388 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Dec. 3, 1891. 



ST. VINCENT'S ISLAND. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



There is but a small patt of that portion of the world 

 comprised by the United States that haa not been well 

 trodden by the hunter, and few are the streams and 

 waters that the enterprising fisherman has not poked a 

 rod over and dropped a fly on their surfaces; but I think I 

 have struck a fresh field, where there are worlds to con- 

 quer—game that was never shot and fish that were never 

 caught. 



I had occasion recently to visit Apalachicola, on the 

 west coast of Florida. The name is familiar enough to 

 all, but of that region's resources for game and fish as 

 little is known generally as of the interior of Africa. 



At the invitation of a gentleman owning an island 

 about twelve miles from the town, I visited the place 

 (which is easy of access by sailboat or tue) to see what it 

 might bring forth in the way of sport. The island, com- 

 prising an area of 11,000 acres, was recently acquired by 

 its present owner with a view to making it a game pre- 

 serve, bsing the resort of a great variety of wildfowl, 

 deer, etc. 



It seemed especially intended by nature to be a game 

 resort, having a linked chain of fresh water lakes, some 

 fifteeti or twenty, of all sizes, some covering several 

 acres, surrounded by rushes, forming capital blinds from 

 whence to shoot over decoys, then intervals of marsh, the 

 randest kind of snipe ground, as proven by the hund- 

 reds that arose as our boat was paddled along near the 

 shores. 



To a sportsman accustomed to tramping over a soft 

 marsh, leaving a boot now and then in the ooze, it may 

 seem a sybaritic tale that I tell, when 1 say that, sitting 

 in a skiff in an arm chair, all I had to do was to load and 

 fire as fast as the operation could be performed. The 

 greatest bother was to decide whether to shoot at the 

 dozen snipe in a bunch on the right or the pairs on the 

 left, for there were snipe to the right, to the left, in front 

 and rear. It was unnecessary to send a dog to put them 

 up. They got up of their own free will and accord, and 

 it was unnecessary to move a step from my position. All 

 I had to do was to sit in my arm chair and shoot. What 

 a dude, to go snipe shooting in a boat and an arm chair? 

 Let me qualify the accusation by explaining that a pet 

 rheumatism took this special occasion, of all times, to 

 afflict me: and locomotion in gum boots through a marsh 

 was impossible, hence the arm chair, with a negro to 

 paddle the boat, and by the same token act as retriever, 

 and quite as well as a dog; but then the marsh ground 

 was so clean and clear of weeds or high grass, that every 

 dead bird could be seen from the boat, and none were 

 lost. I shall not enumerate my bag, as some fellow who 

 never misses his bird would say, "Mighty few birds, 

 'pears to me, for such an opportunity:" but then he has 

 not experienced what a twinge a sudden turn for a shot 

 gives a fellow rellow rejoicing in a rheumatic attack in 

 shoulder and back. Even a good shot would not get 

 every bird tired at. It would have been inhuman slaugh- 

 ter to have killed as many as could have been bagged ; 

 being, as it were, a case of how long you would keep it 

 up. For a change, Dick suggested ducks; so we drove 

 the boat into a little opening in the rushes, constituting a 

 partial screen or blind, and every few moments along 

 came a flock of teal or a pair of mallards — just often 

 enough to make it interesting and not let the gun get too 

 hot. 



The young man in charge of the island was all this 

 time apologizing for the paucity of the morning's sport 

 by sayings that, owing to the extremelv warm and 

 pleasant weather, the birds had not yet arrived, and he 

 was praying for a storm at the North and extending 

 South, that would bring along the usual flight— declaring 

 that he had never in his years of residence on the island 

 seen so few birds at this season — never known game so 

 backward in its flight — owing, as he asserted and as was 

 potent to any observing man, to the drought, for it has 

 been as great South as North, and summer weather has 

 prevailed, which is not (as we all know) favorable for 

 game. 



I know I shall be called to account by some skeptic, 

 and the exclamation of "Oh, what a whopper," at the 

 perusal of what I assert, that in oaddling through the 

 narrow bayous not once did we fail* to return with two, 

 three or four, and not infrequently half a dozen, mullet 

 that jumped into the boat. To one who is not familiar 

 with the habits of this excellent fish my story may sound 

 fishy. When frightened they leap from the water in 

 every direction, and generally toward the object one 

 would suppose they would avoid. They are quite as 

 likely to jum)3 entirely over or across the boat as into it. 

 At night it is only necessary to put a light in the boat 

 to get it half filled with fish, weighing from f to l^lbs. 



