April 20, 1895. 
FOKEST AND STREAM. 
305 
gard to which I should have remained very skeptical if I 
hadn't seen it. No doubt many Forest and Stream 
readei-s have read much about the small bore gnn clubs 
of San Antonio, and have noticed the great scores made 
at the trap by such men as Joe George, Gus Critzer or 
Oscar Guessaz. Probably a good many have thought 
that to use so small an arm as the 20-guage was carrying 
fashion to an extreme, and that at best such an arm 
would be worthless in the field. I don't know but I had 
a sniff or so about me for such extremely small guns, 
though I long ago laid aside the ten-bore for any sort of 
shooting whatever, as a great many others are doing of 
late yeai'S. I supposed a mau might be able to kill a bird 
once in a while with that sort of a toy gun, but it seems 
to me that it could never be a really practical weapon, 
or one with which one could do anythng like regular 
work. When Guessaz took out his little 20-guage, 
weighing less than six pounds, with all its European 
bravery of gold inlaying, ornamented check-piece, gilt 
buckles for shoulder strap, and all that sort of thing, I 
was disposed to guy him about his fire-cracker gun, and 
to intimate that, in my opinion, he couldn't kill a meadow 
lark with such baby shells (he only used 2 1-2 drams of 
American Wood powder, and less than three-quarters of 
an ounce of shot.) But Oscar was plenty calm, and al- 
lowed he had seen other people who had been of the same 
opinion as the rest of us were. In deference to his feel- 
ings' we did not make it a personal matter, but kindly told 
him maybe he could worry down a duck once in a while, 
if it was a small duck. He went ahead just the same, 
and put a hundred shells in bis vest pocket and tucked 
lvis baby gun under his arm. (I expect next to see him 
with a gun over his. ear, like a pen-holder.) We had 
gone only a little way out into the flat that evening when 
we saw a mallard coming in, and dropped in the grass 
for the shot. It came to Guessaz, and at the crack of his 
gun — which sounded faint and dry like the snap of a 
whip—the bird folded up quite de^d, at a good tidy dis- 
tance for any sort of gun. All through the evening the 
same sort of thing kept up, Guessaz killing birds just as 
far as any of us, and domg it very much more regularly 
than I could vvith the excellent 12-guage I was using, 
for Guessaz-is a very fiue duck shot. It also came to my 
mind that he killed that white goose out of a flock into 
which I fired twice without effect. It was very evident 
in a short time that one had entirely underestimated the 
efficacy of the 20-guage gun as a weapon. With the load 
of No. 5 shot, which it handled so nicely, it was a hard- 
hitting and practical arm, and one capable of doing all 
one could ask of it. Guessaz shot right out of the same 
blinds with all of us, and I could not say that any of us 
had much the better of him at any sort of shooting. This 
was one of the continual surprises to me on the trip. No 
doubt a great many who read this will continue to think 
as I once did about the little gun, and say it is not fit to 
take on a duck pass; but if these should see what such an 
arm can do in actual results, I think they would change 
their minds, though still they would remain surprised. 
To speak of a 10-bore in San Antonio is to lose caste, and 
they even consider a 12-guage as too large for a really 
sportsmanlike gun. They import these small guns from 
Germany. They are neatly made and are good in balance 
and proportion, though the engraving and finishing are 
in a taste not altogether approved by our notions. The 
guns are bored perfectly for nitro powder, and they are 
shooters as sure as you are born. After we had learned 
this, we all apologized to Oscar Guessaz, an tl told him he 
was a perfect gentleman, and an artist of high grace in 
the seemly craft of wild fowling. 
AFTER THE HONKERS. 
