Gramps stories

[fuzz269]

I always look forward to readin your oldtime stories BWM.

[nightrider]

I to enjoy your stories back.

[backwoodsman]

Thanks guys. I'll try to post more soon.

[backwoodsman]

This story took place a few years after Gramps got back from WW1(early 20's). Gramps returned to find his young wife had miscarried about 6 months after he left for Europe. They had lost their small farm due to medical bills and the small monthly payment doughboys got. Gramps had all but a few dollars a month sent back to Granny. Granny had moved in with her parents and didnt want him to worry so noone had written him to let him know. He didnt return until the summer of 1919. Grandma still hadnt recovered but Grandpa was able to purchase a small house with the money she had saved after she moved home to her parents and Gramps final Army payment. Gramps got a railroad job part time. Forward about 2 years, fur prices had crashed, ducks "werent worth the powder and shot" to get them to market. Fox's had a bounty of $3, the few wolves left were valued at $5 a scalp. Coons and muskrats were .05, only the biggest possums brought .02. Mink were $5 or so tops and rather scarce too. Weasels were $2-$4 and the biggest surprise of all was NO.1 grade skunks were bringing up to $8. Granny had to sell most of gramps and her stuff which included most of gramps guns while he was overseas. Later he was able to buy most of their stuff back as she had sold most of it to neighbors, friends and "kin". But that was later, a few guns took decades to reacquire. About 1921 or so granny was doing better and gramps decided he could get back on the longline trapline. Canine's and skunks were about the only furs worth chasing. That spring gramps scalped a wolf and traded the $5 scalp to a neighbor for a worn .22 revolver, 200 rds of long ammo and 10 laying hens. He decided about mid October granny could spend sometime alone without much danger so he packed their mule with 5 dozen traps for weasel, skunk, fox's and wolves and set out to trap the bluffs and ridges over the Illinois River. He still had his Winchester .32 special. With the Winchester, .22 revolver and a single shot 12ga he set out for two week loops. He'd set up camp and trap an area for 4 -6 days depending on the game. At his second camp he had a nice collection of skunks, weasels, fox's and 2 wolves from about 5 days trapping. The first check after he got his line out he had a double jaw set at an old den flipped over. He reset it and had a nice NO.1 skunk the next day. He reset it with an eye toward a fox. Twice more in the next 4 days it was flipped. He'd had canine's do this before but the time was coming to move on, the catch had dropped to almost nothing. On the 7th morning he took a wolf and a yearling that were crossing the ridge above him. With the wolf pelts and scalps he felt he could wait a few more days and chase the fox since by now he was taking it as a personal thing. He tried bedding a different trap back from the original with no luck, the new one had a dropping on it. Next day he switched the original out with a no.4 double long spring but the fox still dug around the edges of the set. Finaly he decided its tonight or never. He stood back and looked at the ground/area. There was a little mound about 20 feet away that had a matted down area on top. After looking closer gramps thought the fox may be stepping up on it to look over at the den set. He cut the sod with his hatchet and set a No.4 Dbl long with a "clog" on the very top and covered it with the grass from the mound. After a suspenseful night he headed directly to the mound/den set. As he approached he seen a BIG black blob on the mound. It took him a minute to realize it was a canine of some kind. The critter was more aggressive then most. He dispatched it. He picked up his line and headed home to sell some of his catch and check on granny. After a day long trip and making sure granny was ok he headed into town and the fur buyer told him he had caught a silver fox. The furbuyer told gramps he'd loose money scalping it so gramps sold it to him without claiming his $3. Gramps wasnt for sure it was a silver fox but the buyer gave him $25. About a month later a neighbor came by and said the buyer was cussing grandpa and calling him everything but a whiteman. Gramps asked why? The neighbor related the buyer's buyer came thru and broke the bad news, the black critter wasnt a silver fox it was a black phase(?) fox and worth the $3 bounty and .50 cents for the hide! Gramps later learned if it had been a silver it could have been worth over $100! He said he never felt too bad about that deal cause the old buyer was trying to cheat him in the beginning anyhow.

[backwoodsman]

