toy. II, 1890,1 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
889 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST 
Where the Snipe We*e. 
HicAGOj II1.> Oct, 28. — I have for some time been men- 
ng the fact that this is a very poor fall for shooting 
nd Chicago, the water being very low all over the 
natural snipe country in this vicinity. I had no 
•ior purpose in this, and was not trying to steer any 
ers away from Chicago, but was sincere, in my ques- 
as^ to where the snipe were. This week, as it hap- 
, however, and b}' reason of the good old Forest and 
:am luck, 1 suppose, I' rather unexpectedly found the 
i^er to the above question myself, and made a bag 
nipe which, though not extraordinary of itself, is the 
est 1 have heard of being made here for the past few 
is. This was on the Grand Calumet River, on the 
)ting grounds at the Galumet Heights Club, about 
:y miles from Chicago. 
his lucky little slioot came about, like most things, in 
ther unexpected manner. To begin with, I was taking 
old. friend, Mr. Hirth, down to the club to give him 
ok at the premises, and we fell in with a very nice 
pany of the members, among others Messrs. Marshall, 
de, Head, Lamphere, Norcum, Harris, Knowles, 
tie, Greely, Gillespie, Haskell, Carlisle, Dr. Harlan, 
as well as the wives of scA^eral of the members. We 
been having a beautiful fall in Chicago up to this 
and the weather was delightful, so that everything 
he club appeared at its best. We all took the 4 :20 
ti on the B. & O. from Brookdale, Chicago, this 
Lg the best way to get to the club in the evening. We 
hed the club station just before dark, and Mr. Hirth 
the Other who accompanied our party expressed 
r curiosity and delight at finding so wild a region 
lose to Chicago, this being the "Chicago Wilderness" 
irhich I at one time wrote at some length in the Forest 
Stream. It is indeed a weird looking country to be 
lose to civilization, and in less than iive minutes' walk 
11 the station one would think he was m the middle of 
ountain region and not within a few rifle shots of one 
he biggest cities in the West. 
fter dinner was over the shooting members met and 
Dwed the club custom of drawing for blinds, this being 
fairest way to allot the shooters where the territory 
omewhat limited and the better points somewhat well 
wn. First choice was drawn by Messrs. Wilde and 
Ian, who chose a blind known as Sardine Point, where 
Wilde had made a very good bag of ducks the day 
)re. The '"Second Bend" blind, where Mr. Gillespie 
seen a good many mallards, was the second choice, 
was taken by Messrs. Turtle and Lamphere. I drew 
third choice, and took what was known as Lloyd]s 
nt, Mr. Gillespie saying he would join mc at this 
It later in the morning. Others scattered up and down 
river for three or four miles, and bets were freely 
red that a couple of dozen of ducks would be brought 
the club house next morning. This club does not 
ally show very large bags, but one can nearly always 
a little sport of some sort or another, as ym shall 
rtly see. 
Ve were to hunt ducks, and duck shooting if it be 
e after the orthodox fashion, as every one knows, 
ms that one must get up at an unholy hour in the 
rning. I have always firmly held to the belief that any 
H who would get up at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning 
yo duck shooting was largely devoid of what we call 
d horse sense. Yet in spite of this firm belief on my 
t, I usually find myself among those who start out on 
gray dawn on the shivery business of sitting in a 
id and waiting for the morning flight. It was so on 
occasion. We all went to bed, at all sorts of hours, 
my last mental decision was that I pitied the man 
was foolish enough to go duck shooting before sun 
None the less, at about 3 o'clock in the morning, while 
rything was dark and beastly cold, I turned over in 
as though awakened by an alarm clock, and on listen- 
heard certain whisperings and shufflings of feet which 
icatcd that some of the other boys were turning out. 