But all this by the way. The morning was to come, 
with its great flight of geese across the bay, and it may 
well bs supposed that the continuous melodious hoiikirig 
set us all afield early. Dick took his turtle-back to the 
mouth of the little creek, and Bob Burton took stand 
further along the creek. Messrs. Dubois and Peabody 
went to the foot of the bay, and Guessaz and myself went 
out exploring again along the high ridge over which the 
geese were passing. We found the wary old honkers hard 
to fool as usual, but at last we made a stop at some 
clumps of inesquite and were rewarded by seeing a bunch 
of the great birds coming directly toward us, Guessaz at 
that time being about fifty yards from me. At the faint 
crack of his little gun, one great gander fell dead almost 
on top of him, and another fluttered down into the water 
on the pond beyond. The skein swung toward me, and 
though I had a longer shot than he, I did manage to get 
a wing of! one goose, despatching him later at the edge 
of the pond. Then we had a long walk up to the head of 
the pond and found country where fine stands could be 
made with decoys and boats, though that would take a 
puu of two miles over mud and water — hard enough, as 
Guessaz found it when he took Dick's turtle-back around 
to retrieve the two geese we had dead on the water. (The 
mud was bottomless, and we dared not step beyond the 
bank.) All along the inland ponds we saw numbers of 
pelicans, and a few of the great white bugling cranes, 
whose wild music could be heard at great distances, and 
one might say at nothing less than great distances, for we 
found these birds the wariest of any on the coast, and far 
harder to kill than geese. There did not seem to he as 
many ducks as geese in this section, though there were 
large numbers of the sickle-bill curlews, willets -and other 
alt-marsh birds. The water in the ponds was of course 
,11 salty. I am inclined to think that the chief flight of 
the fowl was inland to some fresh water tank, as all the 
coast fowl are said to go to fresh water at least once a 
day. The main roost of these geese was evidently at 
some point further east along the coast, they following 
their route for reasons of safety. 
When we rounded up at the schooner for lunch, we 
had each killed a goose or more, to say nothing of ducks, 
excepting Bob Burton, who still remained gooseless. 
After lunch, Guessaz and I took him with us, telling him 
he would certainly get that goose unless something very 
singular prevented, for we had 1 seated the flight very 
closely as we thought. But here again the wariness of 
the goose bird tvas to be figured on a little. The old fel- 
lows had noticed us on the ridge when they came in at 
noon. When they went out that evening they did not 
come over that ridge any more, but swung away out over 
a second ridge. We could hear Peabody and Dubois 
pounding away, a mile from us on the point, but for a 
timej we got nothing to do. Along toward dusk Dick 
joined us on the edge of the bluff, where'we were'lying 
in wait for Bob's goose, and we spread out in skirmish 
line about 200 yards. At last some few straggling 
bunches took a notion to come our way, and with the 
usual percentage of failures to kill birds, which seemed 
big as flour barrels, and near enough to take hold of, but 
which were really long gunshot away, we did get down 
some few of them, three out of one flock, I believe. That 
is to say, everybody got his goose but Bob, while he was 
the very one we wanted to get one. The bir 3s favored 
everyone of us but him, and the only good chance he had 
he did not see until it was too late. A fine flock of 
honkers came right over Guess bz and me where we lay, 
and seeing they were headed right over Bob, we did not 
fire at them. They went almost over him, but he did not 
notice them till they got past too far to score upon. So 
after all he went to bed that night gooseless. The rest of 
us were very much elated over our success, and our ice 
box began to' show a very comfortable look. Col. Bill 
Peabody was riotously happy, and Wilbur Dubois, the 
quiet mau, fairly beamed with calm content. These two 
had a nice story of a plesaant day together in a comfort- 
able blind, and a good bit of sport, including a swim in 
the bay, which seemed to them an epoch of note. Down 
in the cosy cabin of the trig ship Novice, we were a very 
cheerful and I fear a rather noisy crowd, and we voted 
the trip a success, though Guessaz continually turned up 
his nose at the shooting, and told us we must pull up and 
go with him to some place where the duck shooting was 
"something like shooting," as he expressed it. 
STILL MORE GEESE. 
On the morning following we concluded to have one 
more go at the geese before we left for Eockport again, 
and a very pleasant time we had of it too. It was just 
cool and windy enough *o make it pleasant walking in 
the early morning, though on nearly any day in that 
climate unless there is a norther on, onn is obliged to lay 
aside his coat in the middle of the day. The skipper of our 
craft said we were very apt to have a norther that day, 
and as it transpired we did have, but not till afternoon. 
This time, in order that Bob Burton could be sure of 
getting his goose, it was arranged that he should go with 
Mr. Dubois to the blind out on the point at. the lower end 
of the bay, that having been found a fine fly-way. Col. 
BUI Peabody cast in his lot with Guessaz and myself in 
turn, while Dick stuck to the mallards for a time on the 
creek. It came out this time that Burton had again 
made a mistake, for at noon he came back without a 
goose, while Col. Bill, who went with us, had expe- 
rienced difficulty in defending himself against the geese 
which had tried to fly into him. We three certainly did 
have a most enjoyably morning with the honkers, and 
one in which it was fair play and a hard game on both 
sides. We bad no decoys, and it was all fiyway shoot- 
ing. The geese had learned what we were doing in that 
neck of woods, and used their utmost cunning to circum- 
vent us. Some of them kept to the shore line of the bay 
and crossed in behind us. Others now reversed their 
flight of the evening previous and came in back of us 
along the ridge we liad left. All those who came over the 
high grounds rose a littla higher in the air, and kept so 
sharp a lookout that we found it hard to gpt i shot at 
decent range. We could hear the great streaming flocks 
honking as they crossed the bay, two miles from us, and 
at a distance of a mile, I am confident, they could see the 
slightest movement made by any of us along the bluff 
where we were hiding and looking over. The bluff was 
the natural bank of the series of pond-holes I have men- 
tioned, and at points was fifteen feet high, broken at 
places by small draws and ravines, which made up the 
level of the plateau, over which the geese were crossing. 
