410 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[JUNE 12, 1890. 



ought to be a part of the very spot where it is. For in- 

 stance, my brother George and I were shooting on one 

 of those wet pastures where there wasn't much cover, 

 and we cut some brush and stuff and built a blind, out in 

 the water. We couldn't get the ducks in close enough; 

 so we just tore down that blind and lay in the boat, just 

 putting a little grass and stuff over the ends of the boat, 

 and then we got good shooting. The blind builder 

 should usually not go far from his blind for his ma- 

 terial. 



There is a great deal in the way the decoys are put out, 

 and many a duck is lost from the bag which would have 

 been saved if the decoys were a little different. You 

 always have to consider the way the ducks are flying, or 

 will be apt to fly. If they are at a certain hour passing 

 on the feed mostly from a certain direction, say from a 

 large body of water to a smaller, so that the flight will be 

 coming nearly all from that side, you should put your 

 decoys out toward that side, and not straight out on a 

 line with the front .of your blind, because most ducks will 

 pass in over a flock of decoys, and make as if to alight 

 beyond or back of them. This is the case especially for 

 bluebills and most deep-water ducks, but not so much so 

 for mallards. A mallard will hover all around over a 

 flock of decoys, and nobody can tell where he is going to 

 light. He may light 100yds. away from the decoys, 

 others get up and light right down among them. For 

 mallards I usually put the decoys out straight in front of 

 the blind. 



At a different hour of the day or at a change in the 

 wind, the ducks may be coming in the opposite direction, 

 and then you will need to change your decoys over to 

 that side. If the birds are coming about as much from 

 one way as the other, or -are working up and down, keep 

 your decoys straight out in front of you. 



The use of decoys, and the position of the blind in re- 

 gard to the decoys, differs much, according to the wind. 

 I never followed any particular order in putting out a 

 flock of decoys, except that if you want to attract the 

 attention of a distant flock of ducks, you naturally will 

 want the long line of your fleet to be crosswise to the line 

 of that direction the ducks are coming from. For in- 

 stance, if the ducks are coming from the east, you want 

 your decoys kind of strung out north and south. This is 

 the case for most ducks; but if you are shooting bluebills, 

 you want to be careful and not string out or scatter your 

 decoys very much. You want to get a close shot into 

 every flock that draws in, and to do this at bluebills you 

 want to bunch your decoys and keep them pretty close 

 together, for that is the way bluebills light and feed. A 

 close fleet, toward the side where the birds are coming 

 from, is the thing for bluebills. Then they swing in and 

 light, very often just back of the fleet, and therefore just 

 in front of you. A little noise somebimes makes them 

 hold their heads up, and then is your chance for a water 

 shot. The soft tap of a paddle on the side of a boat will 

 sometimes make a flock of teal hold their heads up when 

 you are sneaking up on them. 



About any sort of ducks will come to mallard decoys. 

 A mixed flock of mallards and bluebills is good. In put- 

 ting out such a fleet some shooters would put each sort 

 of duck by itself, the mallards on one side and the blue- 

 bills on the other. That is wrong. The best way is to 

 mix them all up as you put them out. Ducks are less 

 suspicious of a mixed flock of birds, and decoy much 

 better to it. A duck has a rough sort of reasoning. 



Sometimes ducks, especially bluebills, will decoy to 

 almost anything, and the best decoying I ever saw was 

 done to a flock of the very worst decoys that you ever 

 heard of. Mike Whalen and a fellow by the name of 

 Gough had this flock out near the mouth of the river. 

 The decoys were just boards or blocks of wood with a 

 stick nailed on for a neck and a cross stick nailed on that 

 for a head, and the "ducks" were painted with coal tar, 

 with a streak of green paint down the back, as a sort of 

 national emblem, I suppose. Yet these Irish decoys 

 brought in the birds all right. But of course the more 

 natural a decoy is, the better it is. I like the very best 

 decoys, made and painted as well as possible. A glass 

 eye is a good thing in a duck decoy. There are no decoys 

 like those with the bright glass eye. 



I have spoken of the hovering of a mallard over decoys. 

