American Hunting: Starting with Solitary Life in the Wilderness

Chapter 68 First Snow Bunny

The fifty-seventh day,
Lin Yu'an woke up in a strange silence.

Unlike the usual morning chirping of birds and rustling of wind through the coniferous forest, everything outside the shelter was unusually quiet today.

He sat up with some confusion, rolled over, crawled out of his sleeping bag, and left the warm deerskin rug.

The stove inside the stone house was still burning, but because of the thick layer of reed insulation on the walls, the room did not feel cold.

He walked outside the shelter, and the sight that came into view made him gasp instantly!
Overnight, the whole world changed!
A vast expanse of white covered everything in sight! The ground, tree branches, the roof of his woodshed and the smokehouse were all covered with a thick layer of snow!

The sky remained overcast, and tiny snowflakes continued to fall steadily from the gray clouds without any sign of stopping.

"It's snowing...it's snowing heavily!" Lin Yu'an's face was filled with shock and excitement.

He stepped out of the shelter, his feet crunching as they sank into the soft snow.

A gust of icy, biting wind mixed with snowflakes rushed towards him, making him shiver involuntarily.

However, after a brief moment of shock, Lin Yu'an's eyes did not show any panic or frustration.

Wow! Look at this snow! It's amazing!

His tone shifted from initial shock to exhilarating excitement, and he even opened his arms to the swirling snowflakes.

"Guys! I never thought I'd actually make it to this day when it snows so heavily!"

He excitedly faced the camera, his breath clearly visible in the cold air.

"Do you know what this means?"

"This means that all the camouflage has been removed! Any animal will leave its clearest tracks!"

He bent down, grabbed a handful of soft snow, and felt its coldness and purity.

"This is the environment every hunter dreams of! Tracking will become easier than ever before!"

"And, fortunately, I had prepared in advance."

He pointed to his sturdy stone shelter and the makeshift woodshed next to it, which he had piled high with dry firewood.

"Our shelter has been fully upgraded with reed insulation, making it capable of withstanding such low temperatures."

He turned and walked into the shelter, pointing his camera at the hanging smoked venison jerky and the fish balls stored in earthenware jars.

"The large amount of dried meat and fish balls is enough to ensure that I won't go hungry even if I'm stuck indoors for days!"

"However, the downside is that the wind is very strong, so my Pioneer has no chance of being used at all."

He first cleared the snow from the entrance of the shelter and the path leading to the woodshed, then carried a large bundle of dry firewood out of the woodshed and relit the stove inside the stone house.

A roaring fire rose up, and soon the entire stone house was warm as spring, a stark contrast to the icy and snowy scene outside.

For breakfast, he lavishly stewed a pot of steaming fish ball soup in an earthenware pot, adding plenty of wild onions and a few pieces of smoked venison to enhance the flavor.

The piping hot meat soup and fish balls dispelled the last trace of chill from my body!
After finishing breakfast, Lin Yu'an did not hesitate at all and immediately began to prepare for the snow operation.

"We cannot stop our operations just because of a heavy snowfall; on the contrary, we must seize this opportunity!"

He put on all his warmest clothes, donned fur gloves, and then stepped into the vast, snowy forest that filled him with excitement.

Walking in the snow is difficult; you sink into the snow with every step.

But he soon proved his judgment correct.

"Look here!" He pointed to a series of clear, plum blossom-shaped footprints in the snow. "These are the tracks left by snowshoe hares! In the snow, their tracks are as clear as highway signs!"

Lin Yu'an's face was filled with excitement. He didn't immediately follow the footprints, but squatted down to observe them carefully.

“Guys, tracking in the snow is not just about following footprints.”

“We need to use these tracks to determine its behavior pattern. The footprints are short and the path is rather winding, indicating that it was not running away, but leisurely searching for food.”

He stood up and looked in the direction the footprints led—to a low, snow-covered thicket of bushes.

"The snowshoe hare's main food in winter is the tender branches and bark of these shrubs, and this shrub thicket is very likely its 'dining hall'."

"And wherever there is a canteen, there must be a road leading to the canteen!"

Lin Yu'an surveyed the area around the perimeter of the thicket.

Sure enough, just as he expected, there were several relatively obvious rutted paths in the snow within this seemingly chaotic thicket.

"Found it! This is the rabbit path!"

“They travel along these familiar paths almost every day, making them the perfect spots to set traps!”

Lin Yu'an chose the first rabbit trail that looked to have the densest footprints. This trail happened to pass between several closely packed spruce seedlings.

"I will make a simple and classic fixed lasso trap."

"This type of trap has no complicated triggering mechanism; it relies entirely on the strength of the materials and the precision of the location to capture its prey."

He first cut a piece of steel wire about forty centimeters long and quickly made a smooth loop about ten centimeters in diameter.

Next, he tightly wrapped the non-slip end of the wire lasso around the base of a spruce sapling beside the rabbit trail, tightening it to ensure it was exceptionally secure.

He used the rigidity of the steel wire itself, along with the branches of several spruce trees around him, to support the lasso, suspending it in the middle of the rabbit trail.

"Look, like this, make sure the bottom edge of the lasso is about a fist's height above the snow."

"This height is just right where the head and neck will pass through, and it will squeeze its head in without any warning."

He carefully adjusted the lasso to ensure it was perpendicular to the rabbit path and had a smooth, rounded opening without any obvious obstruction.

"The principle behind this trap is simple: once the rabbit's head and neck pass through the noose, the noose will naturally tighten as it continues to move forward."

"The more it struggles, the tighter the noose will tighten, and eventually it will be trapped."

From a distance, in the clear rabbit trail on the snow, only a metal ring hangs suspended, almost blending into the surrounding withered branches.

Over the next few hours, Lin Yu'an used the same method to install five more similar fixed wire ropes.

Lin Yu'an patted the snow off his hands, a confident smile spreading across his face.

"The snowshoe hares in this area have a relatively fixed range of activity. With these six new lassos, I believe that the source of fresh protein should become very stable in the next few days."

It was already afternoon when the trap was set up.

A series of sharp whistling sounds came from the distant mountain ridge, and visibility was not as good as in the morning.

Lin Yu-an had no choice but to return to the shelter.

(That's 5 chapters for now. I'll post another 5 during the day.)
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(End of this chapter)