somewhat puzzled.
Zhao Hongbo shook his head with a smile: "Who said this is just scattering it randomly! There's a lot of knowledge involved! You probably didn't notice just now, but when I was digging the hole, I manually placed the bait under the trigger pedal!"
The scattered bait is meant to lower the prey's guard; what truly entices them to step into the trap is the bait underneath!
Yue Feng had just noticed the medicinal bait below, and after hearing this, he immediately realized what it meant.
"Wild boars have an excellent sense of smell. Once they've eaten some scattered treats, they'll definitely keep looking for the scent, so they'll go and eat the bait hidden under the traps!" Yue Feng said.
"That's right! The big wild boar trap targets the pig's leg! The little wild boar trap targets the pig's snout! The depth of the pits when placing the traps is also different!" Zhao Hongbo continued to explain.
After listening, Yue Feng suddenly understood: "I get it!"
"The traps are set, now we can retreat! You lead the hunting dogs back the way we came, making sure they don't run around and step on the traps! I'll clean up the footprints on the ground!"
"it is good!"
At Yue Feng's call, all the hunting dogs that had been frolicking around the dog urine spring quickly gathered together and followed Yue Feng away from the outer area where the traps were set.
As for Zhao Hongbo, he put away a specially made brush and walked backwards, erasing the footprints on the ground as he went.
Once everyone had completely left the water source area, he had thoroughly cleaned up the hunters' footprints left on the ground. Observing the hunting ground area where the traps had been set from a distance of several dozen meters, apart from the faintly visible oil ropes fixed under some bushes and tree trunks, there was almost no sign that anyone had been there.
Zhao Hongbo glanced at Yue Feng and said, "Now that the traps are ready, shall we take the dog for a stroll? Since these wild boars drank water at Dog Urine Spring last night, I bet they didn't go far. They're probably hiding in some ravine nearby! Since we've brought the dog into the mountains, let's give them some exercise!"
"Let's go! Let's turn around towards Erdaoliang from here! We left two wild boar offal in the water last night to worship the mountain god. I wonder if it attracted any other predators! We're fattening up for winter, so the forest isn't very peaceful!" Yue Feng suggested.
"Let's go, that's what I meant too! Let's wander around, we can both drive away those wild boars and see if there are any other wild animals that haven't shown up yet!"
"Let's go!" Yue Feng nodded and shouted at the pack of dogs again. The seven hunting dogs scattered and darted off towards Erdaoliang.
Yue Feng and Zhao Hongbo, with two guns and seven adult hunting dogs, were practically the most formidable hunters in the forest. In the surrounding area of the forest farm, a hunting team of this strength was undoubtedly the leader. They had nothing to fear, not to mention ordinary wild boars, even if they encountered an adult black bear.
For the next two hours or so, the two men, with their hunting dogs, wandered around the woods.
The dogs didn't catch any decent prey, only their leader, Canglong, caught a half-grown honey badger (yellow-throated marten) that was wandering alone for some reason.
Since honey dogs don't provide fur and their meat isn't tasty, Yue Feng didn't kill them indiscriminately. He snatched the honey dog from Canglong's mouth alive, thus sparing its life.
Strolling along, chatting and laughing, the two arrived at the Erdaoliang area.
Even from a distance, the pungent smell of blood could be detected.
The spot where the pig's blood was drained last night was right in front of us. The blood and some internal organs of more than ten wild boars had leaked out, and the smell was quite unpleasant.
After a night of fermentation, the stench of blood had mixed with the smell of decay. The buzzing of flies could be heard from a distance, and white residue (fly eggs) had already been laid on the pig's blood and offal. It was foreseeable that the stench would not dissipate anytime soon, and as the maggots grew and multiplied, the number of flies would only increase!
"Damn, the smell here at Erdaoliang is awful!" Yue Feng frowned as he faced the mountain wind.
"It started snowing heavily overnight! Although the temperature dropped a bit in the second half of the night, it was still high during the day. This year there has been a lot of rain, so the late summer heat is going to be strong!" Zhao Hongbo said with a smile.
“It smells awful, but we have to go check it out! I’m afraid it’ll attract other wild animals!” “Go! You go ahead and scout the way, I’ll cover you!” Zhao Hongbo nodded to Yue Feng, took the gun off his shoulder and held it in his hand.
It smelled bad, but Yue Feng didn't care about the smell anymore. It was nothing compared to the stench of a highly decomposed black bear or a human corpse, something Yue Feng had personally experienced before.
He cautiously made his way towards the bottom of the gully at Erdaoliang, his eyes searching around for the wild boar offal that he remembered hanging from a tree branch the night before.
His gaze swept around and the bloodstains on the ground were still quite clear, but the pig offal hanging on the tree was gone.
"Hey? That's strange! Where did the pig offal go last night? Did someone secretly pick it?" Yue Feng muttered to himself, carefully recalling the location where it was hung on the tree branch last night, and continued his search.
Last night, Yue Feng thought it through very clearly. There was a set of boar offal that had been shot to pieces, so Yue Feng decided to use it as an offering to the God of Wealth.
