GOOSE SHOOTING. 255 



changed. At the present time they go into the river 

 late, pay no attention whatever to decoys, and have be- 

 come so wary that shooting them on the sand-bars is 

 hardly attempted. When they rise they no longer circle 

 about, but at once get up in the air as high as possible, 

 keeping directly over the middle of the river, and so 

 usually out of shot of concealed gunners. Many and 

 bitter have been the complaints of late years by the men 

 who used to go goose shooting to this famous ground, 

 but the birds have learned their lesson well, and it may 

 be doubted if sand-bar shooting will ever again be prac- 

 ticed on the Platte with any great degree of success. 



The geese now killed in the vicinity of that river are 

 secured chiefly by stubble shooting, much as they are 

 captured in Dakota, and a recent account of these meth- 

 ods is given in the following article contributed to 

 Forest and Stream in 1899, by a writer who signs him- 

 self "Invisible." He says: 



Readers who have been there need not be told of the 

 past glories of duck and goose shooting on the wide- 

 flowing Platte in Nebraska, but to those who have not 

 hunted on the once famous river, a description of the 

 stream, the country and the methods employed to bag 

 the wary honkers may be interesting. 



The Platte is a shallow, wide stream from one-half 

 mile to one mile wide in some places, and the bottom is 

 entirely of sand. In late April and in May and June it 

 rises or gets on a "boom," as it is generally called. Then 

 the water is from three to six feet deep in all the main 

 part of the river, and in the main channel from ten to 



