American Hunting: Starting with Solitary Life in the Wilderness

Chapter 207 Uninvited guest!
That roar that echoed across the icy plains carried away all the pressure that had accumulated in Lin Yu'an's heart, and also exhausted his last bit of strength to indulge in unbridled joy.

He slowly lowered his arms, his chest heaving violently like a broken bellows, breathing in the cold air.

After the initial excitement subsided, his eyes gradually regained the calm and sharpness befitting a hunter.

The silvery harvest of over forty fish before us is both a medal of victory and a huge, countdown-ready problem.

Such a strong fishy smell, on this ice field where smells are extremely sensitive, is a signal to all predators within a radius of tens of kilometers that it's time to eat.

Wolves, wolverines, and even polar bears further away, with their keen noses, have likely already detected the scent and begun moving towards this location.

He had to patiently unravel the fish one by one, which was slower, but it would preserve the integrity of the gillnet to the greatest extent possible.

"Now, it's time to test your patience and skills." He spoke urgently to the camera, but his eyes were unusually focused.

"I have to get these fish off the net in the shortest amount of time and with the least amount of damage. It will be troublesome, but it has to be done."

Instead of starting immediately, he strode back to the ice fishing shed and carefully lifted out the tin bucket containing burning charcoal and firewood.

The handle of the tin bucket was scorching hot, but he wore thick gloves and gripped it firmly, placing this "mobile fireplace" directly next to the huge pile of fish.

The blazing flames danced even more violently in the biting wind, their orange-red light illuminating the surrounding ice and snow and the pile of fish, creating a peculiar scene.

Lin Yu-an faced the camera with a confident smile, "When performing delicate work for a long time in such low temperatures, the biggest enemy is stiff fingers that lead to loss of tactile sensation."

"Although I wore waterproof gloves to keep out moisture, I couldn't stop the heat from being lost quickly through contact with the cold fish."

"But with this portable fire source, I can warm my hands at any time to ensure that my operational precision does not decrease."

He stretched out his gloved hands and warmed them above the fire, feeling the heat quickly penetrate the material of the gloves, restoring warmth and sensitivity to his fingertips.

After all the preparations were complete, he walked to the pile of "silver carpet," knelt on the snow, and began his long and meticulous work of "dissecting the fish."

The first one to be processed was a red-spotted salmon that was stuck the tightest. Its head had already passed through the mesh, but its open gill covers and plump body were tightly bound by the tough nylon thread.

He didn't pull hard, which would be the least efficient and most damaging way to handle the net. Instead, he used the fingers of one hand to pinch the fish's head and forcefully close its gills.

Then, using the fingers of the other hand, like plucking a string, carefully peel away the nylon mesh strands wrapped around the gill covers one by one.

His fingers moved quickly between the cold fish and the slippery netting. Once all the netting was freed from the gill covers, he pushed the fish out of the mesh, its body facing backward.

With a soft "plop," the first fish was successfully freed, the intact fishing net leaving only a shallow mark on its body.

He demonstrated it to the camera: "Look, this is the correct solution. The key is to tighten the gills and then push in the opposite direction. If you pull in the forward direction, the gills will open wider and get stuck even more."

He used the same method to quickly process the red-spotted salmon that were stuck in the standard way.

One, two, three... The fish he caught piled up more and more on the snow beside him.

But soon, he encountered an even more troublesome problem: those huge lake trout.

They were so big that their heads and bodies were tangled together by several torn meshes and the surrounding netting, like a messy ball of yarn.

Faced with this situation, he showed even greater patience.

First, a wooden weaving shuttle was made. Using its flat tip, like a scalpel, it was inserted into the tangled netting to untangle the knots little by little and straighten the ends of the threads.

This process was extremely time-consuming and demanding on his eyesight, especially in the biting cold wind. Every ten minutes or so, he had to stop and warm his hands over the fire.

I didn't return to work until my fingertips regained their sensitivity to subtle touches.

Time passed second by second, and he was like a focused and silent craftsman, methodically repeating the cycle of dissecting the fish, warming his hands, and dissecting the fish again.

Finally, after nearly an hour, he successfully "peeled" the last, and largest, lake trout from the fishing net.

He stood up and stretched his back, which had become stiff from kneeling for so long.

Then, looking at the fishing net in front of him, which was somewhat stretched and deformed but whose main structure was intact, and the pile of complete fish next to it, a smile full of accomplishment appeared on his face.

