Hunting

By Yannik F.

Chapter one

Today I woke up and saw a herd of deer passing by. I picked up my musket and fired twice before they passed. My old musket was falling apart every trip. I could never get close enough to shoot because they could smell my rope from a mile away. If you have not guessed, I am a hunter. I am a middle class hunter who lives on my father’s farm. My father passed away a couple years ago, he was a hunter too, so I decided to take over his shop when he passed. I have been saving up for many years to buy a rifle at the Gunsmith, and now I have enough to buy one. This gun was expensive, even too expensive for soldiers to own, but now I have one. I’m taking it out for its first firing tomorrow because I don’t want to waste the lead today. This gun is the best hunting weapon, it shoot much more accurate than a musket but it is much heavier.

I wake up and head to my small hiding place in the woods and wait, I wait and wait for any animal to arrive, then it appears. A large deer about 30 yards away is eating some berries, I slowly and quietly pull back the trigger and fire. I hit the deer and run over, I pull out my knife expecting to have to finish it off, but I don’t. It is already dead. I hit it right in the back of the head, my first headshot of the season. I skin and clean the deer there and bring it back to my shop. I keep the fur to make a strap and sell the meat to the butcher. My shop smells like raw flesh but it was worth the money. I have been making my father’s shop larger than ever, I’ve been trading beaver fur and selling meat and other fur. I am thinking about how proud he would have been of me. I have never met my mother, she fled when I was a baby. She might be still alive, but I will never know.

Chapter two

I’ve been captured… I’ve been captured by the indians. I was hunting on their land and they took me in. They have me tied up and they want me to talk to their leader. Their leader asks me why I was on their land. I told him I was only hunting and I lost track of where I was. I had a couple rabbits and beaver fur with me so I traded that for my release. I saw how many animals they caught and asked “Is that just from today?” The Leader replied “Yes,” I asked how they got so many animals and they said they used very accurate bows and a trap called a snare. I have never heard of a snare before, but it looked like it was very successful. I asked them If they could teach me how to make these things, they said yes. I came back to the village the next day and saw the large yet light longbow. Before they taught me how to make it they taught me how to shoot. They told me I would need lots of practice because children start at very young ages and are still not very good. I took many shots and they did not go far or where I wanted them to go. Days and weeks went by and I soon became very good a shooting. They taught me how to make it, you would find a 6 to 7 foot branch and whittle out the ends. You would do this until the wood it very flexible. The string was just tied to the ends.

I have been wondering about the snare for many weeks, I kept seeing it but never knew what it did. They finally started teaching me about the snare. I did really need to do anything besides make it and check it. It was easy but complicated to make but it was very effective. I started to make bows of my own and set a couple snares out near my house. Soon I had double the amount of meat and fur than I did before. My shop was filled with meat and fur, I never had this much. One morning I was checking the snares and found a bear. I had never caught a bear in a snare before and I did not know what to do. I had my knife but it was too ferocious to get close. I went back to my house to get a gun and when I went back with my rifle it was gone. This was very bad because bear was very expensive and this was a big one. I looked around and saw it. It was trapped in one of my other snares. I shot it twice brought it back to my shop.