At St. Vincent's Island and around its entire shores, 

 comprising thirty or forty miles, every bayou and bay is 

 fairly alive with mullet, and even in the fresh water of 

 the bayous and ponds they are so numerous that at one 

 throw of the cast net our colored man Dick dumped out 

 as many as two dozen, all the net would contain. At a 

 point fm-ther down the bay, where a regular fishery is 

 located, at one haul so many were taken that the foi'ty 

 men employed in curing them could only take care of less 

 than half the catch; and the hundred barrels of dead and 

 wasted fish were cast forth upon the waters. The bay 

 was covered with them for miles — a shameful destruction. 



St. Vincent not only affords every species of wildfowl 

 shooting, but deer and wild turkeys. The latter are more 

 abundant on the main land, but deer are plentiful, and a 

 good hunter has no occasion to return empty handed from 

 a stroll through the tall pines and palmetto trees that 

 cover the area of the island not occupied by the ponds 

 and marshes. 



This island seems to be favored with every requisite for 

 a game resort, being some miles distant from the main- 

 land, except at one point where a long point makes out 

 from the main shore, and deer swimming over in great 

 numbers, especially when hunted by dogs, as they are in 

 the season, and as no dogs are perriiitted to run them on 

 the island, they find immunity from the hunters, and as 

 the feed is abimdant, they make it their breeding ground 

 and multiply. 



As an additional atti'action, the waters surrounding the 

 island are teeming with a great variety of fi«h — the silver 

 and spotted sea trout, the latter running in weight from 

 1 toSOlbs.; sheepshead, bass and tarpon. The last are 

 seen in large numbers in the channel in front of the 

 island, and would afford great sport to the skillful fisher- 



man. No one has yet had the skill to take one here: in 

 fact, no effort has been made, as Apalachicola does not as 

 yet boast of the science necessary. Not being ufovided 

 with the proper tackle to handle this gamy fish, 1 did not 

 sport; but they are there, and in great abundance, and 

 are only waiting for a Lorillard or a Hecksher to "come 

 down' like Captain Scott's coon, when such skilled fisher- 

 men essay their capture. 



With a view to test the question of the fine red snapper 

 and grouper fishing as claimed, I accepted the kind offer 

 of Captain Whiteside, agent for the owner of St. Vincent 

 Island, to take a sail outside the bar in the local pilot 

 boat, and one pleasant morning we sailed out about eight 

 miles to the banks, where rumor said these fine fish were 

 to be caught. With a favorable breeze we reached the 

 banks in an hour's sail, and hauling jib to windward let 

 the boat drift, dropping our heavy lines over the side, 

 and almost instantly a big red snapper was hooked, and 

 gave the young man handhng the line a lively tussel, 

 ending in losing the fish alongside. It was but a moment, 

 however, before three other lines had each a fish, and 

 each man after a severe tug landed a fifteen-pound 

 grouper on deck, and for an hour this lively sport con- 

 tinued until we were really ashamed to take any more. 

 The deck was literally covered with these great handsome 

 fellows, for the grouper is handsomely colored, a dark 

 red with tiny white spots along its sides, and is greatly 

 esteemed as an edible fish. 



The proposition to drop a few miles further out to the 

 red snapper banks, for a change, was vetoed on the 

 ground that we had done quite enough fishing for one 

 day outside, and a second proposition to run in and try 

 the silver trout was accepted instead. Drawing the jib 

 and heading for the bay, we soon reached an old wharf, 

 built at a distance out from the shore, and having tied up 

 to it, we changed our tackle for lighter fish, and in just 

 an hour we caught (there were seven fishing) two hun- 

 dred and ten silver trout, one of the most beautiful fish 

 of the Southern waters, its sides shining in the sun like 

 burnished silver. The head of this fish is a counterpart 

 of our brook trout, hence its name; but it bears no resem- 

 blance beyond. It runs from f to l-|lbs.; those we caught 

 v^ould very nearly average the latter weight. The next 

 question was, what was to be done with our catch. Our 

 consciences were, however, set at rest by a suggestion to 

 distribute our fish among the shipping lying near loading 

 lumber. Our donations were thankfully accepted, as 

 some of the vessels had just arrived from foreign ports 

 after a long voyage, and after diet of salt junk, old Jack 

 welcomed the toothsome contributions with great una- 

 nimity. So we had the satisfaction of knowing our 

 catch had found a welcome market, and no wastage re- 

 sulted. 



It is a well-known fact that good fishing on the lower 

 Florida coast is becoming scarcer every year, but the 

 waters of Apalachicola Bay, where so little fishing is 

 done, have apparently experienced no diminution, and 

 the field is still ample. To those cruising on the west 

 coast of Florida in their own yachts, as is becoming each 

 year more common and extended, it is but a short run as 

 far west as Apalachicola, where fish and oysters abound 

 to such an unlimited extent, and it is only necessary that 

 this fact be known, presixmably, to induce yacht owners 

 to visit it. St. Vincent is the "only island on the coast, 

 however, that afl'ords such superb shooting, as all the 

 others are mere sand islands, containing no fresh water 

 ponds or marshes, and have consequently no game. And 

 although the present owner had not in contemplation 

 when purchasing the island the formation of a club, but 

 more a view to private uses and stock raising (there are 

 already on it some 400 head of cattle and a large number 

 of wild hogs), he has, as I learn, consented to the organ- 

 ization of a club, should a sufiicient number of gentlemen 

 be found desirous of availing themselves of the oppor- 

 tunity presented thereby for good shooting and fishing. 