"It's done." He breathed a sigh of relief.

"This is at least three times slower than cutting the net directly, but..."

He lifted a corner of the fishing net and showed it to the camera, saying, "The net is still intact, which means my 'money printing machine' can continue to work."

"The effort of this hour is worthwhile because it avoids spending more time repairing the fishing nets."

He carefully cleaned the fishing net to remove any remaining ice chips and seaweed before tackling the next, most challenging problem.

That is, how to efficiently and safely transport this batch of spoils, weighing more than 40 kilograms in total, back to the shelter.

The fish had frozen solid like stones by the time he untied the net, and they made a "bang bang" sound when he tapped them.

"This is both a good thing and a bad thing," he explained to the camera as he quickly thought through his thoughts.

"The good thing is that they no longer bleed, the odor will be less noticeable, and they will be easier to stack. The bad thing is that they become hard and slippery, making them very difficult to carry individually, and the total weight remains unchanged."

"However, I had already considered this issue." He looked at the camera, a slight upturn of his lips revealing a confident smile.

He dragged out something from the corner of the ice fishing shed that he had previously used as a shelf. It was a simple branch tug he had made a few days ago specifically for hauling firewood.

He placed the tractor on the snow and began loading. He neatly piled the frozen, hard-boiled red salmon one by one onto the branch tractor.

He cleverly used the size and shape of the fish, interlacing and positioning them to make the entire stack exceptionally stable, so that it would not easily fall apart even on bumpy snow.

Their hardness became an advantage at this moment. More than forty fish of different sizes were quickly piled up on the tugboat into a neat and orderly silver mountain.

Next, he picked out the three largest lake trout separately; their bodies were still slightly soft.

Using a spare rope, he skillfully threaded it under their gill covers and secured the three large lake trout together, attaching them to the very front of the tugboat.

After doing all this, he looked at the messy ice surface and said to the camera, "Before I leave, there is one more important thing."

"I can't waste this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Now that the fish have been attracted, there's no reason for me to only catch one."

He picked up three medium-sized, frozen red-spotted salmon and walked to the huge net opening he had cleared.

He swung his woodcutter's axe and chopped down hard at the three frozen fish.

"Dang! Dang! Dang!"

The hard fish body burst open under the axe blade, splattering bits of flesh, entrails, and frozen blood everywhere.

In no time, he had chopped the three whole fish into a pile of bloody, mangled pieces mixed with ice shards.

Then, without a second thought, he kicked all of this extravagant "replenishment feed" into the ice cave.

“The effect of the scent bomb will weaken over time, but now that I have this, it will create a new scent center made of real flesh and blood.” “Enough to keep this school of fish here for at least another day. Use a portion of the profits to gamble on an even bigger round of gains, and the return on this investment must far exceed the value of these three red-spotted salmon.”

After saying that, he sank the cleaned fishing net back into the water, put it back in its original position, and locked it in the same way.

Lin Yu-an put the horse's reins over his shoulder, took a deep breath, and began trekking toward the shelter.

He wore the snowshoes he had made himself; their wide, mesh structure evenly distributed his weight across the snow, allowing him to walk steadily.

However, while snowshoes solved the problem of vertical sinking, they couldn't solve the resistance of horizontal dragging.

The load, weighing over 80 pounds, caused the two branches that served as the tracks for the horse to carve two deep furrows in the thick snow.

The snow no longer made the light "crunch" sound of walking, but rather a dull, continuous "plop-crunch" sound as it was forcibly squeezed by the horses.

With each step forward, he needed to lean forward, almost parallel to the ground, to resist the enormous resistance from behind and maintain his rhythm as he slowly moved forward step by step.

The return journey was not long, but it felt exceptionally long because of the enormous weight.

When the familiar outline of the shelter, half-buried in the snow, finally came into view, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

Just as he was about to reach the shelter and his mind relaxed slightly, his keen eyes caught something unusual.

About twenty meters from the entrance to the shelter, on an open snowfield, a series of animal paw prints, not his, appeared out of nowhere.

Lin Yu'an's heart sank when he saw the footprints, and his expression instantly became serious.

"Wolf……"

He immediately stopped, gently put the horse down, and then quietly drew the sharp hunting knife from his waist, while gripping the logging axe in his other hand.

In an instant, he switched from a tired fisherman back to a vigilant hunter.

He crouched down and carefully examined the set of footprints. The footprints were large and the stride was steady, indicating that the owner was an adult male.

