TWIXT BAY AND OCEAN 



be satisfied to take home twenty birds. 

 A good bayman always takes pleasure 

 in instructing the novice as to signals 

 and decoying tricks, such as kicking the 

 foot up to attract the attention of a 

 bunch to shoot; not to be in too much 

 of a hurry and yet as quick as a flash. 



Point shooting, or shooting from a 

 blind off shore, may not offer such 

 rapid firing, but will afford to the anti- 

 hog just as good sport. Of course, 

 when in a blind on shore you may not 

 be bothered with some special breeds of 

 the duck family, but you can expect 

 black duck, shelldrake and coots sure, 

 with an occasional call from the best 

 that flies. 



It is possible to construct a blind, 

 cosey and comfortable, and bid defiance 

 to any sort of weather. The difficulty 

 is in retrieving your game. The better 

 the conditions for point shooting the 

 quicker the attendance necessary. I 

 had the misfortune to be blown across 

 the bay once in a living gale, and noth- 

 ing but being a sort of a boatman saved 

 me. You can guess how bad it was 

 when T had to take off one of my rub- 

 ber boots, to "bail out" the boat with. 



This close shave happened attending 



to a point in a sharpie. There is no 

 finer sport than battery and blind shoot- 

 ing on the Great South Bay. 



Another recreation which has just 

 passed its infancy is scootering ; and 

 certainly if the number of scooters 

 which have been in use on the bay, and 

 the number of new ones which will be 

 launched this year, as soon as the ice 

 forms, be taken into consideration, one 

 must admit here is a very popular 

 sport. A great deal has been said of the 

 scooter. Magazines have sent their pho- 

 tographers and writers here to portray 

 the little craft at work, and describe its 

 uses, so the scooter is not unknown. A 

 boat with runners, mainsail and jib, ca- 

 pable of making a mile a minute on the 

 ice, capable of flopping off the ice into 

 the water, and, by good handling, able 

 to mount on the ice again. Clubs have 

 been formed along the bay front, and 

 an association, The Great South Bay 

 Scooter Association, will take care of 

 the management of contests and make 

 laws to govern the sport. 



A scooter race is always intensely in- 

 teresting. The little craft are off and 

 'round the stakes light lightning. A 

 more exciting and thrilling picture does 