 A redhead is just the opposite to that. He will set his 

 wings and go ker-splash right into the middle of the flock 

 of decoys. 



SOME WESTERN SPORTING BOATS. 



IN writing on so broad and general a topic as that nam- 

 ing the boats used by Western sportsman, it is mani- 

 festly impossible to cover the whole field, for the fancy 

 of the sportsman is as free in the choice or the design of 

 his boat as in any other part of his outfit; but it may be 

 pleasant to look at a few of the more unique or more use- 

 ful individuals in the field, preferring those which may 

 be termed types, and which seem to be well fitted to 

 their surroundings, if not, indeed, evolved from the same. 



Possibly the first sporting boat of the Western country 

 or that portion of it lying to the north, was the birch 

 canoe. Indian, voyageur, trapper, hunter, traveler and 

 explorer used it. Its model is too familiar to need com- 

 ment. It may be of interest, however, to note one form 

 of the birch canoe which, though not a sporting boat in 

 itself, was obviously evolved from it. The old "North 

 canoe" of the early fur-trading days was a colossal birch 

 bark, built on such lines as one would hardly deem the 

 material capable of carrying. It was 40ft. long. 30in 



NORTH CANOE. 



deep, with a beam of 4ft. 6in. Its regular crew was eight 

 to ten men, and its burden eight to ten tons. By its 

 means, therefore, one man may be said to have carried a 

 ton daily on all the long way from Montreal, up the 

 Great Lakes and so on to Winnipeg or beyond. The 

 merchandise in this great craft was packed in square 

 bales, and these bales were arranged so as to leave holes 

 for the paddlers' legs. The paddlers sat on swinging 

 seats, one of which was lashed to the gunwale, the other 



resting on the merchandise. There were usually six to 

 eight paddlers (half of whom by choice paddled left- 

 handed all the time), besides the bowman and the stern- 

 man. The latter two had thwarts lashed across the bow 

 and stern. The ends of the North Canoe rolled back 

 gracefully, and the builders took pride in ornamenting 

 these boats lavishly. The rows of colored "points" along 

 the sides usually denoted the approximate waterline 

 when loaded. This was a grand seaworthy boat and a 

 great traveler. 



There are a number of boats which may claim the old 

 Indian birch in their ancestry. Some of the duck shooters 

 of Canada use a "Rice Lake canoe," which is near about a 

 white man's canoe, without the teeteriness and skittish- 

 ness of the birch, though a light goer among the rushes. 

 Something like a birch is the idea of the Nee-pe-nauk 

 boat, used by the Chicago club men on the Northern Fox 



NEE-PE-NAUK BOAT. 



River. This is a smooth-skinned boat, and the skin is 

 made by screwing one longitudinal piece directly upon 

 another, the boat being formed upon a mold. There are 

 no ribs in the boat, and no braces except under the deck 

 fore and aft of the cockpit. The deck is light, and the 

 cockpit ample for paddling, which is the method of pro- 

 pulsion. About the cockpit is a folding canvas coaming, 

 which can be raised in case of a sea. The boat sets low in 

 the water. It is stiff, easy-going and suitable for its pur- 

 pose, which includes a long journey daily to and from 

 the club house, partly in open water. 



The birch canoe, folded and closed at the ends and pro- 

 vided with cockpit and coaming, a sort of kayak model 

 indeed, may have been in the mind of Mr. Alex. T. Loyd 

 of the grand Calumet Heights, of Chicago, when he 

 devised the racy lines of what we may call the Loyd boat. 



LOYD BOAT. 



This is a slender and graceful craft, about 18ft. in length. 

 It is provided with out riggers and is very speedy under 

 oars, being really a better river runner than marsh boat. 

 Under sail it is very fast and stiff, being provided with a 

 keel which is detachable at will. At night the captain of 

 the boat usually employs the keel as the ridge pole of his 

 boat tent, simply reversing the position of the rods which 

 fasten it in position. The owner of this boat has two or 

 three air-tight tin cases stowed fore and aft under the 

 decking, and these would float the boat strongly if it 

 were over-turned, which, however, it has not yet been. 

 This boat was born of a necessity which implied long 

 daily journeys over open water which was often rough, 

 and it has often been out when the whole fleet of marsh 

 boats were stormbound. 



