292 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[April 7, 1894. 



IN DIXIE LAND.— V. 



[FYom a Staff Correspondent.] 



As I was saying, Dick had never eaten a chile supper, 

 so while we were at San Antonio we ate one. But I have 

 changed my mind about telling of this one, because we 

 had a much better one at the same place later on, and 

 about this one I can tell after a while. 



At San Antonio we were taken bodily in charge by that 

 vigorous and generally known sportsman, Mr. O. G. 

 Guessaz, and his friend, Mr. A. C. Paris, another of the 

 San Antonio reliables, and they took us all over the town 

 and introduced us on an average to three sportsmen a 

 minute, all day long. It is simply astonishing what a 

 number of sportsmen this cosmopolitan town contains. 

 The gun clubs run away up in the fifties and sixties in 

 membership, and the strength of the rifle interest may be 

 seen from the fact that over 100 contestants are sometimes 

 gathered at one of the shoots on the leading range. Of 

 tarpon fishers, and bass fishers, and duck shooters, and 

 deer hunters the name is legion. I am frank to say that 

 I do not believe there is a city in the United States where 

 the percentage of sportsmen is so large compared to the 

 population as it is here. Sport here is practical and 

 earnest, and savors not so muoh of the unhearty dille- 

 tanteism of a country where the opportunity for sport is 

 meager and infrequent. 



We found the shooters of this section all lamenting the 

 extreme dryness of the season. Mitchell's Lake, the great 

 club preserve, about ten miles' from town, was entirely 

 dried up. Many of the lagoons between San Antonio and 

 the coast were entirely dry, and the complaint was gen- 

 eral that even tbe quail were driven from their favorite 

 grounds by reason of the drought, and had departed for 

 regions unknown. A bag of 50 birds a day to the gun in 

 the country around Marcellina was now thought good, 

 where once 100 to the gun was common — where, indeed, 

 the most conservative shooters told us, it was once clearly 

 within the possibility of a good shot to bag 200 birds a 

 day, provided he had men to carry guns and ammunition 

 for him. (This statement may be scoffed at, but only by 

 those who have never seen the number of Bob Whites in 

 the level pastures of the section mentioned. The state- 

 ment is unfortunately true. Such heavy shooting has 

 been done there that it is likely it can never again be pos- 

 sible now). 



As to the duck shooting on the Gulf coast, we heard all 

 sorts of conflicting reports, Some said it was good, some 

 said it was poor. All thought it would be better if the 

 marshes were fuller of water. We got straight tips on 

 country covering about 500 square miles, and finally con- 

 cluded we would have to chance it and not try to go to 

 all the places we heard about. In time it will appear 

 that what our friends lamented as scarcity of game was 

 to us the greatest plenty. Eeviewing the trip, we now 

 know that we visited in all the best all around country 

 now left in the United States. 



A New Tarpon Country. 



On one thing all the San Antonio men agree, and that 

 was the excellence of the tarpon fishing to be had at the 

 Aransas Pass, near the coast town of Rockport, which 

 was t® be the furthermost point of our journey. Mr. T. 

 H. Micklejohn, one of the tarpon coterie of San Antonio, 

 told us we would hardly get a tarpon in January or 

 February. 



"At any time from March or April till December, de- 

 pending on the weather," said he, "you can not have only 

 the prospect but the certainty of hanging a tarpon at the 

 Pass, without the tedious uncertainty which marks the 

 Florida fishing for the Silver King. In September I 

 believe I could guarantee a decent fisher a tarpon for 

 every day. I have hung eleven tarpon in one day, and 

 landed two of them, and all of our little party that go 

 down there have had equal experiences. Four of us 

 killed nine in one day. The tarpon come into the channel 

 of Aransas Bay, and in the proper season you can see 

 them not only in dozens, but apparently actually in scores. 

 You need not smile, for I have seen days when this was 

 absolutely true. They run in out of the Gulf through the 

 Pass at the jetties, and play up and down in the channel 

 and in the shallow water inside. We don't fish for them 

 still-fishing with ground bait as they do in Florida, but 

 troll for them with mullet bait, as you would for mascal- 

 longe. When a tarpon strikes a trolling bait he does it 

 with a rush, and you've got your hands full from then on. 



