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 immov- 

 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. 



