Dec. 7, 1895., 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



491 



NORTHERN MINNESOTA GAME NOTES. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Now that it is the close season on grouse and deer and all 

 foreign hunters have gone home, some elated over their 

 success, others feeling blue over failure, and the woods 

 are quiet, I find time to give brother sportsmen the re- 

 sult of the game campaign in this (Aitkin) county. 

 Visiting sportsmen by the score have made this point 

 their rendezvous, prominent among them being George 

 P. Garred, editor of the Wahpeton (N. D.) Times; Charles 

 E, Wolfe, a prominent young lawyer of the same place ; 

 George W. Ferris, of Independence, Iowa, and a com- 

 pany of Uncle Sam's boys in blue from Fort Snelling. 

 The" latter brought with them the new 30cal. rifle fur- 

 nished to the army but recently, and expected to do won- 

 derful execution with this terrible new arm. As a per- 

 forator of the human anatomy the new Government gun 

 may be a success, but as a gun for deer it is a failure, as 

 the soldiers quickly learned after the first day's use.- It 

 is a crime worse than poaching to use such an arm on 

 deer. Perforating them only results in the game getting 

 away without leaving a bloody trail for tracking, and 

 causing internal hemorrhage and the total loss of the 

 animal. These boys finally got possession of .45-70 Win- 

 chesters and went home — with some venison as a result. 



Minnesota's new game law has worked wonderfully 

 well this fall. But few infractions have come to my per- 

 sonal notice. As it now stands only enough deer are 

 killed for practical use, and there has not been any 

 shipped from Aitkin station except legally, whereas last 

 fall there were tons of saddles shipped. St. Paul and 

 Minneapolis commission men have tried every possible 

 means to dodge the issue and get game shipped to 

 their houses, but they have been met at every 

 turn bv the State Game Commission, and next 

 year the people will know exactly what to expect. One 

 trader living at Sandy Lake brought upwards of SOOlbs. of 

 saddles to Aitkin Saturday last and endeavored to sell 

 them to local merchants, not being able to induce Agent 

 Kice of the Northern Pacific to aid him in shipping the 

 meat. At last accounts this individual was fputtering 

 around "dot tarn law vot prevents him selling his deer." 

 Dear me, but I sympathize with him. It means the loss 

 of twenty-five dollars to the trader — but the knowledge 

 he gained about the State game law will offset this loss 

 and he will never feel it a hundred years hence. One 

 thing more I noticed is the respect the Indians have for 

 the law. The untutored sons of the forest were daily 

 heard to inquire about the game law. They have not 

 been in with any deer to speak of, preferring to keep it 

 for their own needs, as it was only worth seven cents in 

 trade. They have sold considerable quantities of duck 

 and partridge, invariably taking in exchange such com- 

 modities as coffee, tobacco and wearing apparel. 



Minnesota sportsmen are all keen to learn the result of 

 the controversy between Executive Agent Fullerton and 

 editor E. C. Kiley, of the Grand Rapids Herald, who 

 charges Fullerton and his men with "standing in" with 

 law breakers, especially taxidermists at La Prairie. Ful- 

 lerton has threatened to sue editor Kiley for criminal 

 libel, but so far the tilt has only assumed a miniature bluff. 

 The row is over the moose head found consigned to a 

 prominent New York journalist and captured by a deputy 

 at St. Paul. Mr. B. N. Austin, Asst. Gen. Pass. Agt. of 

 the Northern Pacific Railway, St. Paul, recently returned 

 from an outing in the West, and returned with a fine five 

 prong buck as a trophy of his season's recreation in Cali- 

 fornia. He is having the buck mounted by a noted taxider- 

 mist. 



Whitefish are beginning to run here in small streams, 

 and though they make fine fish to salt are not taken in 

 any quantity. ' F. J. Smith, 



Aitkin, Minn. 



"STOP THE SALE OF GAME." 



And would you stop the sale of game, Mr. Editor? 

 What would I and the likes of me do then, Mr. Editor? 

 Can I never have a taste of a partridge any more be- 

 cause I cannot shoot him myself? 

 Or any black duck? 

 Nor a bit of caribou steak? 



Why, I should hardly have eaten a bit of game in my 

 life if the sale had been forbidden. Even when I was 

 young and comparatively sprightly I couldn't hit the side 

 of a hill with a double-barreled shotgun. 



