226 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[April 10, 1890. 



SLIDE ROCK FROM MANY MOUNTAINS. 



V.— NINETEEN SHOTS. 



I CANNOT tell you how much I was interested in Gen- 

 eral Clay's "Record of Twenty-seven Shots." Such 

 a story appeals strongly to the old hunter, who guards his 

 ammunition now as carefully as he used to in the ©Id 

 days when he might find himself 300 miles from the 

 nearest frontier post, with only thirty or forty cartridges 

 •to last him for a couple of months. The hunters of to-day, 

 who start out with repeating rifles and with plenty of 

 transportation, do not, I fancy, have any such feeling as 

 the older men who have traveled on the plains and in 

 the mountains of the West before the railroads were 

 built across the continent. Many of these gentlemen 

 begin to shoot a3] soon as any game is seen, and continue 

 to blaze away as long as it remains in sight. A few 

 pounds of lead more or less is nothing to them. 



I dislike this method; not so much because it brings to 

 bag much game, nor because it makes the animals wild, 

 but because it inevitably destroys a great many head 

 that are never recovered and which die of their wounds 

 later, and merely afford food for the coyotes, eagles, 

 ravens and magpie3. Only last year I hunted in the 

 mountains where some young Englishmen had been 

 camped, and it is not too much to say that the mountains 

 in some places fairly stank with the carrion which they 

 had left behind them. In one day I came across three 

 carcasses of animals recently killed and not recovered. 

 Two of these were mountain sheep, one shot through the 

 paunch and another with a hindleg broken high up. The 

 third carcass I did not see, but I smelt it. Game enough 

 is killed for legitimate purposes by these parties of young 

 hunters, and it is a pity that so mnch more should be 

 wasted. Men should be obliged to learn to shoot before 

 being allowed to hunt. 



The necessities of my eaxly training as a hunter made 

 me careful of my ammunition. I used to start off on 

 long expeditions into the wild regions, where of course 

 no ammunition could be purchased, and for these trips it 

 was necessary to cut the weight of all supplies down to 

 the lowest point possible in order to save transportation. 

 Ammunition suffered with all other supplies, and we 

 were always careful not to waste it. Moreover, in the 

 early days of my hunting in the West, the two or three 

 men whose companion I was were wonderfully good shots 

 and most careful hunters. 



When the camp required it, they hunted for meat, and 

 they rarely missed a shot. Usually a single ball supplied 

 our immediate wants, and if by mischance an animal 

 was wounded and had to be shot again, the shooter was 

 mortified and felt that he had not done well. Living 

 year after year for months at a time with men whose views 

 were these, I naturally came to feel as they did, and these 

 sentiments still govern my hunting. I rarely shoot at an 

 animal more than 150yds. distant, and when I do so, have 

 not very much confidence that I am going to hit it. I go 

 out for a trip to last a month or two, and in all that time 

 perhaps do not fire more than a dozen or fifteen shots; 

 3 ust enough to keep meat in camp. I have traveled for 

 weeks through a country swarming with elk, deer and 

 antelope without ever using my rifle. 



Last year on a trip that lasted seventeen days I fired 

 nineteen shots, and because the paper already alluded to 

 so greatly interested me I give a brief record of them, 

 thinking that there are some old hunters who may like 

 to go over the list and compare these shots with some of 

 their own. 



General Clay had a good and sufficient reason for his 

 misses. I can offer none for mine, except that I am not 

 so good a shot as I might be if I had more practice. I 

 cannot shoot as well now as I could a dozen years ago, 

 when I had a reason for doing more shooting and killing 

 more game. 



My trip began Sept. 18, and I fired no shot until 

 the 33d of that month, when I shot five times at four 

 Rocky Mountain goats, killing them all. The distance 

 varied from 40yds. to 20ft. Five shots were fired, 

 when four should have sufficed. The reason for this was 

 that my first shot was fired through an evergreen tree at 

 a goat which I could only just see. I was unable to tell 

 her position and had no vital paft to fire at. The ball 

 ranged lengthwise through the animal, but aa she was 

 still standing after the others had all fallen I shot her 

 again. The killing of these goats was not done in wan- 

 tonness, but for a purpose which seemed to me sufficient, 

 as will elsewhere appear. 



On the day next but one following this holocaust 

 (Sept. 25) I hunted on adifferent mountain in the hope 

 that I might secure another goat to complete the series 

 that I was getting together. I climbed up to the top of 

 the mountain and then half way down again, stalking a 

 bunch of white everlasting, which Tom, my Indian, and 

 I both took to be a goat, but we saw nothing on four legs 

 big enough to shoot at. On the way down the mountain, 

 a couple of big blue grouse flew up under the horses' noses 

 and alighted in the branches of a couple of tall fir trees. 