The only thing he wasn't entirely sure about was the poor lighting at night, which meant Yue Feng hadn't been able to see the surrounding plants clearly, but it was a fact that they were hanging on the tree branches.
After searching around, I finally found the tree branch that had been hanging from the drain yesterday, but there were only some bloodstains and the smell of feces left on it; the drain was gone.
Yue Feng subconsciously looked him up and down, his gaze landing on the tree trunk, which was about a meter or so in size.
After seeing the marks on the tree trunk, Yue Feng immediately took the gun off his shoulder and released the safety.
"What's wrong, Xiaofeng?" Zhao Hongbo asked immediately when he saw Yue Feng's reaction.
"Brother Hongbo, come and see! The smell of blood from last night's battlefield has attracted everyone!" Yue Feng said with certainty.
Soon, Zhao Hongbo cautiously approached, gun in hand.
What traces did you find?
Yue Feng pointed to the claw marks on the tree trunk: "These must have been left by an adult black bear!"
Zhao Hongbo looked them up and down, and they really were scratch marks left by a bear.
The scratches on the tree bark were very fresh and deep, clearly belonging to a robust adult black bear.
“This is a mark left by a mother bear! This is really interesting!” Zhao Hongbo said with great certainty.
Adult black bears, regardless of gender, mark their territory with scent and claw marks; this is a consensus among hunters who have been running in the mountains for many years.
The practice of "sticking to autumn fat" (eating more to prepare for winter) is not just an activity exclusive to wild boars; bears are also one of the main culprits in damaging crops.
A black bear weighing several hundred kilograms can devour nearly a hundred kilograms of fresh corn ears in just one day and night. Once it sets its sights on a cornfield, it can clean it out in just a few days.
Yue Feng carefully examined the tracks left by the bear and said, "Look at the footprints on the ground. It dragged the dung from the tree branch and headed towards the ditch in the southeast! Brother Hongbo, should we give chase?"
Zhao Hongbo looked down and carefully examined the faint footprints, saying, "If I'm not mistaken, it should be a mother bear with a cub! Look, there's more than half of a cub's hind paw print here! It's clearly a size smaller than the mother bear's footprint!"
The discovery of an adult black bear coming down from the mountain near the forest is considered a very good opportunity for hunters. In the past two years, black bears have been appearing less and less frequently due to villagers clearing land and logging.
"One big and one small? These bears are not easy to mess with! What should we do?" Yue Feng continued to ask.
Zhao Hongbo frowned slightly and hesitated for two seconds: "It's a bit risky for just the two of us with the dog to chase after this bear with its cubs!"
The forest is too dense now, and even with guns, people can only see a range of 20 to 30 meters at most!
We don't need this meat. The mother bear has cubs. Even if we kill the mother bear, the cubs will most likely starve to death!
Otherwise, let's just forget about it! Go back and organize the villagers for their regular night watch, and stop pursuing them!
The more authentic the hunter's lineage, the greater their reverence for nature, mountains, forests, and wild animals.
Unlike those unsavory villagers who get carried away by the opportunity to make money and completely ignore the hunting risks in the mountain forest environment in different seasons, they would not hunt mother bears with cubs without any scruples.
The dense vegetation in the forest makes it extremely difficult for dogs to track or engage with bears after spotting them.
Although the chances of a gun hunter are much higher overall, the risks are not small. If things go wrong and a dog or a person is injured, the losses will outweigh the gains.
Yue Feng understood what Zhao Hongbo meant, and he nodded: "Okay! I'll go back and use the loudspeaker to remind the villagers! In case the livestock come down the mountain and into the farmland and hurt someone!"
"Okay, let's go! The dog is making such a ruckus, and the bear has a keen nose and sharp ears. As long as it doesn't want to show itself, we can't catch up with it on foot!"
Yue Feng: "Then let's go down the mountain! Let's go home and catch up on some sleep, because we still need to organize the villagers to continue the autumn protection and night watch tonight!"
"Ok!"
……
Two intelligent people who knew the rules of the forest reached a consensus after only a few words of conversation.
Before the leaves were even released, bears were not easy to hunt in the mountains and forests. This time, when they encountered a mother and cub of black bears who came to eat the offerings by smelling the scent, Yue Feng decided to let them go.
Having made up their minds, the two took the dog and circled the surrounding mountains before returning to Chaiji Road. Then they rode their motorcycles down the mountain.
First, they went to the breeding farm to return the hunting dogs, and then rode their bicycles down the mountain with Zhao Hongbo back to the village.
Soon, the village loudspeaker started broadcasting again.
Yesterday's autumn protection operation has ended, and today we will continue to organize villagers to take night shifts to protect the autumn crops.
The difference is that the group assignments remain the same, but not everyone needs to be on standby all night. People in the group who know each other can freely discuss who will keep watch at night to prevent damage to the farmland at the foot of the mountain.
Over the loudspeaker, Yue Feng also mentioned the news that he had discovered traces of a bear during the day when he went into the mountains, and asked the villagers to pay attention to safety during their night watch and to try not to confront a mother bear with her cubs.
He had given instructions and reminders, but Yue Feng, despite all his calculations, still hadn't anticipated this.
Something still went wrong. (End of Chapter)