"Yes, sir, I do not hesitate for a moment to say that 

 we have the finest tarpon fishing at Aransas Pass there is 

 to be found in America. It surely surpasses that of 

 Florida, just as much as you can imagine. Moreover, our 

 tarpon season is eight months long. 



"You never heard of this country for tarpon fishing, 

 did you? No, and there are a great many other things 

 about Texas that you never heard of. The sportsmen of 

 the North don't come here because they don't know the 

 country, and they don't know it because no one has ever 

 taken the trouble to tell about it." 



Mr. Micklejohn's assertions we found borne out by 

 every one we met along the coast, and although the season 

 did not invite us to use the tarpon rods and outfit which 

 he insisted we should take down with us, we only re- 

 gretted the late date of our visit, and resolved next time 

 to so regulate our dates as to add the killing of a tarpon 

 to the long and varied list of sports possible in this singu- 

 larly-favored corner of the world. 



A Winter Paradise. 



At San Antonio we met Mr. A. W. Adams, of Chicago, 

 who has spent two or three winters there to escape the 

 tortures of a rheumatic trouble which is always aggra- 

 vated by the Northern winter. Mr. Adams is a devout 

 sportsman and looks on the winters now as being the hap- 

 piest portions of his life. 



"This town is simply a winter paradise," said he, "and 

 I am surprised that it is no more widely known — though I 

 believe they claim that over 1,000 Northerners wintered 

 here last winter. The climate is dry, so warm and yet so 

 bracing, that a fellow just can't stay sick here. I have 

 tried California, all of it, and I consider San Antonio far 

 and away superior in point of winter climate, and especi- 

 ally much better than California in rheumatic troubles. 



"This is a great place to spend a winter. You can have 

 every and any kind of field sports. The region about is 

 full of all sorts of game, from deer and turkey down to 

 quail, and even if you didn't want to shoot you always 

 had plenty to see, for this is the oddest old town you ever 

 did see— 50,000 s about half Mexican, half American, one- 



third German and another third of all sorts. It's as cos- 

 mopolitan as any city in America, and yet as friendly and 

 easy as a country village, and full of the best fellows you 

 ever saw. 



"What San Antonio needs more than anything else in 

 the world is a good hotel. Give her that, and you can't 

 hold her back from a big share of the winter traffic of the 

 country. Her natural advantages for that purpose are 

 not equalled anywhere in the United States." 



San Antonio grew on us strongly as we went about it 

 with our friends, and we almost regretted to turn our 

 faces to the still further South. But we had not yet 

 smelled the salt-water or killed a canvasback, and this we 

 were billed to do. Therefore we told Mr. Guessaz and 

 Mr. Paris that we would stop again on our way north and 

 made our preparations for the short railroad journey which 

 lay between us and the terminus of our long trip from the 

 North. 



The Southern Railroad Man. 



There is a difference between the Northern railroad man 

 and the Southern railroad man. The railroad man in 

 general is a maligned individual, for whom no one ever 

 has a good word. He has to be brief and exact to hold 

 his job, and he has to be icy and austere to save his time, 

 but back of the cold front you usually will find a good 

 fellow, well posted and liberal, fond of a joke and often 

 fond of sport. The difference between the Northern and 

 Southern railroad man is, I presume, largely one of ex- 

 terior. The Northern official is gruffer and harder to get 

 at. The Southern man is easier and more democratic of 

 habit, and if I must say it, more polite. 



Mr. Martin, the general passenger agent of the San 

 Antonio and Aransas Pass R. R., to whom we had letters 

 equivalent to a sight draft on his general information 

 about the country, was out of town, but Mr. G. F. Lupton , 

 assistant passenger agent, took us into the office of the 

 road, stopped all the stenographers in their work, opened 

 the doors, told us to take possession, and made us feel as 

 though we owned a controlling interest in the stock, to 



MEXICAN HOME — SAN ANTONIO. 



say nothing of a large slice of the State of Texas. Once 

 more we received the courtesy of a baggage frank for our 

 dogs, and letters to employes which proved of great ser- 

 vice. I cannot say enough for the courtesies shown us by 

 the railroads all through our trip. 