is was too much, and forgetting all my resolves to be 
sible, I rolled out and joined the other imbeciles for 
,-o'clock breakfast. Then came a mile walk by star- 
it across the sand hills, in a nipping morning air. ^ 
t was not yet dawn when I reached my stand, and be- 
1 to look around to arrange my Wind and make my- 
f comfortable. This point is at times a very good one, 
ng situated at an elbow of the river which sometnnes 
ches a part of the flight from the Tolleston Club 
rshes when the shooters of that club set the birds 
ng The first flock I saAV came from over toward 
lleston, and I could see them passing wide, and out ot 
ishot, looking dim and ghostly in the morning twilight, 
arried down some pieces of bark and made myselt a 
t in the rushes, not building any blind, and then began 
patient wait for the birds to come in. This morning 
ht was like most morning flights. Nothing more came 
m Tolleston way. Presently from up the river I saw 
ee little teal coming, which, however, swung far to 
t and gave me no chance. Then a solitary mallard 
tie from the same direction, and dropped into open 
ter about 200yds. to my left. Nothing happened atter 
s, and presentlv the great red disk of the rising sun 
peared across the marsh, and T knew that I ought to 
seeing some birds if I was to do so at all. An hour 
sed, and then another, but still I was waiting, and still 
gun barrels were as clean as when I bought them^ 
le sun shone directlv on the water in front of me and 
ide a very blinding reflection, and I lay down to escape 
s. Perhaps I had been in this position for five minutes 
len I heard a soft whisper of wings, I could not. tell 
St where. Then I heard a startled quack as I sat up 
d as I got the sun out of my eyes, saw a mce pair ot 
llards iust out of range. They had conie over the blutf 
ectly behind me, and thus I had lost the orily shot 
lich offered at my blind during the morning i stayea 
ere until half-past nine in the morning, and then passed 
set of resolutions confirming my origmal position, tlnat 
V man who would get up to go duck shooting in the 
Srning was a crass idiot, and that so long, as I Uvea 1 
ver would again, etc. (But I will I) , , 
It being rather cool. I thought I would «o back? to the 
lb house and eat anotjier breakfast lust tor luck, but 
> 
I wandered over in that direction I met one of the mem- 
bers, Mr. Macmichael, who told me that he had seen a 
tew jacksnipe on the marsh, and he thought we might 
kill three or four if we went down in that direction. We 
sat down to talk it over, and as we did so I looked back 
and saw a flock of about fifty mallards swinging round 
and round over the very point which I had just left. Had 
I stayed in my blind five minutes longer I would surely 
have got a couple of mallards, for they came directly 
across the blind. But such is luck, and when I heard of 
the jacksnipe I did not begrudge the mallardfs. Mr. 
Macmichael and I went down to the territory he had 
located, and found some very soft wading in a country 
too boggy to cross. We killed three or four snipe here, 
but had bad luck at getting them, and as the morning had 
now grown warmer, we compromised matters by sitting 
down on the railroad embankment and thinking it over. 
Just at this moment we were met by old Blocki, a quaint 
character who keeps the boats and dogs for the club 
members, and whose little domicile lies close under the 
blufi^s on the edge of the crooked Calumet. 
Blocki is a little bit old, and a little bit broken of 
speech, and a little deaf, but he has the hunting instinct 
of all these marsh people. "Oh, you shentlemens vas 
hunting snipe?" said Blocki. "Veil, chu.st across yonder I 
see more as a dozen snipes dis mornin'." 
He pointed across the little pond formed by the dam at 
the railway bridge, and showed a partially submerged bit 
of marsh which was accessible only by boat. Mr. Mac- 
michael was nearly beaten out by his hard morning's 
work, and he urged me to go and exploit this with Blocki. 
1 had about a dozen duck shells in my pocket, so I stepped 
into the boat and Blocki carried me over. "Veil, dere 
vas two, alretty," Blocki said, as we drew near the island 
on the other side of the pond, and as he pointed I could 
indeed see two jacksnipe feeding along on the tnud bank. 
Wc went in close, and as I stood up six or eight snipe 
sprang and began to twist around in the air, and I had 
killed one and missed two in about two seconds. 
This was the answer to the question as to where the 
snipe were. I had not gone 50yds. from the boat before 
I found that there was a fine body of birds in on this 
measly, unsuspected little corner of marsh. The shooting 
ground was hardly 300yds. wide and a quarter of a mile 
long, a part of it being too deep and soft to wade, but I 
believe there were two or three hundred birds in that 
little corner. The wind came in such a direction that one 
could not walk with the wind, on account of the deepness 
of the marsh. I had to hunt across the wind, and as the 
birds were lean and wild and just in from the North, the 
long side shots which I got were not the easiest thing in 
the world for No. 6 shot, which was the best I had in the 
shop at that time. I only picked up six jacks, and lost a 
couple or more, when I discovered that I was out of shells, 
so I crossed the pond again with Blocki, and learned that 
Mr. Macmichael had gone back to the club house, and that 
my shooting coat had gone back with him in the wagon. 
