814 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jan. 16, 1890. 



This naturally leads to a, discussion of sportsmen's 

 ulubi, and apart from the genial fellowship which they 

 foster, of the practical good which they may effect 

 in the preservation of game. It is a lamentable fact 

 that the West, the far West I mean, is destitute of 

 proper sportsmen's clubs. We have dog clubs that make 

 a specialty of coursing, and gun clubs whose members 

 devote themselves to the trap, but these do not reach 

 the point, Last week I vi-ited Denver, and was sur- 

 prised to find in so enterprising a city, where every other 

 man is expert with rifle, rod or gun, no organization or 

 club room where the gentlemen, who spend months each 

 year in the finest hunting fields of the world, can meet 

 to recount their adventures and profit by each other's 

 experiences. To find a brother sportsman you must call 

 at his house or office. 



It is senseless to believe that the wanton destruction of 

 large game can be prevented without the united action 

 of tho^e most interested in its preservation. The lever- 

 age must be applied en masse, and not individually. I 

 fairly boded at some of the tales of slaughter of elk, deer 

 and sheep, and, though I made allowance for exaggera- 

 tion, I could not pardon the spirit that lay back of the 

 story. The sentiment prevails that if one man does not 

 kill all the game he can another will, and what the white 

 man cannot corral the red man will destroy, and so the 

 rivalry can end in nothing short of extermination. This 

 begins to read like a tirade, but there are noble excep- 

 tions, and they are to-day, if they can .become acquainted 

 with each other, willing to unite to enforce legitimate 

 hunting in the Rockies, and I hope that before another 

 new year the initiative will be taken and a new era will 

 have opened in the hunting annals of the West. 



Keabnet, Neb., Jan. 1. SHOSHONE. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST, 



THE BLACKHAWK CLUB OF LAKE KOSHKONOXG. 



f N183G the unfortunate chieftain, Blackhawk, led north 

 A through Wisconsin the inglorious pursuers who 

 figured on one side in that most inglorious ''war." He 

 passed far above Lake Koshkonong and was captured, 

 we are told, near where Portage now stands. But Black- 

 hawk formerly lived on beautiful Lake Koshkonong, 

 and even to-day there remain traces of his residence 

 there. The island formed by Rock River, at the head of 

 the lakf, is known as Blackhawk Island. Over on the 

 big bluff , a mile from there, the wandering hunter can 

 still see the odd knobby little hills, thrown up by the 

 squaws who labored in Blackhawk's cornfield, and he 

 can easily find old settlers who can remember seeing the 

 cornstalks still standing in these hills. All over that 

 great and beautiful bluff, which looks out over as fair an 

 inland picture as any in a t housand miles of travel, young 

 trees have now grown up thick and strong. Yet the set- 

 tlers can remember when all that slope was cleared, save 

 for a few great oaks, and when all its surface was cov- 

 ered -with the curious mounds of the forgotten Mound- 

 builders and the later groves of the Indians. These 

 mounds exist to-day, and to-day you may see upon the 

 highest point of the great bluff the old signal mound, 

 which in days before history flashed its bale-fires in the 

 great signal system running north and south across the 

 country. To-day. were the timber cleared from all 

 the eminences, white men could do as former possessors 

 of this country did and send a message, fire answering 

 to fire, and pillar of smoke speaking to other pillar, from 

 the shore of Lake Superior far down the Illinois River 

 and perhaps nearly to the Ohio. Blackhawk may have 

 used this chain of Bignals, and doubtless did use part of 

 it. The "Blackhawm trail" still runs over these hills, 

 faint, but legible as when Gen. Atkinson woundup it to 

 found Fort Atkinson, which exists to-day, a. sleepy and 

 contented village, unused to war's alarms. You get off 

 here when you take the C. & N. W., for the Blackhawk 

 Club of Lake Koshkonong. For it is matter of fact and 

 matter of course that; there is a shooting club on Kosh- 

 konong, and that its name is the Blackhawk Club. 



The writer was sent up to this club on the investigating 

 trip, through the courtesy of Mr. John L. Stockton of 

 this city, one of the members, to whose pains and fore- 

 sight much of the pleasure of the visit was due. This 

 was on Nov. a3, and the shooting season was officially de- 

 clared eioted and the club hou?e abandoned for the win- 

 ter. Nevertheless a telegram or two mitigated matters, 

 and I was met at 10 P. M. by Mr. W. Y. Went worth, the 

 superintendent of the club, who on the following morn- 

 ing gave me a seat hi his buggy for the frosty ride of 

 six or eight miles down to the club house. 