The birch canoe is a creature of the past. The dug-out 

 is the aboriginal boat of the South. A queer little craft 

 is the„St. Francis River (Missouri) dug-out, and this is 

 the type, too, of the boats used on the great New Madrid 



"7 



SASSAFRAS DUGOUT. 



duck marsh and in much of Arkansas. This boat is made 

 of sassafras, and its size depends much upon the size of 

 the tree handy to the builder. The boat is only 10ft. 

 long and about lOin. deep, and as wide as the tree was. 

 It is perfectly flat on top, the ends being simplv spoon- 

 shaped. It has no seats. For leakiness and tip"siness it 

 is hard to beat. 



A very highly finished and graceful dug-out is the lit- 

 tle Mexican pirogue, which parts the water before the 

 paddle of the hunter of the far Southwest. Our illus- 

 tration is taken from a little boat made by some Latin 

 hand near Vera Cruz, Mexico. This pretty little dug-out 

 —for such a thing is possible— is used by Mr. George T. 

 Farmer, of Chicago, as a marsh and river boat in duck 



51 



MEXICAN CYPRESS PIROGUE. 



shooting. It is 12ft. long and 14in. deep. The thin edge 

 is strengthened by a light strip for a rail. This is an 

 easy sort of boat to fall out of. 

 Up on Wolf River, in Wisconsin, they have a hunting 



and trapping canoe, for paddling or pushing, which is an 

 odd-looking but serviceable boat. It is 16ft. long and 

 about 20in. deep. It is decked about 3-Jft. fore and aft of 



WOLF RIVER CANOE. 



the cockpit, which is protected by a coaming. This boat 

 is clinker-built, but has only three strips on each sid^, 

 the bottom being of one or two boards. This boat does 

 well for the requirements of its locality. 



If we should descend the northern waters until we 

 struck the little open sea of Fox Lake, we should find a 

 necessity for a boat which could upon occasion stand a 

 good deal of sea and possibly some ice, and a good deal 



BOB STANLEY, FOX LAKE, ILL. 



of wind. Mr. Bob Stanley, an old-timer on that lake, had 

 this in mind doubtless when he constructed the wonder- 

 ful and ponderous inland ship, with which he sometimes 



BOB STANLEY. 



plows the main while in quest of a pot shot at the wily 

 canvasback of that country. It is greatly to the credit of 

 this boat that it can carry sail. 



If we drop down the Fox River into the Illinois River 

 country, and among the sturdy duck hunters who shoot 

 early and late each year there, and therefore meet high 

 waters and often fields or floes of tough, keen ice, we 

 will find another type of boat evolved from such environ- 

 ment, and that is the Illinois River or Lake Senachwine 

 sheet-iron skiff, which all shooters of that region pro- 

 nounce the boat par exeellen ce for (heir purposes. This 

 boat is well shown in the cut. It is about 16£t. lone, 

 stiff and beamy, and weighs from 75 or lOOlbs. up to 150. 



LAKE SENACHWINE IRON SKIFF. 



It is sometimes made with air-tight compartments, but the 

 natives scorn this model, which is too heavy. The iron 

 skiff is not hard running, but must be kept free from a 

 breaking sea. It is valuable when it comes to an ice 

 field, and is about as good a sled as it is a boat. The 

 "Wood boys," old-time market-shooters of Swan Lake, 

 use these boats always in cold weather. 



The Hennepin duck boat, which is used in much the 

 same waters as the above, is rather more of a fair- weather 

 boat, but is a very good marsh boat for punting, being 

 built with a long and roomy cockpit. It can also be put 

 under oars. This is a local boat, and is built by Mr. Jas. 

 Cunningham, the keeper of the Hennepin Club. 



A very popular and very good marsh boat is that com- 

 monly known among duck shooters as the "Monitor" 



HENNEPIN DUCK BOAT. 



model, or more commonly still as the "Green Bay boat." 

 This is a light, shallow boat, intended for no form of pro- 

 pulsion but the push-paddle or punting-pole. It is loft, 

 in length, 34in, in width and only 7in. deep. Its cock- 