It would be particularly desirable to a few men of 

 means for private ownership for this purpose, and as 

 good sport of the kind is becoming scarce and mostly 

 absorbed by clubs, an island possessing such attractions 

 is not likely to remain long unappropriated. 



The rush of tourists to Florida increases every winter, 

 and so much shooting (every man nearly takes hia gun) is 

 rapidly diminishing the game all through the country. 



The time was, and only a few years ago, when every 

 bay and lagoon was teeming with birds, but when the 

 fashion demanded that every woman's bonnet should be 

 decorated with some kind of a bird or its feathers, men 

 were sent to Florida to procixre them, and one expedition 

 returned, it is said, with one hundred thousand bird 

 skins, shot during one winter. Such destruction is now 

 felt, and although the authorities have now prohibited 

 the slaughter, it is like locking the stable after the horse 

 is stolen. 



On the Apalachicola River wild turkeys and ducks are 

 shot wantonly from the decks of the steamboats, and alU- 

 gatora all along the banks come in for a fusillade from 

 the rifles of the passengers. On my recent trip on this 

 river I savi' numbers of turkeys shot as they were running 

 along the banks, chat were of course wasted, as the boat 

 could not stop to pick them up; and every flock of ducks 

 that rose was fired into, killing or maiming more or less 

 of them. Not only on the ground of wanton cruelty 

 should the owners of these boats prohibit the use of fire- 

 arm3, but it is a great annoyance to many passengers to 

 have rifles and shotguns bangina; away around them, to 

 say nothing of the danger to life from careless use of 

 guns by mere hoys, as some of them were. It is a theme 

 the Forest and Steeam might properly bring to the 

 notice of the proper authorities (the owners of the steam- 

 ers) in the cause, and enter a protest against such wanton 

 destruction of such rare game as the turkey, as well as 

 every other bird coming in for slaughter, as is now the 

 case on the river boats on the Southern rivers. 



E. L. O. 



St. Louis Notes.— The cold wave of the first part of 

 the week sent the temperature down in this State to 12 

 deg. above zero. Numerous fishing and hunting parties 

 encamped along the rivers in south Missouri had a tough 

 time of it during the week. During the blizzard-like 

 storm last Tuesday a flock of wild geese was stranded on 

 the hills in the western suburbs of this city, and the small 

 boy, in the person of Ray Bennett, was on hand, and 

 with the aid of his dog caught one of the geese alive, 

 which he saved for his Thanksgiving dinner. Wild 

 turkeys must be plentiful this season; Union Market is 

 burdened with them. — ^Aberdeeiv. 



GROUSE NEAR NEW YORK CITY. 



LAST Saturday a week ago I had a very pleasant day 

 with the partridges of Murray Hill, N. J., about 

 tfl^enty-three miles from New York citv, on the line of 

 the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. Two of 

 us secured five nice birds, and by way of variety added a 

 beautiful specimen of the grav fox to our game bag. 



Such a result was far more than I had even dreamed 

 ot, as the locality is easy of access, and I found the place 

 actually crowded with gunners. On the cars you could 

 scarcely make a move without rubbing against a sports- 

 man or stepping on a dog in the baggage car. I saw one 

 man on the Summit platform who roused my ire. He 

 had a highly polished gun in one hand and was" holding a 

 dog by a chain with the other. The dog was restless and 

 somewhat difficult to manage, and once I saw the man 

 give him a cruel kick under the jaw with his heavy boot. 

 I tried to ' 'hoodoo" that man, and if the "spell" 1 breathed 

 upon him worked, he had most infernally tough luck 

 that day. I hope it did. There should be no good luck 

 for the man who abuses his dog. 



Mr. Udo Bender, son of Mr. Bender of the Maritime 

 Begister, upon whose invitation we made the trip, met 

 M. and the writer at the Murray Hill station about 8 in 

 the morning. M. is no shooter, and when Udo and I took 

 to the woods he laid a course for the house, where we 

 found him m the afternoon well fed and cared for. 

 Stuart Toms, a local gunner, joined us at the station, and 

 ^^\^T,n ^^^^ where to find some partridges, and he did. 