 Tom and I after spying about for a while discovered both 

 birds, one standing very erect in one tree and the other 

 lying along a large limb of another. One of the birds 

 was about 40yds. distant and the other about 60, and 

 both were in trees growing below me on the mountain 

 side. I killed the nearest— the standing bird— cutting its 

 neck just below the head. To shoot at the other I had 

 to maneuver a little so as to get the sun out of my eyes, 

 for the bird was nearly west of me and the sun was low. 

 After a little I found a tree trunk which protected my 

 eyes and sights, and shot. The bird's tail was toward 

 me and I held a little bit too low, the ball having just 

 rubbed the skin of the back and cut the neck. 



My next shot was three days later (Sept. 28) at a moun- 

 tain sheep on the hillside, across a wide valley up which 

 we were traveling. As I rarely attempt long shots, I am 

 a poor hand at judging distances, and this animal being 

 across a canon made it still harder work. I guessed 

 the sheep to be 500yds. off, and did not wish to fire at it, 

 but my companion persuaded me to do so. Four men 

 were looking on, and of these, two said that the ball 

 struck at the animal's feet, and two that it struck about 

 four feet above her back. I myself believe that I over- 

 shot, that she was nearer than I supposed. The same 

 afternoon, because we needed meat in camp, I shot twice 

 again at sheep. At the first shot I estimated the animal 

 to be 300yds, distant, the second was fired at the running 



bunch, at perhaps 400yds. Both were missed. I went to 

 bed that night feeling that I was disgraced, and that I 

 could never retrieve myself. 



Three days later (Oct. 1), while riding along a trail high 

 up in the mountain, I came across two single grouse, 

 which flew up into the trees. I clipped the necks of both 

 at about 20 and 30yds. respectively. Twelve shots, three 

 misses, eight head killed. 



The following day I fired four shots, the greatest num- 

 ber of cartridges used any day except the first. 



We were traveling through thick timber, and I was 

 back with the packs, while two of the men were ahead 

 on foot, cutting out a trail through the down timber. 

 Presently some one called out, "Here are some grouse,'' 

 and a moment later I heard my partner's gun speak. I 

 dismounted, and when I had stepped forward to where 

 he was shooting saw quite a number of Franklin's grouse 

 on the ground, and one in a tree not more than twenty 

 feet above me. I cut off his head quite neatly, leaving 

 only the point of the bill hanging to the neck by a thread 

 of skin. The other Franklin's grouse were running away 

 through the timber, and my friend was killing them, but 

 as I stepped about among the dwarf huckleberries, look- 

 ing to see if there were any others in the trees, I startled 

 two old male blue grouse, which flew up into the trees 

 not more than fifteen or twenty yards away, and with 

 two shots I cut their two necks. This made fifteen shots, 

 of which three had been misses. 



We kept on our way up the mountain and made camp 

 under the rocks at the edge of the snow at about 4 o'clock. 

 After the loads were off, the tents up and the fire going, 

 three of us started out to take a prospect for sign along 

 the foot of the rocks. My partner turned off to the right, 

 while Dick and I went to the left. We had not advanced 

 more than 200 or 300yds., when just as we raised a little 

 ridge, I saw a sheep about 50yds. distant walking away 

 from a little spring in a meadow. Its buttocks were 

 toward us, so I did not shoot, but lay there flat on the 

 ground until it had passed over the next little rise. Then 

 I ran forward and presently saw it standing broadside on 

 about 75yds. distant. I killed it with a shot behind the 

 shoulders. Shot No. 16. 



Two days later I fired at a sheep at about 200yds. and 

 missed it. It had been shot at while lying down by my 

 partner, and when I fired was running. Later in the day 

 — toward evening in fact — after a toilsome journey on 

 foot over the rocks, as I was returning toward' the horses, 

 I ran on a flock of about twenty-five whiter-tailed ptar- 

 migan. When I first saw them most of the birds were 

 half buried in the snow, as is their custom when the 

 wind blows hard, lying crouched flat in little hollows 

 that they had scratched out of the drift where they had 

 sought shelter. I fired off-hand at the neck of one of the 

 birds, which was not more than 50ft. from me, but the 

 furious wind which swept across the mountain top made 

 it impossible for me to hold the gun steady, and I missed. 

 The whole flock rose and flew out of sight over a little 

 ridge, but as I wanted a bird to take into camp to show 

 to one of the men who was unacquainted with this 

 species, I followed them. They had not gone far, and I 

 presently saw them crouched behind rocks on the ground. 

 I shot again at about 30yds. and killed one by a body 

 shot. 



