Sept. 17, 1898.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
227 
J er contra, the. firm is able to supply ahy one wishing 
amc the U." S. Springfield 45 cal. rifle, with angular 
fayonet, and cavalry carbines of same description. 
"Wisconsin Season. 
The Wisconsin season on ducks is now in full swing, 
nd though, of course, the shooting is on local ducks, the 
port is proving very good. On Horicon, at the other 
narshes about Winnebago Lake, the redheads are more 
ibundant than they have been for three seasons, and 
eal and mallards are numerous on all these Wisconsin 
narshes from Green Bay south to Koshkonong. The 
needing conditions have been good. It is also cheer- 
ng to note that in keeping with the improving times and . 
he better and more cheerful feeling of the people, a 
rreat many more shooters are going out this fall than 
vas the case last year. It may truthfully be said that 
n the West this is a good shooting year in all senses 
if the word. 
The Chicken Harvest. 
Now we begin to have reports from the chicken har- 
dest from many corners of the country, and it seems to 
>e undoubtedly true that this is a good chicken year in 
nany parts of the West. I have news more especially 
rom Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota, and in 
.11 these States there would appear to have been enough 
>irds to give good sport. Illinois is, of course, still 
osed. Nebraska comes to the front with a fair show- 
rig. South Dakota I take to have as many birds this 
all as last. . , ., 
At Atkinson, Neb., there was fair sport, though the 
veather the first few days of the season was very warm, 
is indeed it was over most of the West at that time, 
ack Hallowell, Tom Kimball and John Humphrey had 
ood shooting during their trip to that point. 
' At Fergus Falls, Minn., one. is upon what was once a 
'rand chicken ground, and which still can show sport 
'n reason. Messrs. E. A. Jewett, C. C. Warfield and 
Clios Roberts made a bag of fifty-eight birds on opening 
lay which is plenty these days. Others took to the 
narshes rather than the stubbles, and Messrs. Henry 
\sseln George Borne, T. D. Orr, Roy Smith and Har- 
rey Ba'rtelson bagged 161 ducks in the first day's shoot- 
ng which is thought to be a great bag at that point. 
Messrs. Wm. Rose, Chas. Penninger, Henry Sanford, 
Frank Schurz, Henry Weber and G. Schmidt, all of ■ 
Chicago, went to Waubay, South Dakota, and put in a 
veek with the sjrouse in that locality, which is reported 
0 be a very good one this fall. They got all the birds 
hey wanted to eat and give away, and had 200 to dispose 
>f when they started home. They were taken out by 
illsworth Young and W. B. McLean, of Waubay. 
Reports state that a great deal of game, grouse and 
•hickens more especially, is coming to St. Paul and 
Minneapolis this week over the Northern Pacific, Great 
Northern and Soo railroads. The number of chickens - 
is placed in the thousands, though of course this is much 
matter of guesswork. There seems to be no guessing, 
but a certainty, in the belief that the fall crop of birds is 
a very fine one, and that the sport has been good. 
Chicago dealers are, of course, asking these lucky mar- 
ets for some chickens, plentv of chickens, any number 
of chickens. If I had a million prairie chickens here it 
Is very likely within the bounds of fact to say that they 
could be sold to-morrow on the Chicago market, for 
consumption later in the East and on the ocean liners. 
The lucky Twin Cities, however, are not so unwise 
as to put their birds on the market, and they hold them 
: or their own State. 
At Chamberlin, South Dakota, the sportsmen tried to 
Ihave the date of Sept. 1 respected as opening date, and 
[this past week they have been finding good shooting m 
Itheir localitv. The dried-up shallow water known as 
J Red Lake, which once was noted for its duck shooting, 
(but which later failed in a droughty season, has again 
[filled up with water from the artesian wells and else- 
j where, and the duck shooters think they will have the 
I old times back again this fall. 
In northern Iowa, much to the surprise of nearly 
everyone who saw the rapid diminution of the prairie 
chickens many years ago in the day of unrestricted shoot- 
ing, the birds are this year reported to be found nr. 
very good numbers indeed, and good sport has been 
found by those who went out, in the upper tier or so of 
counties, more especially. The State of Iowa might very 
well do more for her game and fish than she does. Thus 
1 see it published that State Warden Delavan, of Iowa, 
has offered a private reward, out of his own pocket, for 
conviction of any one shooting chickens illegally. The 
State should furnish the pocket. 
