BOATS. 305 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
BOATS. 
No duck-hunter can consider his hunting outfit com- 
plete without a boat. It doesn’t matter whether he is 
in the vicinity of water, where a boat may be used 
to advantage, or whether he lives far from ponds 
of considerable size, lakes, or rivers. If he expects to 
hunt ducks and do so with success, he should have 
a boat. The fact that he owns an excellent. re- 
triever does not alter the case. Perhaps this is putting 
the matter almost too strong, but my desire is to impress 
on the mind of the beginner that to wage war success- 
fully he must be properly accoutred. We can easily 
imagine spots where most excellent duck-shooting 
may be had in corn-fields, small, grassy prairie ponds, 
marshes and like places, when a boat is not a necessity 
—on the contrary, an inconvenience. But such places 
as these are the exception and not the rule, and no 
matter how good a dog one has, in overflow, points 
over decoys and in large marshes, and especially in 
deep and swift water, the hunter finds himself at great 
disadvantage unless he has a boat at hand. A dog at 
such places is also at times a necessity, but a boat is 
desirable to reach the feeding grounds, or a point 
where the flight is constantly passing over, or to pass 
over and across a deep stream, and finally locate the 
hunter where ducks are haying their midday frolic and 
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