This took place a few years after the turn of the century(20th). Grandpa was about 15, so it would have been about 1902. Deer were almost extinct here. Grandpa and his dad had killed 3 deer two years before a doe, spike and a forkhorn. They had watched a large buck most of the summer. The summer before grandpa's uncle had moved to Arkansas. Before he left he wanted grandpa's father's Winchester .38-55. They had wheeled and dealed and great grandpas favorite rifle was gone. One of the items they recieved from gramps uncle was an old trapdoor Springfield blackpowder.45-70 that had been converted from a Springfield civil war muzzleloading rifle. Someone had shortened it by about a foot, cut a foot off the barrel and stock. They had replaced the front sight with what grandpa thought was half a washer. Quarter size or so. It shot "good enough", it was kept above the backdoor for great grandma. About a week before Christmas it was decided that a deer loin would be great for Christmas dinner and the larder. Grandpa had seen the deer several times while running traps that fall. Once he had him within 50 yards but only had a single barrel shotgun with birdshot. They had several muzzleloading muskets etc but none they wanted to try for the buck with. Grandpa headed out with the springfield one morning about 4 days before Christmas to try for the buck. There was about 4" of snow on the ground. He checked his traps on the way to where he figured the buck was living and cached the hides and meat. About noon he found some deer tracks, after following them for a ways he found a fresh bed and figured he had jumped the deer. After following the trail for a mile or so he found he was at the point of a ridge where two bottoms came together. He sat down and ate his lunch trying to decide what to do next as it was getting late. He decided to try the east bottom and walk the ridge in between since the deer tracks went up the west bottom. He hoped he might catch it bedded again. After just a few steps 2 wolves jumped up on the hillside. Gramps swung on'em and got a shot off. He thought they had crossed the ridge headed west. He had just got the Springfield opened and reloaded when he seen a deer running out of the west bottom right at him. He got a shot off at it. He hurried over and checked the trail and found blood. After a short trailing job gramps found his 10pt buck. It was really late by now so gramps dressed the buck and got 4 saplings cut to lever it up, hopefully out of reach of critters. He saved the kidneys, heart and liver for supper that night. Almost as an after thought he checked the spot where he shot at the wolves. To his surprise there lay one of the wolves. After scalping and skinning it, he followed the trail of the one he missed for a few yards and finaly figured they had jumped the buck up and ran him to gramps. It was a couple hours after dark when he got home. They ate the liver, heart and kidneys for supper with fried potatoes and onions and biscuits and gravy(gramps still smiled when telling of the meal). They used a horse to retrieve the deer the next day. He said he kinda regreted killing the wolf after figuring out if it wasnt for those two wolves he probably never would have got the buck. This would be the last "legal" Illinois deer grandpa killed until about 1973. For a couple of years after this he looked for deer but didnt have any luck taking one. He hunted big game in other states but didnt in Illinois until about 1970.

[white316]

Great story back i could read them all night.

[backwoodsman]

This took place the last few days of October 1916 the year before Grandpa volunteered for the big one(ww1). I know the results of this story are true as this is one of gramps stories he wrote down and also had a picture of it. Its one of his better duck stories. Disclaimer>> Different time and place from now! Grandpa was a market hunter after he got back from "out west". He sold ducks and muskrat carcass's to a local buyer who then shipped them to St.Louis, Chicago, New York etc in iced wooden barrels by train. Gramps was paid .05/'rat and .15-.20/duck that year(plus feeding his family and his wife's family took everything he could get to eat or sell). Gramps was camping by a marsh that was an oxbow of the Illinois River. He had set out the day before to set about 100 traps for 'rats and a few for mink and coons. He had a .22 rifle along and was shooting 'rats for the meat and hides and fresh bait. He bagged about 6 rats and 2 ducks but noticed the ducks were really flying in. He'd returned with his Winchester model '97 12 ga and bagged 31 more ducks just before dark. He also had a contraption at camp he called a battery gun. Gramps example was a muzzleloading 12 barrel 12ga.(later we found it was closer to an 11ga.) the barrels were set side by side but at a little different angle for each. They would wait until there was a "mess" of ducks on the water and flaring in to land and trip all 12 barrels at the same time. Each barrel was primed with its own percussion cap. Gramps set out the next morning just before first light with the "gun", 12 cork duck decoys, his '97 for cripples and 1lb of black powder and 1lb of mixed #2,#4 and #5-6 shot. He set his flat bottom wood skiff up on the far side of the marsh/lake and waited. The battery gun was set up in the bow and by the time the ducks had quit flying in that morning he had fired it 3 times. 3 big booms and a few singles and doubles with the '97 he had 134 ducks in the skiff. He quit and started checking his traps so he could get the ducks and any rats he caught dressed and into the buyer before they started to spoil plus have fresh duck offal to rebait/bait his coon and mink traps. After checking his traps he had 54 rats, 3 mink, 6 coons and a medium female otter that was very rare for this area by then. The wind and weather had been gradualy getting worse all morning and he was almost into whitecaps on this little lake with a fully loaded skiff. He was still about 200 yards from his camp when he happened to look over the side as he was poling and seen a big flathead laying in about 3 foot of water. Without thinking he jumped over the side and grabbed it and managed to get it thrown into the skiff. The flathead of course didnt care for that situation at all and went to flopping and had gramps scared he was going to sink the skiff. Well to make a long story short gramps without thinking grabbed the '97 and gave the flathead a load of #6's between the eyes. The flathead wasnt quite big enough to stop such a charge at 2 feet and gramps skiff starting taking on water. He said the ducks and rats were floating at the very edge of the "gunwale"by the time he got the skiff beached. That was the last time he shot a fish in the bottom of a boat he said. The picture showed gramps with 167 ducks as he hadnt sold the kill from the day before yet, 60 rats, 3 mink, 6 coons, 1 otter and a 70ish lb flathead(scale said 74, but gramps never believed it was quite that big?) the picture was taken by and published in a local gossip paper. Back in that time it wasnt uncommon for several shooters with pump/repeating shotguns to kill over 300 a day gramps said.

[Cam]

Good reading backwoodsman.

[fuzz269]

Great story BWM, I could read your Gramps storys all day. It must be amasing to have some of his origanal jurnals still, real piece of history and one hell of an airloom to pas on to future generations. Please keep posten them, they are great.