"We have been expecting you through here for sev- 

 eral days," said Mr. Lupton, "but knew you were hav- 

 ing a good time at Little Rock. They are looking for 

 you down at Rockport, too, and you are sure to have 

 a great time there. We hear of good bags of ducks 

 down there still, and you will get shooting without a 

 question. My only regret is that you are not here in a 

 better tarpon season. You never ought to leave here 

 without killing your tarpon, and if it were almost any 

 month but this you surely would not have to. We have 

 the best tarpon country of the United States and I don't 

 say that because I'm in the railroad business either. You 

 will have to come down again, if you don't get your tar- 

 pon this time. You can tell the readers of Forest and 

 Stream unhesitatingly that you have discovered a new 

 tarpon country, and one where it isn't all waiting and no 

 fighting, and you can say this on my personal, and not 

 my railroad, advice, too." 



The Last Link. 



It may be seen how close is the relation between San 

 Antonio and the sea coast country. It is a mere trifle 

 from one to the other. As San Antonio increases in 

 vogue as a winter resort— which it cannot fail to do — the 

 coastwise country below it will be visited by greater and 

 greater numbers for the sake of the added variety and the 

 great excellence of the sport offered. At present no one 

 in the North knows of Rockport — nor many in the South, 

 for that matter. Yet Forest and Stream will presently 

 show that here is one of the very best, perhaps actually 

 the best, all-round sporting country for winter tourists 

 there is on the continent — a place where you can get 

 climate and actual shooting and fishing all combined. 

 This is news, and good news. 



Therefore we hastened to cover the last link in our 

 journey, the shortjrailroad run from San Antonio to Rock- 

 port over the Aransas Pass road. In this you leave San 

 Antonio at 2:10 P. M. and get in to Rockport at 8 P.M., if 

 memory serves, anyhow in the early evening. 



Kennedy Junction. 



At Kennedy Junction, between the two points above 

 mentioned, the shooter could locate for a great shooting 

 time. The country is a beautiful one, and the San Antonio 

 shooters told us it was a great place for quail, with the 

 usual chance at bigger game, which prevails in all this 

 region now in hand. 



Beeville. 



Beeville is still further south than Kennedy Junction, 

 and is another fine point. Beeville has been written of a 

 great deal in the papers, and many will recognize this 

 name before any others mentioned herein, because of the 

 game stories from that village. The stories are not exag- 

 gerated. The quail, deer and turkey are not shot out of 

 that country, but Beeville was in the center of the drought 



this year, and much of the game moved away to the water 

 courses. 



Alice. 



Alice is the name of a terminal station on another 

 branch of the Aransas Pass Railroad from that which we 

 were on. We were told that a magnificent trip could be 

 made by going to Alice and taking wagon there to the 

 southeast, among the fresh-water lagoons, in the King's 

 Ranch and Santa Rosita Ranch pastures. This is a great 

 wildfowl country when there is any water in the country. 

 This is newer ground than that directly south of San An- 

 tonio, and I believe I would rather risk it than the Bee- 

 ville country, because it has not been much shot and is 

 practically unknown. By getting down between Alice 

 and Corpus Christi, well into the southwest corner of the 

 State, and along the Nueces River bottoms also, one is in 

 the best of the deer and turkey country, though away 

 from all civilization and all supplies. This section we had 

 not time to visit, so all I can say is hearsay, though hear- 

 say of practical certainty. In short, when you get this 

 far down, the only puzzle is to know which way to go. 

 It is an embarrassment of riches. You are now in a real, 

 actual, genuine game country at last. Don't worry where 

 to go. Go anywhere, and be satisfied, and don't grieve if 

 you didn't get to the best place of them all, and kill more 

 game than anybody ever did before. Certainly you will 

 here meet all sorts of contradictory advice as to the actual 

 Mecca for you. Don't mind that; you meet it in any 

 country, no matter how wild. Don't mind it. Be sure, it 

 is Mecca all around you. 



Perhaps readers will pardon the personal part of our 

 story, in order to learn definitely what sort of sport we 

 actually had at the points we visited, that being to some 

 minds the only actual test. Therefore I shall give 

 patiently the further details of our hunt. 



Rockport at Last. 