Our road for the greater pirt of the distance lay along 

 the Rock River, which is here a very amiable pleasant 

 stream and, thanks to the long effortsof Mr. Went worth, 

 who is gams warden of the southern district of Wit-con- 

 sin, also a very good fishing stream. Sd delightful a 

 trip does it offer to the canoeist and angler that I cannot 

 help commending it for a run, beginning at Ft. Atkin- 

 son, passing through Lake Koskonong, and ending at the 

 M ssissippi near Rock Island, This stream was used as 

 one of the water trails between the Great Lakes and the 

 Mississippi in the old Indian and fur trade days. Let 

 summer tourists not forget it. It is a beautiful stream 

 and it has fish in it, in spite of the foolish Wisconsin law 

 which holds back the construction of the Wisconsin fish- 

 ways until after the Illinois fishways have been put in. 

 This is a siterly sort of law, or more properly, an old 

 woman sort of a law. There has been no run of fish up 

 Rack River for years, by reason of the lilmois and Wis- 

 consin dams, among which are the Indian Ford, Janes- 

 viile, Monterey, Beloit, Rockion and Rockford dams. 

 There are eight in all. Catfish are no longer taken in 

 that stream near Koshkonong. Its supply of bass and 

 pickerel comes from prolific Koshkonong, and the rapa- 

 cious pot-fishermen are draining at that souice as hard as 

 they can. Last winter fifty tons, mostly game fish, were 

 taken through the ice by market-fishers. Lake Koshko- 

 nong is four miles by eight atmo#t, and averages not 8ffc. in 

 depth. Yet the wise men who live upon its shores, men 

 born with the joint butcher-miser instinct, tell us pla- 

 cidly to-day that this does not affect the fish supply, and 

 that winter fishing will not diminish it. Such rot is not 

 good nonsense. Look at the story of great Winnebago. 

 Eighty barrels of fish shipped per day at Oshkosh alone. 

 Tney don't do that now, even with miles of illegal twine. 

 To-day the Winnebago robbers are beginning to squeal. 

 Later on, the Koshkonong robbers will also snivel and 

 cry out that the poor man has no show. The Koskonong 

 poor man needs some one to think for him, and to antici- 



pate his future whine. To-day he is eating Ins own cake 

 and everybody's else too. 



We counted eight shanties and one big cabin boat as we 

 drove on down to the club house. In each of these were 

 two or three down-trodden market-fishers and hunters 

 waiting for the lake to freeze. These folks are called 

 '•rats" by the sportsmen of the lake. They made a living 

 formerly by legal or illegal "floating" of canvasbacks, 

 legal or illegal netting of fish, and a side line of rat trap- 

 ping. Mr, Went worth has broken, up their "floating" 

 and netting, and to-day they must restrict themselves to 

 weeping for the old days, to fishing through the ice, 

 which is idiotically legal, and to plain rat catching. 

 Poor, poor unfortunates, born too tired to do an honest 

 day's work! Earth has no more pitiable a creature. For 

 their comfort it may be said, however, that the numerous 

 rat houses about Koshkonong this f alt bespeak a crop that 

 would delight the soul of a fur trader. We trust 

 there will be no further violation of "rat" etiquette 

 in the premature tearing down the houseB and spearing 

 the muskrate, of which an over-aoxious "rat" was lately 

 guilty, much to the horror of his associates. There 

 should be honor among these honorable men. 



We found the big and comfortable club house standing 

 just upon the bank of the river, whose edge was now 

 some thirty yards from the front stoop. The river is now 

 lower than it has been for twenty years. In one spring- 

 time the water rose four feet deep over the club house 

 floor: so that the members lived npstairs and went to bed 

 out of their boats. 



Mr. Wentworth's son was within, and he had a fire 

 started. We passed through the house, finding it to 

 have eleven good sleeping apartments, while the down 

 floor held the usual gun room, sitting room, dining room, 

 etc, , and a large and very well furnished kitchen. In the 

 latter department Mrs. Wentworth, the stewardess, is 

 ruler. She allows no liquors on the table and no games 

 of chance on Sunday, and otherwise generally rules the 

 boys with a rod of iron; but from her domicile beside the 

 club range she sends forth such culinary compensation 

 that they bear their subjugation meekly. 



BUCKHAWK CLUB HOUSE, LAKE' KOSHKONONG. 



Through the house there passes a stream of living 

 water from the great artesian well, 330ft. deep, which the 

 club had sunk to assure a good water supply. This well 

 also throws a stream into the great fountain-tank in the 

 front yard. In the pool thus formed, holding several 

 hundred barrels of nearly i^e cold water, the mem bers 

 keep their fish alive as in a live-box. There were twenty 

 or thirty fish in this pool that had been there for several 

 weeks. This is the best fish box yet on record, and I 

 shali later testify to the excellency of its product. 