More importantly, there was only one set of footprints, and the same route was taken both ways.

“A lone wolf.” He said to the camera, his voice low and serious.

"This is better than facing a pack of wolves, but in some ways it is worse. A lone wolf is either an old, weak, sick, or disabled wolf that has been driven out by the pack."

"Either... it's the strongest, most cunning, and most daring alpha wolf. Judging from the depth and strength of these footprints, I'm afraid I've encountered the latter."

This is most likely an eastern forest wolf, one of the top predators along this Labrador coastline; they are intelligent, resilient, and extremely patient.

He gently touched the edge of the footprint with his finger; the snow crystals were still clearly visible, showing no signs of being smoothed out by the wind.

"The footprints are very fresh, no more than three hours old."

This means that while he was reveling in the glacier, the lone wolf was making a meticulous "visit" to his home.

He followed the footprints and found that they extended from the distant mountains and forests, circling his shelter several times.

Even the "Yukii Refrigerator" he used to store food showed signs of lingering and digging.

Clearly, it smelled the scent of stored food, and after realizing it couldn't open the 55-gallon barrel buried deep under the snow and weighed down by a heavy object, the wolf headed away into the forest.

But this place has already attracted the attention of this uninvited guest, and it could return at any time!
Lin Yu'an stood up and looked toward the distant ridgeline. Although there was nothing there, he had a strong feeling of being watched.

That feeling was like having thorns in your back, a gaze from another predator that every skilled hunter could sense.

He knew that the wolf was probably not far away; it was probably on some high point, quietly observing its sanctuary, observing him, and the wagon loaded with fish behind him.

Lin Yu'an's expression turned extremely serious: "It must have remembered this place. I brought back so many fish today, it will definitely come back!"

A strong, hunter-like fighting impulse surged within him!

He instinctively gripped the axe handle, his mind already planning a tracking route. He longed to grab his bow and arrows immediately, follow the clear trail of footprints, and hunt down the lone wolf.

Killing it would not only eliminate this enormous threat, but also bring him a complete wolf pelt and dozens of kilograms of the red meat he had always dreamed of! The temptation was immense.

However, he quickly suppressed the impulse with reason.

He looked up at the sky; the sun had already sunk below the southwestern horizon, and the sky was rapidly transitioning from bright pale to deep indigo.

In another hour and a half at most, night will fall completely.

He shook his head, looking at the camera as if trying to convince himself, "No, it's too late now."

“To go after a wolf that has an advantage over me in the dark at this point is not hunting, it’s suicide. Besides, my priority right now is to protect the food I have.”

This discovery and the inner struggle made him realize that if he didn't have enough powerful forces to protect his accumulated food resources, then they wouldn't be resources, but rather death warrants.

He didn't linger; instead, he immediately took action.

He pulled the tractor to the "snow well refrigerator" he had dug earlier. The snow well was a meter deep, and inside was the 55-gallon blue plastic bucket.

He first laboriously moved the heavy stone slab that was pressing on the plastic bucket lid, then twisted the lid open, revealing the empty bucket opening underneath, which contained only some mussel meat and a few frozen fish.

"Alright, guys, let's start moving them into the storage now. I'm not going to move all the fish into the shelter; that would make the place smell terrible and attract unwanted attention."

"Most of the grain reserves will be stored in this more robust and concealed outdoor vault."

They began to quickly and meticulously toss the red-spotted salmon from the trolley into the bucket, one by one. The frozen fish collided with each other, making a clanging sound.

After all the red-spotted salmon were in the storage room, he did not immediately put the lid on.

From the shelter, they took out several large pieces of charcoal that had been burned and were completely carbonized, crushed them, and sprinkled them evenly on the top layer of fish.

He explained, “This is the first line of defense: odor isolation. Charcoal is an excellent absorbent; it can absorb most of the fishy smell emanating from the fish.”

"This minimizes the possibility of odor leakage, a technique used by experienced hunters to prevent animal disturbance when preserving jerky."

Then, he carefully placed the lid on the bucket opening, tightened it, and placed a wooden board on top of it.

Finally, he painstakingly placed the huge stone slab, weighing several dozen kilograms, back into its original position, pressing it firmly onto the wooden board.

"This weight is enough to withstand any overturning or prying. Even a polar bear would have to put in a lot of effort to move it, giving me enough time to react."

After doing all this, he used a large amount of snow to completely cover the entire snow well.

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(End of this chapter)