There were such numbers of them that it seemed sure 
some must come over us. yet so closely did the wise fowl 
watch every suspicious movement, and so far did they 
swing from any bush or tuft, or grass big enough to offer 
cover, that we put in nearly an hour without a success- 
ful shot. Evidently the Canadenses knew their business. 
A SHALLOW BLIND. 
In the course of our investigations of the bluff side, I 
found a little break where the water had washed down 
the face of the bank. The cows had taken advantage of 
this to lay out a path down to the flat at that point, and 
the water had in turn washed out the cowpathintoa 
series of narrow gullies. At that point where the path 
touches the grade of the plateau it was about a foot deep 
and just wide enough to contain a man who was willing 
to make himself small. Along this path I walked till it 
became too shallow to offer any concealment, and then 
lay down in it flat on my back. Peabody and Guessaz 
were just back of me aloug the bluff side. I had hardly 
gotten down before 1 heard the honking, gabbling and 
screaming of a great flight of geese coming, at first faint, 
then loud, then apparently almost deafening. They were 
headed straight for me as far as I could tell, but did not 
dare lift my head, though I did think I would have given 
about a thousand dollars to have just one little peek at 
them as they came in. It seemed to me I could hear 
them coming for an hour, before they got over me, and 
the last moments were a time of agony, so that I only 
held myself down by a supreme effort of the will. At 
last I could see the advance guard, but though they 
looked close, I kr.ew they weren't, and so held my fire. 
Though I remained perfectly still, the first goose over 
the ridge knew what I was at once he saw me. and then 
began an awful squeaking and calling out of scared 
geese, and a confused climbing and hurr} ing to get out 
of the way. It was too late, for a detached bunch further 
hack and close in to me came within forty yards (I 
thought), and sitting up swiftly and with great sense of 
relief, I cut out one great gander, which fell with a most 
soul-stirring thump on the hard ground. The second 
barrel did not count, and I was not surprised at it when 
I found my goose was killed at fiftj^-thrte paces. We 
had nothing larger than No. 4's with us, and so long a 
shot was rarely successful. If we had been prepared 
with larger shot we miglit have killed more geese. It 
takes pretty hard shooting to kill Canada geese at over 
fifty yards, and it is very rarely one is actually within 
that range on an open fiyway. 
As I ran out to pick up my goose, I looked back of me, 
and behold, there were my two friends lugging up not- 
only one, but three geese, very much to my surprise, for 
I had not heard them shoot, It seemed that part of the 
great"flight-had" r swung"over;theni just as I fired at my 
birds. Witli hisOittle pop-gun, [Guessaz killed two^dead 
at the first shot, though he^missed counting! with^the 
second. Peabody got down one. We were^all feeling 
pretty good by that time, it may well be supposed. 
COULDN'T SEE THE CHANCE. 
Up till about noon the geese continues to pass over our 
strip of land in vast numbers, and I am free to say I 
never saw such a flight in all my life in any country. We 
added a few to our score by hard shooting and close 
crouching, but the great fellows for the most part proved 
as ueual quite able to take care of themselves. One most 
amusing circumstance occurred, which served to give us 
all a good laugh at Peabody's expense. A large string of 
honkers were heading for us, and Peabody and I were in 
good line for them, he well concealed in a deep, round 
Washout in the draw, and I lying flat clown, though in 
full sight in a wider and shallow part of the draw from 
which! did not dare to move for fear of being seen by 
the birds before I could get under cover. We had no 
goose-call with us, but being able to do a little bit of 
honking without one, I was calling away as loudly as I 
could to the approachng flock, getting a good answer 
now and then. Both Peabody and myself were gazing 
fixedly over in the direction of the incoming flock, when 
all at once f saw a part of the main body which was 
on ahead and swinging wide of us, turn square up wind 
when they heard the call, and make directly toward me. 
