FROM THE GAME FIELDS. 



The man who quits when he gets enough, with 

 THE NEW YORK DEER LAW AGAIN. 



ED. FAY. 



The November number of Recreation 

 contains a bitter protest from the. able pen 

 of James M. Graves, against cutting Aug- 

 ust out of the open deer season in the 

 State of New York. 



While giving Mr. Graves credit for good 

 faith, it is hard for one who knows the 

 situation, and is solicitous for the preserva- 

 tion of deer in the Adirondack forests, to 

 allow his letter to go to the readers of 

 Recreation without protest. I take issue 

 with Mr. Graves when he says it would 

 have been tenfold better to have cut off 

 the 15 days of November shooting than to 

 have cut off the August shooting. There 

 is no time in the year when deer are so 

 easily approached and killed as during the 

 warm weather, excepting, perhaps, when 

 they are yarded in winter. This never oc- 

 curs before December. I have seen no less 

 than 12 deer at one time in Potter pond in 

 August, and that without taking pains to 

 approach the pond quietly. The farthest 

 one of the 12 was within easy rifle range, 

 and a person who could not have killed his 

 2 deer in one day would be no menace to 

 the preservation of game if the whole year 

 was an open season. 



Those who wish to kill deer in hot 

 weather are no better respecters of the 

 game law than those" who prefer waiting 

 till the deer are fat and wary; and any 

 deer hunter knows that during hot weather 

 deer frequent salt licks and water, and 

 may easily be killed at either. While they 

 are in the water at night they become an 

 easy prey to the jack hunter. I have never 

 been guilty of jacking, but I know too well 

 that it is indulged in and is difficult to 

 prevent during the open season. The 

 same argument holds true regarding salt 

 licks. 



With the advent of cool weather, deer 

 stop frequenting either water or licks. Our 

 lawmakers wisely lopped off that part of 

 the season that furnished the greatest 

 temptation to illegal killing of deer, as 

 well as the time when it requires little skill 

 to get a reputation as a deer slayer. 



Mr. Graves says, "Any 10-year-old boy 

 can sharpen a stick and go out and kill a 

 deer on soft snow." This is ludicrous. 

 When Mr. Graves gets out on snow in the 

 morning as soon as he can see a track, 

 takes his grub in his pocket and trails a 

 deer till he can get the drop on it, he will 

 have more respect for the courage and skill 

 that kind of hunting requires than he ap- 

 pears to have at present. To my mind, 

 there is no more sportsmanlike way of 



plenty of game still in sight, is a real sportsman. 



hunting deer than still hunting, snow or no 

 snow. The deer has an even chance, and 

 it is a great game between the skill and 

 pluck of the hunter and the acuteness and 

 vigilance of the deer. As Mr. Graves truly 

 says, "There is no sitting with back against 

 •a tree for a snooze" in that kind of busi- 

 ness, unless your game is cunning enough, 

 which is not unusual, to lead you astray and 

 your "snooze" is an all night one, waiting for 

 daylight to help you find camp again. The 

 "snoozy" kind of hunting comes when you 

 sit waiting in ambush for some doe to 

 wade out into a pond to feed on the tender 

 water-lily pads or get away from the flies. 

 When her splash wakens you, take your 

 rifle, or shot gun if you can't hit anything 

 with a rifle, and murder her. During warm 

 weather nearly every deer killed is a doe, 

 and on snow the reverse is true. 



Again, it seems Mr. Graves must be mis- 

 informed as to the number of deer the 

 Granshue and Inlet clubs killed on snow 

 last year, as there were only 2 days of 

 snow before the season closed, and the fall 

 was so deep that hunting was out of the 

 question the second day. I am personally- 

 acquainted with a popular member of 

 one of those clubs, and well remember 

 how he tried still hunting the last day of 

 the open season last year. As the old guide 

 said, "Indian not lost ; wigwam lost" ; and 

 Charley partook of the hospitality of a 

 woodchopper's camp that night. 



The latter part of Mr. Graves's letter 

 comfortingly reveals the fact that he 

 writes from information obtained from 

 men in his section, who, he says, agree that 

 November shooting should be abolished. 

 That is just what Charley said the next 

 morning after the wily old buck led him a 

 wild goose chase for 8 straight hours and 

 left him, luckily, where the choppers heard 

 his alarm shots after dark, 6 miles from 

 camp, in 2 feet of snow. 



When the open deer season needs fur- 

 ther pruning, by all means lop off 2 more 

 weeks of warm weather and do not open 

 it till the middle of September. The fel- 

 lows who want the season open in August 

 instead of November are the ones who 

 would like to kill a deer or 2 every season, 

 but do not value the sport highly enough 

 to undergo any great fatigue or hardship, 

 2 things a true sportsman really enjoys 

 when on a hunting trip. 



A case in point : A party of 10 of my 

 acquaintances, at the opening of the pres- 

 ent season, killed 12 deer, and every one 

 was shot from a boat in daylight, the hunt 

 lasting 6 days. A party of 7 of us, with 

 2 guides, have just returned from a 5 days' 

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