In Wisconsin, and well up toward the pme country 
which marks the limit of the habitat of the prairie 
chicken, shooters report very good success this week. 
In Jackson county they say there are more birds than 
have been seen for years. This is thought to be due to 
the stricter enforcement of the game laws in recent times. 
Give the big grouse a show and he will get along. 
Fessenden, Minnesota, is one of the points which were 
tipped strongly by the knowing before the opening of 
the season, though I do not yet get word from that 
point. There is good duck shooting near there too. 
Messrs. E. D. Smythe, Geo. M. Liggett, E. N. For- 
rest and Walter Herrick, all of Minneapolis, made this 
point their objective in a trip this week. 
I central Iowa also there is a good show yet to get a 
few chickens, for instance around Webster City, Kam- 
rar and Blairsburg. One bag of thirty-seven is reported 
(twenty-five birds is the daily limit under the law). This 
central Iowa country was my own old chicken ground 
in the earlier years. We used to take a team, and wagon 
and go north, camping out and shooting in the country 
east of Webster City. In those days the birds were, 
very abundant, and we killed all we wanted without trou- 
ble. Yet my father told me that when he first went out 
into that country there were hundreds of birds to where 
there was one at the time when I began to shoot. He 
said that in the early frontier days the birds bred all 
about the edges of the towns, and people would hardly 
t-at them, they were, so common and, easily killed. He 
spoke- of one day when a number of his friends went out 
shooting, and he- himself killed sixty birds one after- 
noon with a muzzleloading gun, often 'killing eight or 
ten birds without much, more than moving from his 
tracks. After that one day, he said, he would never 
shoot so much game again, and I remember I got a 
very hard training on that sort of thing at the time, when 
I got big enough to swipe the old gun and steal out 
now and then for a hunt after school around the edge of 
town. But those were the days when we had chicken 
shots, and chicken dogs, too. At that time all central 
Iowa was dotted with long blocks of unbroken prairie 
ground, where never a plow had come. On these grass 
lands the birds bred, and they flew to the grassy sloughs 
when disturbed in, their feeding on the stubble. We 
hunted them chiefly on the stubble in the morning and 
evening, but if we were driving across country very 
often put them up on the grass and then got out and 
followed them. They did not fly so far as they do now, 
I can remember what fun it was to watch them as they 
flew on out over the waving grassy prairie, which to 
the unskilled eye was very deceptive. A "good marker" 
was a useful man in a party then. A bit of dark grass, 
a tall rosin weed or a bright yellow sunflower would 
serve for a mark, well ejiough for the trained prairie 
shooter. That was free, open, unrestrained, pleasurable 
sport, with no wire fences in sight (nor at that time was 
any wire fence dreamed of), and it was very different 
from the selfish and hurried scramble of these days, with 
all their soonerism and their narrowed range alike of 
vision and of enjoyment. I wouldn't mind a few days 
of the old times back again, with the old dog, and the 
old gun, and the old tutor, who is now a very old 
man. 
Up in Wisconsin they have been doing business with 
the chickens this week in more places than one. Prince- 
ton, and the country to the west of that town, seem 
to have panned out very well. Messrs. A. Bechaud, C. 
L. Handt and H. A. Nolte. of Milwaukee, bagged 
forty birds in a little hunt in that part of the State, and 
a little further to the south Messrs. W. G. Smith, Dr. 
Gillett, Wm. Breitenstein and Gus. Gromme, of Fond du 
Lac, who made up another party, got about forty birds 
also. In that same region Fred Sexsmith killed 
twentv-four birds in . one day, shooting alone. 
Mr. Will Diener, of Fond Du Lac, brought in 
fourteen birds, bagged in one day's shooting. 
Around Puckaway Lake the duck and chicken shooting 
has been good. At Horicon Marsh, Percy Stone, of 
Chicago, made a mixed bag of ducks and chickens on 
opening day. He says there are, or were at that time, 
quite a number of birds around the edge of the marsh 
on the farm 'fields. He did not speak of any very start- 
ling bags on ducks, but thought a man could kill twenty- 
five or thirt}' birds on the Diana Marsh, if he cared to 
do so. 
Fooled Brer George. 