This was my 19th and last shot. Two days later I was 

 laid up by an accident, and hunted no more. A review 

 of these shots shows that there is nothing about them to 

 be proud of. It is true on the one hand that I got an un- 

 usual proportion of the game shot at, but on the other, 

 all the successful shots were at very short distances. The 

 longest was about 75yds. All the shots over 100yds. I 

 missed. On the whole I think this about a fair measure 

 of my shooting, but I believe I can do with the rifle what 

 will be apparently better than this; that is to say, that if 

 the grouse I shot at short distances had been deer, elk, 

 sheep or antelope, at 100yds. I should perhaps have killed 

 nearly as many of them as I did of the birds. Yo. 



WEST FLORIDA SPORTS. 



TWO or three years since I penned an article or two 

 for your paper on West Florida fishing. I thought 

 that some of the lovers of true sport from the cold North 

 would thereby be tempted to visit and acquaint them- 

 selves with many facts that I did not write of. I trusted 

 too that among its pilgrims "Nessmuk," Hallock, Hen- 

 shall, Roosevelt, Murray, or another "Frank Forrester," 

 would do at least a partial justice to this much neglected 

 country, which I must denominate a veri table sportsman's 

 paradise, literally flowing with milk and honey, and hav- 

 ing fewer disadvantages than any other section in North 

 America. 



West Florida has a long coast line which is indented 

 with many small bays and inlets. Commencing at a 

 point near Mobile, Ala., we have the fine harbor of Pen- 

 sacola, which in turn has several estuaries or smaller 

 bays; thence east to the Choctawhatchie estuary; further 

 along St, Andrews, a good commodious harbor, as also 

 St. Josephs near by, and then on to Apalacbicola Harbor 

 and Bay ; all of which are supplied by large and in most 

 instances navigable rivers, and all are fairly swarming 

 with the varieties of fish peculiar to southern waters. 

 In the interior there are numerous lakes and lakelets, not- 

 ably Ochessu, Armonia, Lake View, De Funiak. Dead 

 Lakes and hundreds of others, nearly all fed by springs 

 and small streams, and all of which have either creeks, 

 rivers or subterranean outlets, forming a complete net- 

 work of creeks, rivers and lakes, all of which f urnish the 

 finest sport. On the gulf coast Spanish mackerel, pom- 

 pano, sheepshead, mullet, sea bass, red snapper, flounder, 

 redfish, striped bass and other kinds abound. In the 

 rivers, creeks and lakes the black bass, bream, shell- 

 cracker (or large speckled perch), rockfish, yellow, white 

 and black goggle-eyed and sun perch, catfish, suckers, 

 sturgeon, white and hickory shad, are found almost 

 everywhere. 



This country is the natural home of nearly all the vari- 

 eties mentioned, and I venture that they come nearer the 

 sportsman's ideal of perfection than in any other country 

 on earth. 1 have fished pretty nearly throughout the 

 year in different parts of the State and have conversed 

 with local fishermen, and they claim that they are always 

 in good condition. I have never heard of any disease in 

 fish in any portion of west Florida. The fish are large, 

 gamy and delicious. 



And there is still enough large game in the vast 

 swamps and wildernesses of west Florida to tempt the 

 sportsman, when he is cloyed with the profusion of the 



finny tribe, to try his hand on the deer, of which there 

 are still plenty, or an occasional bear, and thousands of 

 turkeys, squirrels and smaller game, with ducks in 

 winter. 



Accommodations are fairly good; board and lodging at 

 from 50 cents to $1 per day. The people are hospitable 

 and accommodating: provisions cheap; vegetables and 

 many fruits, as oranges, Peinto peaches, Japanese plums, 

 figs, pears, walnuts, pecans, scuppenong and other grapes, 

 can be had in plenty at several of the most desirable 

 localities. At most points batteaux, sailboats and other 

 craft can be had for almost the asking, and many 

 times the native Floridian will quit his work and kindly 

 tramp a few days through the forests in search of deer, 

 or paddle you in his canoe many, many miles just to 

 accommodate a stranger or guest. Transportation can 

 be had from almost any direction, First, via Savannah. 

 Ga., and Plant System R. R.; second, Columbus, Ga., and 

 Chattahoochee River; third, Montgomery, Ala., and L. & 

 N. R. R., and via Mississippi and New Orleans, Mobile 

 and Pensacola, and by Gulf route steamers or P. & A. 

