Stalking the backwoods for game 



Bob Midgett, an avid hunter for 

 most of his 75 years, doesn't need 

 a scrapbook to remember the old days. 

 Pictures of elegant lodges, hordes of 

 hunters, and birds "so thick you 

 couldn't see through them," remain 

 clear in Midgett's mind. His love of the 

 sport was passed on to him from his 

 father, a market hunter during the 

 heyday of waterfowl hunting on North 

 Carolina's coast. 



"I started hunting with my daddy," 

 says Midgett. "It was thrilling. It was 

 something that I had in my blood." 



And blood and history run thick in 

 eastern North Carolina — almost as 

 thick as the wildlife. Generations of 

 hunters have kept the traditions alive. 

 Over the years, the equipment has 

 changed, but many of the methods and 

 memories remain the same. Many con- 

 tinue to hunt because "It's part of our 

 rural heritage," says John Collins, big 

 game project director with the North 

 Carolina Wildlife Resources Commis- 

 sion. "Most people that were born and 

 raised on a farm are naturally hunters. 

 They're close to nature." 



About 160,000 such sportsmen hunt 

 deer, bear, wild turkey, dove, 

 quail, squirrel, rabbit, waterfowl and 

 other game in the state each year. 

 Most of these species have been pur- 

 sued for centuries, but other prey 

 either migrated or became extinct. 

 Buffalo and elk, for example, used to 

 roam the coastal plains with the In- 

 dians, says Ted Dossett of the Conser- 

 vation Education Division of WRC. 

 Ivory-billed woodpeckers, Carolina 

 parakeets, passenger pigeons and 

 beavers were plentiful as well. 



Since that time, hunting on the east 

 coast has gone through many changes. 

 What was once done out of necessity, 

 as with the Indians, is now almost en- 

 tirely done for recreation. 



The coastal Indians were skillful 

 hunters, relying on their talents with 

 the bow and arrow to feed and clothe 

 themselves. Hunting was vital, and 

 resources were abundant. But because 

 there were no limits, some of the 

 species they hunted slowly died out. 

 The availability of game lessened 



with the arrival of the white man, says 

 Dossett. Anxious to claim lands, they 

 cleared away the forests — and the 

 natural habitats — for settlement. Also, 

 Indians used wildlife as a means of bar- 

 ter. Furs and meat were traded for 

 steel, guns, glass and other goods. 



Throughout the 1700s, the bounty 

 of game on the coast continued to 

 fill the pockets of traders and the 

 plates of colonists. For example, 

 300,000 deerskins were shipped over- 

 seas in the 1700s, says Scott Osborne, 

 the deer project director of WRC. 



In the 1800s, the ready availability 

 of game, especially deer and waterfowl, 

 prompted market hunting. An absence 

 of laws, bag limits and other shooting 



Photo from N.C. Wildlife Com 



regulations allowed hunters to capture 

 and sell all the wild game they could 

 shoot. What started as a lucrative in- 

 dustry, almost ended in disaster, says 

 Collins. 



"Big game were reduced in great 

 numbers by market hunting. Until the 

 early 1900s, there were very few deer 

 in this state because of market hunting 

 and poaching. Bear, deer and turkey 

 were all practically wiped out at some 

 time." 



Probably the most famous and 

 glamorous market hunting done on 

 North Carolina's coast was for water- 

 fowl during the late 1800s and early 

 1900s. Even before then, thousands of 

 ducks and geese flocked to Currituck 

 Sound each winter from the North. In 



Deer are the state's most hunted game 