George Kleinman, one of the best known trap shots 
of Chicago, was appointed a deputy game warden this 
year, and he has proved a good one. Yet a couple of 
folks, who live over near Belvidere, played a low down 
sort of trick on George. He had caught them shooting 
chickens, and found a bird in the posession of one of 
them, but allowed the men to go to town in the after- 
noon. The first thing they did was to go to a justice of 
the peace and get themselves tried before the warden ap- 
peared. The names of the men were F. E. Lee and 
L. Fox. Fox complained against Lee, and the justice 
fined the latter $5, giving Fox half the fine for lodging 
the information, as the law permits. This $2.50 was then 
as it may seem to the unadvised, there is on this valu- 
able club preserve a very fine and well stocked duck 
marsh, where the birds breed annually in very large 
numbers. There will be good fun there this week and 
next. A bag of a couple of dozen birds is a common 
thing there, mostly of marsh ducks, teal, mallards, etc. 
The famous country of lakes and marshes and fields 
in Douglas county, Minn., is this fall in elegant shape, 
and the Alexandria lakes will have plenty of birds for any 
reasonable demands. At Wheaton, Minn., there seems 
to be a great game country, as it is stated that 8,000 
ducks were shipped from that one point last year, and 
this is but a small part of the total from that vicinity. 
There are chickens in there also. 
The wood duck crop on the Kankakee, in Indiana, is 
now pretty well harvested. A few jack snipe are com- 
ing in, and the yellowlegs are beginning to leave and 
go south. It is not thought that we shall have any 
duck shooting on this marsh this season, of any con- 
sequence. John Watson is anxiously inquiring for some 
jack snipe country, but he thinks he is going to get left 
this fall. 
Ohio Big Game. 
The following I find in the dispatches, dated Bloom- 
dale, O., Sept. 6: 
"The annual hunters' party was held here to-day at 
the armory, 150 hunters and hunters' wives participating. 
The pelts of deer, lynx, panthers and smaller game, 
stuffed heads and birds, were displayed as the product 
of several years' hunting. A deer from the garden of 
Andrew Wiseman, of West Independence, was loosed 
and the woods scoured for it. It was hunted down by 
forty hunters, and served at the banquet to-day." 
Colorado Big Game. 
The State Warden of Colorado still thinks that the re- 
ports of a bunch of buffalo near Steamboat Springs is 
correct, and he has sent two deputies into that country 
to keep out a watch for these animals. They are re- 
ported far up in the mountains in a region little traveled. 
Mr. W. E. Warren and wife, of Fox Lake. Wis., have 
this week gone to the Gunnison country, Colo., for a 
visit at the ranch of Mr. Geo. Lightley, where they ex- 
pect to get deer and trout, if nothing bigger. 
• E. Hough. 
1200 Boycs Building, Chicago, 111. 
The Ottawa Club Game Register. 
Cleveland, O., Sept. 5.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
Enclosed please find a copy of our "Game Register of 
the Ottawa Shooting Club, showing totals of different 
species of ducks shot each year from 1880 to 1886 inclu- 
sive. Some time in the future I will send you a copy 
from 1886 to date. , • . . 
The Ottawa Club was organized m 1871, with seventy- 
five members. In 1892 the membership was reduced to 
fifty members. The club owns 4,000 acres of marsh and 
farm lands on the head of Sandusky Bay and along the 
Sandusky River. The club house is situated on the 
Sandusky River, about five miles from Sandusky Bay, on 
what was formerly known as Hone's Point. 
The season has just opened (Sept. 1) and there were 
more ducks (mostly blue-winged teal and mallards) 
on the marshes than have been seen on Sept. 1 for about 
Season. 
Sept. 1, 1882, to March 81, 18S3. 
Sept. 1, 1883, to March 31, 1S84. 
Sept. 1, 1S84, to March 31, 18S5. 
Sept. 1, 1885, to March 31, 18S6. 
Sept 1, 18S6, to Nov. 30, 1886. . 
Total 
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17 
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a 
G 
O 
.14 
J) 
13 
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Bluebi 
Mallai 
Black 
Widge 
Pintai 
~z — 
o 
j: — 
Gadw 
223 
380 
226 
12 
121 
339 
3 
6 
578 
1,195 
122 
81 
129 
274 
38 
0 
774 
716 
317 
33 
403 
213 
43 
12 
716 
635 
189 
35 
245 
177 
25 
8 
91 
117 
172 
33 
88 
136 
7 
4 
248 
215 
184 
5 
82 
94 
12 
19 
371 
258 
473 
0 
334 
244 
94 
20 
. T3 
— ■ "7 K 
^ 5 
4 
14 
20 
17 
6 
18 
03 . 
