290 WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 
entirely on their great experience and judgment to 
select a place where the geese will come in to roost. 
If they would only use decoys they would more than 
double their success ; as the geese flying around and 
intending after some promiscuous sailing, to alight on the 
same bar, will avoid it at the sight of the least sus- 
picious object, whereas, with decoys they naturally 
presume from the fact of seeing those of their kind, 
that things are all right, and come in without hesitancy. 
The difficulty met with in bar-shooting generally is 
in making a suitable blind. But the hunter is equal to 
the emergency. He selects a sand-bar where he has 
noticed geese roost at night, digs a hole, and sinks a 
barrel or shallow box—the latter he can lie down in— 
places it beneath the sand, where its top will be about 
level with the surface of the bar, puts some hay in the 
bottom upon which to lie, sets his decoys out, goes to 
his blind late in the afternoon and patiently waits for 
the expected geese. 
If he does not make a blind such as described, he 
takes advantage of the protecting shadow of an old 
stump or log, hugs close to it, and is as still and immoy- 
able as the log itself, until the proper time arrives to 
shoot. Then again, dressed in dirty old canvas clothes, 
pants drawn over his long boots to cover their blackness, 
with hat the color of the sand, he lies on a tan-colored 
rubber blanket, sprinkles sand on its outer edges, puts 
a liberal supply over his feet and legs, and waits silent- 
ly for the coming geese. He fires when they are over 
land, for should the dead fall in the water, the swift 
current speedily carries them away, and he knows it is 
almost impossible to capture a cripple in a swift flow- 
ing stream. 