While walking through a patch of briers on the sunny 

 side of a piece of woods we started a fox. Udo saw the 

 fox sneaking off through the tall grass, but Toms and I 

 being between him and the fox he could not shoot. 1 

 climbed the fence and got into the woods, and in a few 

 minutes somebody yelled, "Look out," and bang! bang! 

 went the guns. The idea of j umping another fox out of 

 that bunch of briers never occurred to me, and while I 

 was looking for a rabbit to break cover out came a fox 

 about 20yds. away. The first barrel of No. 83 knocked 

 him over, but up he got and was legging it in great shape 

 when I caught him in the side of the head with the other 

 bai-rel. That settled him. On examuiation we saw 

 where both foxes had been lying in the briers, and al- 

 though we had walked within ten feet of them only one 

 fox, the female, got out at first. Later in the day we met 

 a party of gunners who had killed the female. 



The woods looked hardly dense enough for partridges 

 to my eyes, and the first one to get up was such a snr- 

 prise that it got away in safety. A little further up the 

 hill two more jumped from a clump of cedars, giving 

 Toms a shot, but he failed to score. Then a rabbit 

 scooted from under a brush heap ahead of me and I 

 heard the patter of his feet on the dry leaves after he 

 was out of sight; a tree had caught my charge of shot. 

 A partridge got out from the side of "an old road and 

 gave me such a pretty shot that I could not help killing 

 it. While standing with the bird in my hand I heard 

 another one jump to the left, and then followed two 

 reports, but the bird came sailing at full speed over the 

 tops of the scrub oaks. It was a long shot, but down 

 she came, and it made me feel quite proud of my little 

 16-bore. The next bird fell to Udo's gun, and after that 

 we had quite a walk before another was flushed. Again 

 I was the lucky man, getting a beautiful open shot. 



Finding no more birds in that piece of woods we 

 walked to the house and got outside of a substantial 

 lunch Mr. Gus Schultz prepared for us. He is running 

 a bachelor establishment, with two big St. Bernard dogs 

 and a few cats for company. I sampled some of the 

 finest butter I ever tasted, his own make, he told me. 

 Then Udo and I started out to give the birds another 

 shake, M. joining us. We only raised three birds, 

 two we only heard the flutter of their wings, but 

 the third got up near Udo and he promptly downed 

 him. Five partridges and a gray fox is not a bad bag 

 for a place as thickly settled as Murray Hill, and within 

 23 or 24 miles of a city of 3,000,000 of inhabitants, 



W. L. Hall. 



"THE SAGINAW CROWD." 



SAGINAW, Mich., Nov. 12.— "The Saginaw Crowd" 

 returned Oct. 24. Of course we had the best time 

 yet. Everyone was well pleased with the trip, and found 

 as much game as usual, though more hunters there after 

 it. We could count thirty-five foreign sportsmen staying 

 with the farmers at this one little prairie town. I incloae 

 a clipping taken from the local paper: 



The huafiug party of which Messrs. Bond, Barnes and^addock 

 were members returned to their homes in Chicago on Sunday 

 evening, after a stay of nearly four weejis at the pleasant home of 

 Mr. and Mrs. J. D. Williams, in New Yorktown. Thpse jjentlemen 

 have been in the habit of making this place their hea'lq uarters for 

 several years for a season of water-fowl shooting, and have almc^t 

 come to be considered as members of Mr. Williams' familv, Thfiy 

 are thorougli gentlemen— of great prowess and superior mark- 

 mansbip, as is e^^dencpd by their score this season, showing a 

 mortality of 3.600 birds, 3 deer, and 1 an telope. 



Reads almost like slaughter. Over 8,600 birds: and 

 after all these people were there a month and had a party 

 of about half a dozen. 



Under date of Nov. 8 I have a letter from Harry, our 

 teamster, saying that the weather has been nice ever since 

 we left, and lots of game. He said that about a week 

 before he wrote two of the farmers there went out and 

 shot sixty geese in one afternoon. It was blowing hard 

 and made the shooting good. The next day one of the 

 party went on another field and killed fifty single-handed 

 in two hours. Again two men on a barley field stubble 

 in one afternoon killed sixty greenhead mallards. In 

 fact we found the mallard shooting over decoys on the 

 stubble to be about the nicest sport yet; great big green- 

 heads and what a fine bag they made. Sharp-tailed 

 grouse were also plentiful. A party of three would get 

 from twenty-five to thirty-five in a day's shooting, which 

 we considered excellent as we had no dogs with us. We 

 found more snipe than usual. The writer bagged thirty- 

 nine in one day's shooting, besides ducks and other game. 



If I can find time to get at it, will write up the inci- 

 dents of the trip, making another chapter for Forest 

 AND Stream relating the seventh pilgrimage of "The 

 Saginaw Crowd." W, B. Mershon. 



A New Bullet Implement.— The Ideal Manufactur- 

 ing Co., of New Haven, Conn., have just received letters 

 patent on a new and useful implement for sizing bulleta,. 



