THE GAME FIELD 



S4i 



on the north fork, a distance of six miles, for a 

 term of years. 



According to the San Francisco papers, this 

 particular aggregation has about two hundred 

 members. 



Other clubs are securing alleged exclusive rights 

 on streams in Marin and Sonoma counties. 

 The purchase of a preserve on the Truckee River 

 by the San Francisco Fly Casting Club nearly 

 disrupted that organization, twenty-six members, 

 under the lead of Alex. T. Vogelsang, withdrawing 

 because they were opposed to the proposition on 

 principle. Mr. Vogelsang announced that as the 

 State stocked the streams at public expense, no 

 so-called club had a moral, if they had a legal, 

 right to a monopoly of the fishing grounds. 

 Referring to these attempts of angling clubs to 

 secure and establish exclusive rights, the San 

 Francisco Chronicle says: 



"The gradual closing of the fishing waters of 

 the State is going on despite the fact that the 

 Federal and State governments have been for 

 thirty years stocking the streams and the bays 

 with game fishes, at public expense, for the bene- 

 fit of the public at large. 



"These various sportsmen and anglers' clubs 

 are attempting to create a condition in this State 

 more offensive than that which made the poaching 

 laws in Great Britain so obnoxious and intolerable. 

 A halt ought to have been called on the process of 

 class reservation of the natural hunting and fishing 

 grounds in the State long ago. The raid that is 

 being made by club sportsmen on the trout 

 streams and navigable sloughs frequented by 

 game fishes which, under the common law, have 

 been free to all from time immemorial is intensi- 

 fying the situation. If it is allowed to proceed un- 

 challenged, every trout stream in the State and 

 every stretch of tidal water in the bays and at the 

 mouths of the streams discharging on the coast 

 will become closed fishing grounds for an exclusive 

 set." 



This is just the sort of thing that not only ought 

 not to be, but must not be, allowed. The Chronicle 

 correctly holds that the rights of the public to 

 time-worn footpaths bordering streams and to 

 fishing in these waters cannot be successfully 

 contested in the courts, but that these sportsmen ( ?) 

 will rely upon gamekeepers to intimidate alleged 

 trespassers. 



This is quite true. 



The Surf expects the Supervisors to refuse to 

 sell, grant, loan or give any fish or fry from the 

 public hatcheries to any club or association 

 claiming a private preserve on any stream in 

 this county. We hope that Santa Cruz fishermen 

 will pay no heed to the alleged "rights" of any 

 alien club to the waters of the Waddell, and that 

 fishermen will visit that stream in the open season 

 in numbers enough to convince this San Francisco 

 Anglers' Association that its "rights" on that 

 stream are not worth a fig — or a fish. 



While on this subject we cannot forbear 

 mention of the practices of the gun clubs of alleged 

 sportsmen. Several so-called duck preserves have 

 been established in this State. It is the custom 

 to import food for ducks to these preserves in large 



quantities, and then kill the birds that have been 

 enticed thither by the bait. 



This is not quite as sportsmanlike a practice 

 as it is to trap game, but it suits the purpose of the 

 kind of imitation gentlemen who practise it. 



It is easy to understand how these hunters ( ?) 

 were able to inundate San Francisco with eleven 

 tons of ducks in one day, and it is also easy to 

 understand that it will require but a few years to 

 exterminate these birds. 



The true sportsman is Nature's own nobleman, 

 but the pervert who merely wants to kill something 

 that is alive, and then to prevent his fellow man 

 from sharing his privilege, is not an admirable 

 sort of being. 



The less protection they get from the law, and 

 the less encouragement from society, the better 

 for the future. 



If there are gentlemen who have allowed them- 

 selves thoughtlessly to be drawn into such assso- 

 ciations, the sooner they clear themselves from 

 connection therewith the better for their own 

 self-respect and the esteem of their fellow citizens. 



While Recreation constantly upholds any 

 and all movements that tend toward the 

 preservation of the fish and game, it does not 

 countenance that sort of protection which has 

 as its object the preservation of the fishing or 

 shooting for a few at the expense of the many. 



It is well known that many fish and game 

 preserves are a benefit to unattached sportsmen, 

 due to the overflow of fish and game, and a 

 man need not be selfish to belong to a shooting 

 or a fishing club that owns a preserve. But 

 there is such a thing as going too far with a 

 good thing, and this California seems to be 

 suffering from. It is both unsportsmanlike and 

 un-American for any man to maintain a mem- 

 bership in a shooting or fishing club which 

 does not respect the rights of the Ishmaelite, 

 be he ever so humble. 



Alabamans Aroused 



John H. Wallace, Jr., of Huntsville, Ala., 

 author of the game law that is at present in 

 effect in that State and a prominent member of 

 the Alabama Field Trials Club, has issued an 

 open letter to the sportsmen of Alabama urging 

 the necessity of a more severe law for the protec- 

 tion of game. 



Mr. Wallace says that over 500,000 live quail 

 were shipped from Alabama to Northern mar- 

 kets during the past winter, and that this must 

 be stopped at once or within a few years Ala- 

 bama will be importing quail for propagating 

 purposes. "Alabama," says Mr. Wallace, "is 

 the only Southern State that does not impose a 

 non-resident hunting tax and this induces hun- 

 dreds of hunters from other States to come here 

 and depopulate the fields and forests of every- 

 thing that wears fur or feathers. 