This meant a two-mile walk, and I begrudged the time 
under the circumstances, but there was nothing else for 
it, so I hustled up to the club house and got some more 
ammunition. I told Mr. Hirth to bring himself and the 
Other with a good lunch down to the Blocki boat house 
at about i o'clock, and then I pulled my freight at 
double-quick across the sand hills to get back into my 
warm corner. Blocki was gone, so I got a boat and went 
over alone. I had plenty of ammunition now, albeit only 
about half a dozen fine shot shells. Not another soul could 
be seen far or near. I had found out where the snipe 
were, and it only remained to open up negotiations with 
them. 
I made two trips up and down the mud beach and saw 
enough to convince me that if any one had been there with 
the proper shells and the wish to see how many birds he 
could kill, he could probably have bagged sixty to one 
hundred snipe there that day, had he wanted to work that 
hard. It was hard walking and hard shooting, and about 
an hour and a half more of it got me all the birds I 
thought I wanted. I usually stop when I kill twenty-five 
birds of any one kind, law or no law, and I intended to 
stop when I had killed twenty-five of these jacks on this 
day, but I lost several birds on marsh where I could not 
get them, and lost mv count, so when I rounded myself 
up at the boat I found that I had twenty-nine birds. I 
quit then and there, and started back toward the boat 
house. , , . , . T 
For the last quarter of an hour of this shooting I was 
within shooting distance of Dick Turtle and his friend 
Lamphere, who were just coming home from their duck 
hunt but neither of whom had any rubber boots along, 
and so could not ioin me, although it must have been 
very trying to stand in the boat and watch another follow 
knocking down snipe almost within gunshot of them. I 
offered them mv rubber boots, but the latter were in 
pretty bad shape" for I had been in up to my waist, and 
my hip boots were full of mud and water. It was a 
hardisb snipe hunt, but that was where the snipe were— 
more snipe, I think, than there have been on any marsh 
around Chicago this fall. As bearing out this assertion, I 
may state that Mr. Turtle went down on the same marsh 
that afternoon and killed twenty-five birds, and on the 
second day after that he and Mr. Lamphere went down 
again and shot there all day. This time, however, the 
bfrds were beginning to move out, and they only got forty 
between them in the whole day's shooting. Since then a 
cold rain has set in, and I presume the birds have all left 
that part of the country. It was just one of those little 
bits of jacksnipe luck which come now and then, often 
enough to keep a fellow hoping. As I have said, so 
far as I know the two days' bags made on this marsh are 
the best that have been made by any Chicago shooters 
near town this fall. 
From Marsh to Hills. 
Chicago, III., Nov. 3.— The first snow of the season fell 
here yesterdaj^— not verv much of a snow; indeed only a 
few weary and disconnected flakes which drifted down for 
a few hours in a half-hearted way, as though not trying 
very hard to make much of an impression on the course 01 
human events. Still it was our first snow, and has the 
usual signficance of the first snow in sportsmandom. We 
are now to move from the marshes to the hills. The duck 
is dead, live the grouse. 
I presume that the first of the webk saw pretty much the 
end of the snipe season,- and the best of it came just at 
the close, after the unexpected fashion of this erratic bird. 
I have already spoken of a brief flight which came in on 
the marshes just south of Chicago, and am now inclined 
to think that quite a body of birds were scattered over 
whatever wet marsh there was below and to the west of 
town. I heard of some birdi killed out near Wheaton, 
and on Oct. 28 there was a i^ice flight in around Blue 
Island. I am advised by Mr. Gustav Eberwein, of that 
suburb, that he knew of bags made as high as 34 and 42 
last week near Blue Island, and some of the local shooters 
also got a mallard or so now and then while after jacks, 
among these Mr. Eberwein himself. By this time, how- 
ever, I think the cold rain, followed by snow this week, 
must have sent about the last of the snipe on their twistful 
way to the southward. Of duck shooting we have had 
nothing worthy of the name hereabouts this fall 
Deee Couatry. 
Indications all point to a heavy traffic this fall bound for 
the deer country of upper Wisconsin, Michigan and Min- 
nesota. Our d^er territory is now all sewed up in the 
non-resident license bag; not that the sanctity of the bag 
wiU prevent its being ripped this year as last, in divers and 
sundry places, by those who think a license law is wrong, 
or at best ought to apply to the other fellows and not to 
them. There was probably never a law on the books of 
any State which was violated more generously than the 
Wisconsin deer law last year and the year before that. 