What kind of a chance would I have had of taking off 

 the head of a partridge with a rifle or of stopping one on 

 the wing with shot? And I know about the hillside busi- 

 ness, because I shot at one once and missed it. It was 

 black with wild pigeons, but not a bird did I get. The 

 fellows said one charge of shot went clean over the top of 

 the hill and the other struck the ground about 10ft. ahead 

 of me. 



So I don't think I could hit a partridge. And if I 

 couldn't buy any game what would my little man Matte 

 do? 



Matte has supplied me with partridges to the extent of 

 one or two couples a week during the season for several 

 years, and as he is about the only sportsman here who 

 makes a specialty of partridges, and as I am his principal 

 purchaser, the non-sale of game would be rough on both 

 of us. 



But then, perhaps Matte is not a sportsman at all, but 

 only a pot hunter, not entitled to consideration anyway. 



The going shooting he does for sport, but the bringing 

 the game to me he does for economy. For one pound of 

 partridge he can get two pounds of pork, which are four 

 times as useful to him and which he greatly prefers. But 

 he does sell his game and I suppose that settles it. 



Personally I shall give him the benefit of any possible 

 doubt. He is a decent, honest fellow, who only hunts at 

 odd times or when his regular work is slack, never shoots 

 out of season or tries to get the last bird in the bush. If 

 he shot altogether for fun we should have to call him a 

 sportsman, and must we speak disrespectfully of him be- 

 cause he can't afford to do it? 



He did turn up once as a sportsman. It was last win- 

 ter, when he tackled and killed his first caribou, all alone. 

 A prouder and happier fellow you never saw. I hap- 

 pened to be near at the time with a couple of young men 

 from Boston, and I think we were as pleased at Matte's 

 success as if it had been our own. Perhaps the fact that 

 we had already secured two made some difference in our 

 feelings, but I hope not too much. 



So far as pot-hunted game is concerned, I fare better 

 in the caribou department than I do in the partridge line, 



I have some fishing camps that I let the boys have for 

 their hunting trips, and as they always insist that I shall 

 go with them I invariably come in for a haunch or a 

 saddle. But the chaps that shoot parti idges are not dis- 

 posed to divvy with me. 



I confess I don't like the market shooters who go in to 

 shoot anything and everything they can get sight of, and 

 would clean the last bird or beast out of the woods, but I 

 do like to have one hunter like Matte in the neighborhood, 

 so that I and my family may have a bit of game once in 

 a while. There is another man who brings me a pair of 

 nice ducks occasionally under the same conditions. They 

 are delicious and I enjoy them, although I cannot go and 

 shoot them myself. 



We cannot all be young and vigorous sportsmen — nor 

 even millionaires. 



But perhaps you have abandoned that war cry that I 

 placed at the head of my letter. I do not remember to 

 have noticed it lately, and I read Forest and Stream 

 through faithfully — except the gun editor's section, which 

 I cannot understand. G. de Montatjban. 



Province of Quebec, November. 



WHY IS IT THUS? 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I have often wondered why it is that sportsmen who 

 relate their experiences in the great New York dailies 

 can and do achieve so much more in the line of wonder- 

 ful deeds by flood and field than the many famous sports- 

 men who from time to time give to the readers of Forest 

 and Stream details of their modest achievements. True, 

 your paper once in a while gets two deer at a single shot ; 

 occasionally one is killed in the pages of Forest and 

 Stream with bird shot, but such occurrences are rare, 

 while on the pages of the aforesaid g. N. Y. ds. they are 

 too common to deserve more than a passing notice. The 

 game animals also that show up on the pages of Forest 

 and Stream are quite as modest and well behaved as the 

 men who hunt them ; the moose rarely kill the lumber- 

 men's horses or chase the lumbermen up trees; the deer 

 don't tear down fences, hook sheep or worry the farmers' 