 We ran into Rockport at last, after our pleasant after- 

 noon across the live oak intervals, the cotton fields and 

 the open grass country of the great ranches. At the 

 depot we were met by Mr. Milton Everett, the proprietor 

 of the Aransas Hotel, to whom we had letters. So, 

 though we were now a long way from home, we were 

 still not out from among our friends. Mr. Everett im- 

 pressed us as though we had always known him. It 

 was natural to meet him, natural to get our baggage and 

 our beloved dogs over to his house, to "clean up a bit," 

 to eat a supper — dea,r me, what a supper we did eat of 

 sea fish and oysters — and then to sit down for a rest or 

 talk, at length safely and happily arrived at the end of 

 our journey, in sound of the sea, many hundred miles 

 away from Chicago, and an untraversable distance away 

 from winter and from care. In Chicago you grow old. 

 In Rockport you grow young. If I have luck I will again 

 go down there and from time to time slip off a load or ( 

 so of years. I say, then, in the morning after you arrive j 

 at Rockport you are young. Ponce de Leon missed the \ 

 place. 



Couldn't Hurry. 



You can't hurry at Rockport and you needn't try it. 

 They won't have it. After a little you won't want to 

 hurry yourself. In this salt, summery air you feel too : 

 good" right where you happen to be to want to get up and 

 go anywhere else. It isn't laziness, but a divine restful- 

 ness. Don't try to hurry. You'll onlyjgrieve and astonish 

 people, anc 1 you won't be near so happy as if you take it 

 easy. Don't jjo down there with only a week or so of 

 time to spend. Make it a month. Then you will throw 

 in another month when you wake up and fiud the first 

 month is gone. 



Dick and I, full of the city restlessness, wanted to get 

 right out and do everything and go everywhere at once. 

 Mr. Everett gravely acquiesced. So did Mr. J. C. Fulton, 

 to whom also we had letters. Mr. Fulton is one of the 

 wealthy and well-known citizens of the place, and to him 

 and Mr. Everett my friend and I were indebted for most 

 of the pleasures of our visit. I imagine they must have 

 thought us two nervous individuals, we were so impetu- 

 ously eager to catch a boatload of fish before breakfast, 

 and kill another boatload of ducks before dinner. To all 

 our wishes they gravely acquiesced, and said, "To-mor- 

 row." 



To-Morrow. 



In fact, we were in mafiana land, the country of to- 

 morrow, the only country on earth where a man can 

 actually rest or get rested. It was to-morrow, though I 

 forget which to-morrow, when we made our first trip out 

 of town after sport. 



This is a very to-morrowish story, on the whole, it 

 seems to me, but I can't help that. To-morrow, then, 

 that is to say, in a later chapter, I shall describe Rockport 

 fundamentally, shall explain how it is tha,t most of the 

 sporting at that place must be done by means of sailing 

 boats, whose cabins afford cooking and sleejjing accom- 

 modations. My immediate concern now is to kill a few 

 ducks, and so bear out tbe promise of less bloodlessness in 

 the future of this story. 



A Tidy Craft. 



We sailed from the Aransas Hotel wharf, of a lovely 

 morning and on a lovely craft. Our good fortune never 

 forsook us, and we struck the best of the several sailing 

 craft which carry passengers for this purpose. This was 

 the Novice, a 31ft. cat-rigged centerboarder, 12ft. beam 

 and 34in. draft. Novice has for skipper Capt. Johnnie 

 Bludworth, and for mate Jimmie Bludworth, the former 

 25 years old and the latter 22. These two boys built 

 Novice from stem to stern and from gaff to keelson, doing 

 all the work from shaping the ribs down to caulking and 

 painting. Johnnie Bludworth designed her, working 

 from a sectional model of his own make. "I never have, 

 got far enough along to design a boat on paper," said he, 

 "but I'm going to, some time." When I add that away 

 down here on the Southern Sea Johnnie and Jimmie 

 Bludworth have been ^reading Forest and Stream for 

 years, and know pretty well what all the Northern boats 

 and builders are doing, it may be less surprise to add that 

 Novice was a success from the start. She trimmed up 

 everything in her country, and carries undisputed the 

 gold ball of supremacy aloft on her mast. Moreover, in 

 1892 she left home and went clear east to Galveston, going 

 out into the Gulf, and at the Galveston regatta beat every- 

 thing that sailed against her in all kinds of weather, and 

 brought home the great silver regatta cup, which now 

 rests at Johnnie Bludworth's cosy home down at the, 

 Sheilbanks shipyard. Novice has beaten the best North- ] 