Yet I believe that all this talk about the game laws, even 
the abuse of them, has given the subject a much needed 
advertising, so that lawbreakers need to be more secret 
than formerly. The dates of the season are better known 
and better observed than ever before, and perhaps even 
the local hunters who have been accustomed to kill meat 
when they wanted it will be found a trifle more reticent 
than before and not quite so frequent with their secret, 
dark and midnight interviews. There will be deer enough 
to give sport to a great many this fall. Parties will not 
bring back so very many deer as was once the case, per- 
haps, but everybody who goes will be pleased except those 
who have been to the same place before and made bigger 
killings. Everything is relative, and the man who knows 
no better than what he has wants no better. I can re- 
member that when I was a boy I lived in a country 
where it was as much of a distinction to kill a wild goose 
as it was to be elected to the State Senate, and where I 
thought I was really a great man when I killed my first 
goose. Yet since then I have killed a score or so of geese 
in one morning and experienced not half the pleasure in 
the feat afforded by the solitary gander of a scarcer day. 
It would appear that this must be the history of our West- 
ern game; we will value it when it is nearly gone, and not 
before. It surely rises steadily in popular appreciation 
every year. 
In regard to the favorite deer regions, they are this 
year, as last, such points as Philips, Rhinelander, Fifield, 
"Iron Mountain, and others in that latitude, and all very 
readily reached from this city. I got on to a very nice 
bit of deer country last spring while out trout fishing. 
Take the Milwaukee road to Merrill, or the Northwestern 
to Parrish, Wis., and then take wagon to Dudley P. O., 
about eighteen miles from Merrill; thence take the woods 
road up the Prairie River, some six or eight miles above 
Dudley's place, and turn out to the left among the hard 
wood hills which rise up boldly at that point. In there 
you will find some grand country for still hunting, and it 
is not quite so much hunted as some of the better known 
localities. I stumbled unon this while hunting trailing 
arbutus, and saw so much sign that I made inquiry. 
Farmers near there told me they had no trouble in getting 
all the deer they wanted there each fall. I had the run- 
ways all located along a big cranberry marsh, in the hope 
that I might get up there this faU myself, but I am not 
sure that t care enough for a deer to pay $25 for a license. 
I know very well I could get a deer in there without trou- 
ble, always provided some enthusiastic deer hunter didn't 
get me first. There has this fall, as for the last few years, 
been great danger in going deer hunting in Wisconsin or 
Michigan. 
During the Congressional trip into Minnesota I be- 
came convinced that there is a grand game region in 
about Walker and Cass Lake, especially the latter point 
It is Indian country, and I presume is proof to the pubhc 
•except under permit from the agent. Even with such 
permit there might to some timid souls seem something 
of a spice of danger in going out into the woods there, 
where the Indians last year killed several soldiers and 
have never since then been absolutely brought to book for 
it. These Chippewas and Pillagers are none too friendly 
just now to the whites, and of course do not understand 
what all this sudden interest in their country means. In 
many ways they have been smoothed up the wrong way 
the last year or so, and I presume may feel a trifle ugly. 
There is'plenty of room up in there for a fellow to lie un- 
discovered for a few years if anything did happen to him. 
Not that this should be seriously considered a bar to a 
trip there if all else were in line. I should dearly love to 
get into that Chippewa reservation about twenty miles 
from Cass Lake settlements, and have a moose hunt this 
fall. That is a moose country not yet much advertised 
except in-a general way, though I presume it a safe wager 
that one could get his moose there if allowed a decent 
preliminary tour by his guide to locate the game before 
the law opened. The Minnesota moose season is so very 
short that it works its own destruction. Of course, it 
gives no chance for what I have always thought would be 
the best and most sportsmanlike way to kill a moose — to 
start him and follow him on foot, camping in the snow, 
on his trail till you get him. This is the Indian fashion, 
and I should like to have a go at that some day m the 
Cass Lake countrv, though it may be a long time before 
ir snows enough the first week in November up there to 
make this sort of a hunt possible. If the moose law were 
observed by whites and Indians both as it now stands, the 
moose would have a good chance to live forever, for the 
brief season comes, of course, too late to find the moose 
along the streams in the water and too soon to track them 
in the snow. What one's chance is to get a moose in a week 
of still hunting over dry woods, one may easily deter- 
mine for himself bv mixin.g up numbers in .a hat, or try- 
ing to draw the capital prize in a lottery. Of course he 
may get his shot, but then he n^ay not, and the may not 
is the more likely. _ ' 
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