 cattle, don't even destroy cabbage (vide Forest and 

 Stream of Nov. 23); even the bears refuse to eat little 

 children, and are positively averse to masticating old and 

 tough yarn spinning hunters. I was most forcibly re- 

 minded of this curious state of affairs by. reading a two- 

 column article that appeared in a recent issue of one of 

 the g. N. Y. ds. relative to the exploits of a mighty 

 hunter, who while on a short trip to the Maine woods 

 slew one of those ferocious, horse killing, man treeing 

 moose, and sad to relate, doubly sad because the game 

 protector failed to get in his work, eight deer. All this 

 in a few short days in October, and one shudders to think 

 of what such a mighty hunter might have done in a 

 month of long days, say June, for instance, when the 

 poor deer are driven to escape the flies into the lakes and 

 streams. Two pictures accompany the record of this 

 most remarkable "game hog," one of which, from a 

 photograph presumably, is a wonderful revelation of the 

 buoyancy of Maine timbers. Some half a dozen logs 

 about 10ft. long carry, without being half submerged, 

 two men and the monster moose, a monster indeed, 

 "18in. between the eyes," at least so the moose slayer 

 says through the medium of the g. N. Y. d, 

 !"-The sportsman during the progress of killing his moose 

 tried several experiments. He first shot him through the 



"fan of the horn," and failing to kill, he next— I use his 

 own language — "began shooting him in the belly" and 

 then pumped lead "into his haunch," and told his men, 

 three or more, to shoot, which they presumably did. 

 Whether the wounds inflicted by "my men" or those in 

 the horn, belly and haunch stopped the earthly career of 

 the moose, the g. N. Y. d. does not inform us, but finally 

 states that the moose was killed. 



I trust, however, that the hunter will tell us why he 

 killed, including the two killed at one shot, four times the 

 number of deer allowed under the provisions of the Maine 

 game laws. Possibly lie was like the fellow who, when 

 arrested for assault, pleaded that he had such a fair crack 

 at his victim that he "just couldn't help it." Possibly he 

 did not kill any detr. Who knows? We are told, how- 

 ever, through the medium of the g. N. Y. d., that our 

 hunter when he first sighted his moose hesitated to shoot, 

 fearing it might be a cow moose; and as there was a fine 

 of several hundred dollars for killing cows, he "did not 

 care to break the laws that are meant to preserve game." 

 This he tells us after having killed eight deer in less than 

 a week. In th+ language of Mr. Squeers, "Here's richness 

 for you." Again I ask: Why is it thus? S. 



BOSTON MEN NORTH AND SOUTH. 



Quail shooting in North Carolina and Tennessee is 

 looked forward to as a winter sport with very pleasant 

 anticipation by many of our best Boston spoitsmen. Mr. 

 Louis Cabot has an extensive estate in North Carolina 

 which provides good shooting, and he generally spends 

 the early winter months in that interesting region. F. E, 

 Peabody has left for a few weeks of quail shooting in the 

 same State. A Brockton friend (Mr. Shaw) has just re- 

 turned from Tennessee, and tells me of two days' quail 

 shootintr down there during which he bagged sixty-four 

 birds. Hr* calls it an easy country to shoot over, and hopes 

 to repeat the experience soon. 



The recent heavy storms along the coast have driven in 

 a large number of birds, principally coot, although a 

 number of sheldrakes and brant are found among them. 

 Mr. J. C. Caswpfl, of Boston, has gone down to Chatham, 

 having heard from there that the birds are very plentiful. 

 Many are also going down to the Cohasset shore. Aletter 

 from a friend states that black ducks and geese are flying 

 near Weymouth, The recent warm weather has made 

 these late flights possible, but the season is practically 

 • over, and with the advent of solid winter weather— liable 

 now any day — the shooting will come to a sudden stop. 



The smelt are now getting out into the channels in deep 

 water and nearly all the fishing from the shore has come 

 to a stop. The city of Salem has one resident though who 

 keeps on fishing just as long as there is a smelt to take his 

 bait. E S Thayer is the man. Most of his fishing is done 

 by lantern light at night from his own wharf. He goes 

 out heavily clad to stand the cold weather and fishes late 

 into the night. Fishing under any circumstances is good 

 sport for Mr. Thayer, and even now he is generally suc- 

 cessful in getting a good string. 



The country around Chase Pond, six miles in from 

 Eustis, Maine, on the Chain of Ponds road, is said to be of 

 a peculiarly happy formation for the hunting of deer. It 

 abounds in rocky ledges on which are many bare spots, 

 and often the gams is found at a decided disadvantage, 

 making it an easy matter to get a good shot. Two parties 

 who returned from there, but a short time ago, each got 

 their full legal allowance of deer, and they all speak 



the buck that got away. 

 Drawn by Ernest Thompson. Reprinted by request of a correspondent who claims to have lost one just like It. 