There is a good barn on the place, and there are two 

 boat houses, one holding the big sail boat belonging to 

 some of the members, the other being devoted to the 

 hunting boats. Under tarpaulin outside was the sail- 

 boat belonging to the sons of 3ome of the members. The 

 wreck of a steam launch held a flower bed, and all about 

 and on the water front were either remnants of boat3, or 

 boats in actual use. There were some live-boxes in the 

 water near the boat landing, and Mr. Wentworth, Jr. had 

 some rods set from the end of one of the boats. As we 

 sat by the stove and talked we could watch the rods 

 through the window, and in this way we caught a perch 

 and three pickerel, one of which weighed four pounds. 

 The river at this point is not very wide, but low as the 

 water was, we found it 10 or 13ft. in depth. 



The club house is up the river a little way from the 

 main lake, but the shore of the latter sweeps around be- 

 hind the house, and a few steps through the woods bring 

 one to it. The club owns 50 acres on the island, and con- 

 trols the river and lake front clear around on both sides 

 the point, making about 387 acres in all. Steps are now 

 being taken to get possession of additional shore territory, 

 up to and including the point iurther up the shore line 

 behind the club house, It is desirable also that the club 

 should join upon the other side with what is known as 

 ths PecK preserve. This latter amounts in all to some- 

 thing like 500 acres, and runs out well on the fiat that 

 lies opposite the club house across the little island. If 

 this were accomplished, there would be a continuous 

 preserved strip clear about the best pail of the lake, and 

 controlled by sportsmen whose iuterests are practically 

 identical. In the matter of executive protective measures 

 it can not be said that the Blackhawk men have been 

 very active or earnest. They once hired a patrol for the 

 river mouth point for a while, but for work of this sort 

 Koshkonong Place contributed $50, much more in pro- 

 portion. The men on the bluff have always been Aery 

 active and efficient in protective work, both in and out of 

 the Legislature, and they are the best of neighbors for 

 the Blackhawks. 



In the boat house we found the whole theory and his- 

 tory of duck shooting on Koshkonong. It should be re- 

 membered that the chief object of pursuit here is the 

 canvasback duck, and therefore we should expect to find 

 the greatest ingenuity devoted to machinery for its cap- 

 ture. Such precisely is the case, and the result is ap- 

 parent in a boat, or indeed several boats, quite distinctive 

 and different from any we have yet found among our in- 

 land duck shooters. 



The old way of canvasback shooting in Koshkonong 

 was a very restricted one. A large fleet of decoys, per- 

 haps 200 or 800, was put out on afeed bed. well out in the 

 shallow lake. The hunter then withdrew his boat to the 

 shore and waited until he saw a large enough number of 

 canvasbacks alight among the decoys and go to firing. 



His boat was a short and square-sterned skiff, so arranged 

 that it sank pretty well down in the water. The bunu 

 lay full length upon his back In the boat, with his feet to 

 the bow. He propelled the boat with a short sculling 

 paddle, which he worked with his right hand pasted 

 across his chest. The hole for the i-eulling oar was 

 directly above and behind the shooter's left shoulder. AT 

 peg in the right hand side of the boat served as a rest for 

 the gun, whose stock lay convenient to the shooter'? 

 shoulder. Sometimes an extra gun lay in the bottom of 

 the boat. 



. With his eyes peering just above the edge of the boat, I 

 the concealed hunter carefully and silently propelled his 

 engine of death in among the feeding ducks. Very often 

 he got within 20, 15, even 10yds.; for the canvasback, 

 wary as it is in many ways, has a large streak of gulla- 

 biliiy in its nature. When in the thickest of the flock, the 

 hunter sat upright in the boat and discharged his gun or 

 guns. In this way numbers of market-shooter* wtre 

 always hammering away at the ducks. Mr. Duane Starin 

 one of the most successful shooters of the lake, whocamt 

 over to his own shooting house on the lake the day we 

 were there, told me that he used formerly to kill daily 

 fifty canvasbacks — just as many as his little float would 

 hold. It was this same float of his that I saw in Blacks- 

 hawk boat house. Mr. Starin wished to see the old law 

 permitting float shooting restored, and called our att* n 

 lion to the fact that, although the number of canva 

 backs seemed this fall as great as ever, no one could rnals 

 any bags. Mr. Starin will yet live to see the wisdom of" 

 this law, and will realize that it is not all-important thai 

 anybody should make large bags. Far more nndern, 

 thoughtful and consistent with the be?t spMtof this day 

 is the utterance of Mr. G. E. Gordon, quoted in anothei 

 column: "I wish to make it as hard as possible for an? 

 one to kill a canvasback duck." 



