Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper

Experiences and Observations of E. N. Woodcock

The Noted Hunter and Trapper

as written by Himself and Published in

H-T-T from 1903 to 1913

EDITED BY A. R. Harding

Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper is an autobiography that contains many experiences and observations of Eldred Nathaniel Woodcock during his fifty years of hunting and trapping.

I was born at Lymansville, Potter County, Pennsylvania, August 30, 1844. From early childhood, my nature led me to the Forests and Streams. I have hunted in many of the states of the Far West including the three Pacific States--California, Oregon and Washington. I killed my first panther or cougar in the mountains of Idaho on the headwaters of the Clearwater river. My first real experience in wolfing was in Southeastern Oregon. I met my greatest number of deer in Northwestern California.

I have trapped of late years, in nearly all of the states east of the Mississippi river and also on the White River of Arkansas; also trapped bear and other fur bearing animals and hunted deer in Northern Michigan, also forty years ago.

Another sport which I enjoyed was the "pigeon days." I have netted wild pigeons from the Adirondack Mountains in New York state to Indian Territory--now Oklahoma--trapping them in the states of Michigan, Indiana, Missouri, Pennsylvania and New York.

My nature led me to the Trail and Trap line from early childhood and I have trapped bear and hunted deer in the mountains of Pennsylvania for more than 50 years--half a century--and my picture with my two foxes on my shoulder shows me on the trap line for the season of 1912-13.