They turned just at the place where the draw came out 
level with the plateau, and came right straight down the 
draw, flying not more than tw enty feet above the ground, 
and not saying a single word as they came, evidently 
bound to see about that calling. As I lay on my back I 
could see them coming right at me, and knew they 
would pass directly over my companion, but I could also 
see that he did not know they were, coming, for his eyes 
were set in a wild glare on the honking legi ns out over 
the flats which were still coming on, but apparently 
about to pass too wide for a shot. I did not dare to move 
a muscle, and I could not make a sound to let him know. 
All I could do was to give a honk oncp. in a while, soft 
and low, »t which he only crouched the lower and glared 
the harder right ahead, while the birds were coming down 
at right angles to that direction. They came almost over 
him, and then I called out to him, "See, shoot! Right 
over your head!" Startled and at a loss to know what I 
meant, he sprung up with gun at a "ready," and looked 
wildly every way in the world but the right one. I 
wanted him to have a shot, and he must surely have 
killed at least two, for they were not twenty yards from 
him, but of course it was all over in an instant, for the 
birds veered and swung out as soon as I rose. I waited 
till the last instant and then fired over Peabody's head 
and beyond him, killing one fine big goose at nearly fifty 
yards; Peabody being about thirty yards from me I 
should think. It was then too late for him to get a bird 
down, and he lost the best shot any of us had on the trip. 
But as it was, we had a fine string of grand birds to carry 
in with us. sis or seven I think it was, or maybe more, 
for I made no note of it. We had a most delightful 
morning on that high wind-swept plateau, and a finer 
sight of geese one could not ask. We killed only the big 
honker, or Canada goose, but there were all sorts in the 
vast clouds and strings that crossed over. It was keen 
sport to lie flat in the short grass and watch them com- 
ing, wondering whether one was to get a shot or not. I 
had no better fun to my notion on the whole trip South 
than on that morning. ts$% C 
A CHANGE OF SCENE. 
When we came to count up our spoils we found that 
we had done no irreparable damage to the wildfowl, for 
at noon our ice-box only showed fourteen geese and a - 
couple of dozen or so of ducks. On a three days' hunt 
this same fall, on ground a little further to the east , 
along the coast, Ji d Blud worth and another shooter, 
both shooting for the market, killed 1G4 geese. We did 
not want to make any such killing as that, but still, hav- 
ing a good notion of some goose shooting, we were will- 
ing to listen to the importunities of Oscar Guessaz and 
pull out for better ducking grounds. Meantime our 
promised norther began to materialize, and as this would 
give us a fair wind home, we ate a hurried lunch— most 
of us in wet clothes, for it came on to rain suddenly as 
we were coming in— and hoisting anchor, tore out of the 
bay under a ripping wind which mide the skipper reef 
everything close down. Our passage in to Eockport was 
a little wet, but very fast, and at 6 in the evening we 
made the pier. Mitchell, the cook, was then very soon 
working over such a dinner as only the Texas coast can 
produce— duck, oysters, pompano, trout, etc. 
Thus ended the first chapter of the vacation of Col. BUI 
Peabody and his friends, and everybody was pleased but 
the man from San Antonio. "Get this car out of here, 
he said, "and let's get over to Corpus. I'll show you 
some shooting." And he being constituted high captain 
of the chase and minister plenipotentiary, we told him to 
let her go. So one bright warm winter morning we found 
ourselves about forty miles further west on the obliging 
Aransas Pass Eailroad, side-tracked m Corpus Christi, 
and ready for a closer acquaintance with some grounds 
of which we had heard great accounts. Further depo- 
nent saith not till next week, Hough. 
90S) Security Building, Chicago, HI. 
Spring in the Northwest- 
Seattle, Wash., March 39.— Spring is here with us. 
Ducks have gone north, flowers are beginning to bloom, 
humming birds have arrived, grouse are hooting, and 
sixty-six bi°- black bass have connected with the business 
end of my fishing outfit so far this spring; biggest one 
weighed four and a half pounds. General run of them 
wei°di two pounds each. Minnows for bait; not taking 
a spoon yet. Some spearing done, and it should be 
stopped square off. Trout season opens next Monday, and 
they are rising to natural flies in the lake now. Bass 
were planted in Lake Onion six years ago, and are plenty 
to afford good fishing now; of these, more anon. I keep 
finding a new Forest and Stream man once in a while, 
and always find them "the bsst people on earth. 
E. C. COilANCHO. 
The use of Palmer's Set Line Snaps, gives satisfaction and does 
away . with " the , ■SnoyPiioe attending the old method* of set hue 
fishing,— Aclv, 