I should not, however, pa^s mention of this vicinit; 

 without fuller mention of Duane Starin. who is a very , 

 well-known figure about the lake. Mr. Starin has had 

 the misfortune to lose both legs below the knee, and 

 walks upon his knee?, with the lower portion of the limbs 

 incased in leather boxes. He u-es a short pair of crutches, 

 and to any friend is simply a stalwart, hardy and rugged- 

 looking man. He is the best duck hunter about the lake, 

 and is also a formidable antagonist at the trap. Due to 

 him are many of the ideas on shooting used about the 

 lake. It was Ira Bingham who first used the Koshko- 

 nong "float," but Duane Starin was the inventor of the 

 hardly less^ destructive "float boat" which was and is so 

 largely use'd in this locality. Mr. Starin laid aside his 

 float when the law commanded it. Armed with power- 

 ful field glasses which enabled them to detect at a dis- 

 tance the approach of a warden or any other intruder, 

 numbers of less scrupulous shooters persisted until within 

 the past season. I shall speak of the arrest of the chief 

 offender in this line ine in a later column, dt voted to a 

 look at the game question as presented to me by 1b 

 only intelligent and effective game warden it was evi 

 my fortune to met; — Mr. W. Y Wentworth, so often me: 

 tioned before. 



The law which was passed two years ago forbad 

 shooting at wildfowl "beyond the line of natural gras 

 or rushes then and there projecting above the water, 1 

 that is about the wording. Of course this law could be 

 stretched a great deal, but it did break up the bhootiag 

 on the open water feeding ground. The blinds, pushed 

 as far out as possible, soon became points of education 

 for the ducks. Even the floating "Koshkonong blind, 1 * 

 constructed of heavy 2x4 stuff in a frame, into which the 

 boat could be run, and consisting of a, wire net stuck full 

 of rushes, the whole floating and easily towed, grew in- 

 tffective. Canvasbacks, alt the deep-water ducks, and 

 even the mallards, gathered in a merry body safe out in 

 the middle of the lake. Now became manifest the beau- 

 ties of the "flat boat.'" invented be' ore this by Mr. S arm, 

 and found so effective that he has killed sixty canvas- 

 backs in a day from one of them. It was Mr. Starin 

 who built most of the flat boats now in use by the Black- 

 hawks. 



The Koshkonong "flat boat" is nearly of the shape of 

 a pumpkin seed. It is about lfrft. long and Oft. wkIp over- 

 all and isbuiltonthe batfrry or sinkboat plan. In th 

 center of the boat and projecting below its bottom am 

 under the waterline is a long pit in which the shoote 

 lies. This is one foot deep to the top of its slight coam- 

 ing and jut-t wide enough for easy position to the shooter. 

 The "wings" of the boat s-tretch down and out from th 

 top of the pit, running obliquely till their edges just 1L 

 awash in the water. The wings have a top and bottom 

 to them, and near the center of the boat they are several 

 inches apart, permitting the stowing on either side of the 

 shooter of a number of small articles. The wings are not 

 detachable or hung on hinges, but the whole boat, broad 

 and bulky as it is, is stiff and solid, all of pine. To re- 

 peat, it exactly resembles a mammoth pumpkin seed, 

 with a hole cut through the median line. Were it not 

 for the pit, which projects below the bottom like an asb 

 pan, the whole boat would lie like a pancake directly 

 upon the top of the water. As it is, the boat can easily 

 be towed about and does not pull very hard. 



In using the fla t boat, the shooter puts out his decoys- 

 by means of another boat, which he hides or has taken 

 away by a companion. The fl-it boat is merely used as a 

 blind, and the decoys are arranged about it as the 

 weather and wind dictate, No grass is u-ed about the 

 boat. The dead color of the boat and its half-submersion 

 in the water make it impossible to distingui-h it at any 

 distance". I have had shooters tell me that a flat boat 

 properly ballasted can not be seen over sixty yards or 

 by any one, especially if there is the s-ligbtest wash to the 

 water. The deadliness of such a device is well known to 

 all Eastern shooters. The cost of a hill-sized flat boat is 

 865, The pit is usually made of tin, or covered with tin 

 or sheet-iron, the edges of the latter coming up and lying 

 on the top of the wings in the best models, thus insuring 

 dryness. 



Another pure Koshkonong type is the "Monitor." ani 

 this is the boat in general use. It is about 15ft. or so ii 

 length and 3ft, wide, and is a modified "flat boat," in- 

 tended for rowing. The sirles of its "winj-s" are but a 

 few inches apart, and sits close down in the water, its 

 contour exactly resembling that of the famous war ship 

 model, from which it takes its name. The boat is pro- 

 pelled by oars, the rower sitting in a cockpit, abcut which 

 he can elevate a canvas extension, full length of the 

 cockpit, in case of a high sea or a cutting wind. This 

 boat is just a little Monitor, with a cockpit instead of tur= 