509 
677 
259 
340 
160 
552 
640 
T3 
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M 
C 
Id 
o 
184 
232 
164 
63 
85 
45 
322 
1) 
US 
p 
5 
'500 
2,076 
«29 
522 
960 
C 
s 
12 55 
e !; 
2-2 
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2,001 
8,819 
5,194 
3,504 
1,433 
2,462 
2 ,«88 
.21 ,301 
handed to Lee by Fox. Brer Gawge was not consulted, 
and he was pretty warm over it when he found how 
things had gone". ; Not that he wanted the money alone, 
for I believe he is one of the deputies who are put on 
salary, and not on the commission of half the fines. 
The Dack Season. 
The southbound flight this year appeared on the Texas 
gulf coast at an extraordinary early date, namely on 
Aug. 23. A great many birds have since then been drop- 
ping in, and by this time, I suppose, the Texas duck 
season is on to greater extent than ours is in this lati- 
tude. It is not known where the ducks bred that make 
this early Texas flight. They are mostly marsh ducks, 
sprigs, teal and mallards, and may have nested even 
below the 42d parallel. These birds often move directly 
on south as soon as they begin to be disturbed, and 
work up and down according to the condition of the 
weather in the fall and Winter. 
The Wisconsin law forbidding shooting before sunrise 
or after dark seems to have been violated with great 
uniformity and enthusiasm pretty much all over that 
State so far as one may learn. On Puckaway Lake 
the s'ooners began pounding out the ducks well before 
the opening day, and the result of this was seen on Fox 
Lake and adjacent waters, on which the birds took re- 
fuge On Beaver Dam Pond the shooters could not wait 
till dawn, and gave the ducks a brushing up by moon- 
light The warden took some names. As to what the 
poachers did up Waupun way, on the grounds of the 
Horicon Shooting Club, I wasn't there, but I will cheer- 
fully bet that, a' dozen guns were at work before the sun 
had" kicked off his foggy blankets on Sept. 1. It is 
very tempting to shoot when the best of the flight is on, 
but really nothing . drives away the birds from a marsh 
quicker than this shooting at them when it is dark. 
A. good and business-like market hunter will not do 
that, nor allow anybody else to do it on his shooting 
country, if he can help it. 
Warm weather "has spoiled the sport ol the members 
of Long Meadow Shooting Club, of Minneapolis, whose 
preserve is located on the Mississippi River bottoms 
within a buggv drive of the city of Minneapolis. Strange 
five years back. Our Ohio laws do not allow shooting 
on Sunday or Monday, and only from 5 A. M. to 6 
P M the rest of the week. The indications are that 
the shooting will be excellent this fall There were 
thousands of jack snipe and plover on the marshes I 
saw jack snipe in flocks as high as ten, which is seldom 
seen I seldom shoot any other game while hunting 
ducks- if I had had small shot with me on the 1st 1 
could easily have killed fifty jack snipe_ without leaving 
my duck blind, as I was located right m the middle of 
a large mud flat, with just enough water on it to suit 
snipe and plover. It was a great sight to see , 
plentiful. . 
We account for the large quantity of p*...e - 
marshes by the fact of our having built two dams at 
the mouth of streams running through our marshes, 
which keeps the water at a good depth over about 2,000 
acres This has made plenty of duck food, the marshes 
being full of wild celery, arrowhead, mosses and wild 
rice. ,: • A tjf 
We have also kept the German carp out of our marshes 
pretty well, by having them seined out at the dams and 
at the mouths of the streams flowing out of the marshes. 
Before we did this, the carp ate or destroyed the duck 
food. We used to have fine big-mouthed bass fishing 
in the Sandusky River, but since the German earp got 
into it the bass have disappeared. 
Frank B. Many. 
Game about Gettysburg:. 
Gettysburg, Pa.— Pheasants will not be very plenty 
in our hills this fall, there are too many foxes, which 
destroy the nests and young birds. We have no bounty 
on fox scalps, and small game is steadily getting less 
every year. I hear of more partridges over the country 
than for several years, and if our sportsmen would leave 
them alone for a few years they would get very plenty 
ag From different accounts, j have heard that deer will 
not be very plenty this winter in our mountains. Everv 
family in the mountains have their dogs, and they kill 
more" deer (especially the does) thatl the. hunters, which 
accounts for the scarcity. . . F, M, B, 