 R. R. 



At the Wewahitchka or Dead Lakes (which by the way 

 I think are the finest fishing grounds of North America) 

 I have been troubled but very little indeed by mosquitoes 

 or other pests, and I have slept many nights within 

 150yds. of the lake without a mosquito bar or other pro- 

 tection; yet again there are some localities where you 

 have to guard against them, for they are as ravenous as 

 the proverbial New Jersey article. In conclusion, I, on 

 behalf of many noble-hearted gantlemen, extend a 

 cordial invitation to all true sportsmen to visit this com- 

 paratively unknown country, promising you the rarest 

 sport and a happy all-round good time. You need not 

 fear malaria, for a more healthy, contented citizenship 

 never peopled any country than you will find in West 

 Florida. Fishing is good from September to May, seven 

 months; and during December and January ducking and 

 deer stalking or hunting can be indulged in, as both are 

 then in condition. 



If I had the leisure I would describe the principal fish 

 mentioned, yet the early January number of this papet 

 leaves nothing unsaid either by correct illustration or 

 vivid description of nearly all the salt-water fishes com- 

 mon alike to the Gulf and Atlantic coasts^ I may resume 

 the subject at some other time. 



I will cheerfully furnish any information that the 

 readers of this paper may wish, and any inquiries sent 

 the publishers of Forest and Stream will reach me and 

 receive prompt attention. Piscator. 



THE PERIBONCA. 



SOME account of a trip beyond the now famous Lake 

 St. John may not prove uninteresting to your read- 

 ers. There has been quite enough written of the way to 

 get there, and how the lake looks when one does' get 

 there, and about what he finds, or rather what he does 

 not find when he arrives. Probably nine out of every 

 ten men who have visited the lake have come away dis- 

 appointed. The reasons for this I will not enter into 

 now. Part of the fault lies with the methods of adver- 

 tising the region^ and part is due to the sportsmen theni- 



It seems likely, however, that from this time forward 

 gentlemen who go to the lake will at least have a chance 

 to fish for the famous ouininische, or ouananische, or 

 winnanish. The correct spelling of the name seems to be 

 a matter of doubt. Thus far it is not probable that one 

 sportsman in five who has visited the region has caught 

 a single one of these fish, and many have not even got to 

 the fishing ground. 



Volumes might be written about this curious basin with 

 its numerous tributaries and its single outlet. No less 

 than seven large rivers flow into this basin and many 

 small ones, while its single outlet, the Giand Discharge, 

 or La Grande Decharge, has an auxiliary, La Petite 

 Decharge, which joins the main body of water some 

 fifteen miles below the lake, and these two form the 

 noble Saguenay. The water comes into the great basin, 

 Lake St. John, from all directions — east, west, north and 

 south. The larger rivers are hundreds of miles long. 



A description of the trip in a canoe from the lake, i. e. , 

 La Grande Decharge, to Chicoutimi, where one takes 

 steamer for Quebec, would of itself furnish material for 

 an exciting story. 



But I am to write of the Peribonca. This is not the 

 largest tributary of the lake, still it is known to have a 

 course, of over 300 miles; and beyond that, in Labrador, 

 the deponent saith not. I can speak of only some 50 miles, 

 It would occupy the limits of an ordinary article to 

 describe the method of getting to the mouth of this river. 

 It enters the lake on its eastern side in the midst of a 

 low-lying, desolate country, not yet settled. Indians and 

 loggers alone are familiar with its windings. Few sports- 

 men have been there. It is a noble river, nearly two 

 miles wide at its mouth and navigable for an ordinary 

 lake steamer up to the first fall or chute, i, e., some 16 

 miles. The current is swift and the canoes make but 

 slow progress; still, sunset finds us in a beautiful basin or 

 pool at the foot of the first fall. From this point for over 

 fifty miles the river is one succession of beautiful cas- 

 cades. There is no fall of any considerable height, but 

 at the foot of each cascade is a pool which is the natural 

 home of the ouininische. There are some fifteen or six- 

 teen portages or carries up to the Lake Tshitagama. 

 This lake is an offset from the river. It is a beautiful 

 sheet of water, surrounded by mountains and nearly 10 

 miles in length. This is, I believe, the winter home of 

 the ouininische. This fish lives, during the winter and 

 spring, in the river tributaries of the lake. As the water 

 gets low after the spring floods, he descends the rivers, 

 passes through the lake and finds his food and home in 

 the outlet, i. e., the upper Saguenay. I believe, too, that 

 he goes to sea, for once in the main river, there is nothing 

 to stop him if he wants to. In June, and even the latter 

 part of May, he leaves the rivers. In August he returns 

 to the rivers to spawn and spend the winter. Lake 

 Tshitagama is a favorite spawning ground. The lake is 

 full of these fish in May and September. Not many are 

 found either in rivers or lakes— for Tshitagama is only 

 one of many— in July and early August, while on the 

 other hand, the Grand Discharge is the best fishing 

 ground in these months. Sportsmen then who are going 

 up any of these tributaries in pursuit of this fish will have 

 better luck if they avoid July and early August, and even 

 lat9 June. 



