94 THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 
Washingtonians feel that they now have the best game and game 
fish laws of any state in the Union, and they propose to maintain in 
this state the best fishing and hunting conditions to be found any- 
where in America. 
We all feel that Puget Sound, in the next few years, is destined 
to be the summer playground of America, and believe that nothing 
can assist so materially in bringing this about as an abundant supply 
of game and fish. 
DUCK SHOOTING ON THE COLUMBIA 
By Frank Patton, Cashier Astoria Savings Bank. 
The Quinn Hunting Club, or the C. L. Houston and Frank Patton 
Hunting Lodge, as it is sometimes called, is situated about forty miles 
up the Columbia River from Astoria. 
Houston and I are the club members. We have two houseboats 
and a barn there. One houseboat, built on pontoons, we use for head- 
quarters on our trips. We have three bedrooms, a bathroom, store- 
room, sitting-room and kitchen in that one. The other houseboat we 
use merely to store things, such as our hunting togs that we’re not 
likely to use. 
The decoy ducks make themselves at home in the barn. After a 
day in the water they troop solemnly up to the barn door and wait 
for the keeper to let them in. In their own apartment, in the barn, 
the dogs also lodge, and a third apartment is used for storing wheat 
and corn to feed the ducks and geese. 
We have a linguistic keeper, who is a game warden as well, and 
upon whom we have depended for years. Houston and I call him the 
man from Delmonico’s, because he can’t cook for sour apples. 
We are thoroughly equipped with good sensible quarters, and our 
lease allows us to shoot over about five thousand acres of willow 
bottoms. 
Every now and then someone asks me whether we have good 
shooting in Oregon. That question always amuses me. For years 
Houston and I have averaged eight hundred ducks for the season. 
More than once we have got the limit within the hour. 
For years we have invited W. E. Martin of McMinnville to take 
a shoot with us. He’s a fine shot, and a genius when it comes to 
handling dogs. 
Last year we invited H. C. Hamblet and his son (Hd) down, and 
we had one of the best trips we ever had. 
Hamblet had never done any shooting and he was keen for the 
experience. 
We gave him the best blind on the ground, because we wanted 
him) to have a lot of good shooting. Houston and I went to our covers 
and were kept very busy, as the birds were flying thick. From 
Hamblet’s cover there issued a roar like artillery fire, prolonged and 
loud. I thought that I would find him with at least five hundred ducks, 
and that our keeper would be forced to turn Hamblet over to the 
authorities to languish in durance vile. 
I went over to his cover just in time to:see him bowl over a mud 
hen that had alighted near him, Scattered everywhere were shells, 
