108 
FOREST AND STREAM 
March, 1920 
SOME POINTS ON FLORIDA HUNTING 
THE METHODS OF GETTING INTO THE GAME FIELDS AND THE OUTFITS USED 
ARE QUITE DIFFERENT FROM THOSE IN VOGUE IN MANY OTHER PLACES 
W HILE we read a great deal con- 
cerning the hunting grounds in 
various parts of this country, we 
do not often read of those in Florida. 
Of course, there is no comparison to 
be made between Florida game and the 
game found in such places as the Cas- 
siar, and other noted haunts of America’s 
biggest game. However, to the hunter in 
quest of both good sport and a variety of 
edible game, the Florida hunting grounds 
afford excellent opportunities. In the 
great expanse of Big Cypress Swamp 
country, bordering the Everglades, and 
in many other places offering both breed- 
ing grounds and protection, there may be 
found a variety of game, which, though 
not big game in the true sense of the 
word, is big enough and crafty enough 
to furnish plenty of excitement and sport 
for the hunter, and a supply of meat 
hard to surpass for eating purposes, as 
well. 
While hunting down there is done 
along the same general lines as elsewhere, 
on account of the nature of the country, 
the climate, and for various other rea- 
sons, the methods of hunting game, the 
methods of getting into the hunting coun- 
try and the outfits used are quite differ- 
ent from those employed in many other 
places. Instead of packing outfits in on 
pack horses, on the hunter’s back, or by 
canoe, the single wagon and a couple of 
ponies usually furnishes the means of 
transportation. This means that reduc- 
tion in weight of each item carried need 
not be looked after so closely as under 
different conditions, and means that you 
will be spared many of the hardships ex- 
perienced when packing your outfit on 
your back. 
The white-tail deer is Florida’s most 
prized game. However, as all hunters 
are aware of the fine sport to be had 
through hunting it, there is not much use 
in discoursing very much on the subject. 
But it suffices to say that it is very hard 
to outwit at times and will always keep 
you interested. 
Second to the deer comes the wild 
turkey — the noblest and most wily of 
American game birds. It is plentiful in 
some parts of Florida, and, as its haunts 
are in some of the most inaccessible 
places in the state, it should always be 
fairly plentiful. It would greatly in- 
crease if the game laws were properly 
enforced. 
B EAR are to be found down there, 
but they are a hard quarry to find 
as they haunt the most out of the 
way places in the dense swamps. When 
you go after them you have your work 
cut out for you. Swamp country and 
semi-tropical heat combine to make the 
pursuit something not to be scoffed at. 
Panther may also be found, but they 
are rather scarce and, if anything, are 
By W. N. GARL1NGTON 
A Florida deer hunter 
harder to find than bear. They, too, 
frequent the swamp country and keep to 
it pretty well. Last fall, when going into 
the Lee County hunting grounds, I 
stopped at the home of a Cracker in order 
to see the pelt from one just recently 
killed by a cattle hunter. It was a fine 
skin and a very large one. 
Bob-cats are frequently run across 
when hunting deer and turkey. Every 
time I have been into the Big Cypress 
country someone of the party has killed 
one or more of these animals. Of course 
they are of no particular value to the 
hunter other than furnishing a small hide 
for a trophy and affording him the sat- 
isfaction of killing it. However, when- 
ever one of them is killed it means a few 
more turkeys, as they are very fond of 
turkey meat and play havoc with the 
half grown ones. Here is an example of 
their fondness for turkey meat: In the 
fall of 1916 Abraham Lincoln, a Seminole 
Indian, with our party, stalked three 
young gobblers with a couple of hens 
feeding along on a burn. He crept to 
within 50 yards of them and killed one 
with his rifle and broke the wing of 
another as it ran off. He pursued the 
wounded one in a vain effort to secure it 
before it gained a nearby swamp and 
escaped. When he returned for the gob- 
bler he had killed he ran right onto one 
of these animals sneaking up on it and 
put three 303 bullets into it before it 
would give up the ghost. It was a rusty 
old “Tom” — about the largest I ever saw, 
and was certainly audacious and tough. 
In addition to the game mentioned 
there is an abundance of quail, snipe, 
doves, squirrels and some minor varieties. 
T HE deer and turkey country is so 
thickly covered with swamps, high 
palmetto, brush, bushes and water 
that it is next to impossible to track deer 
as you do in the North. Of course in 
the bare spots and around the borders 
of cypress heads and strands their tracks 
are readily discernible, but you do not 
follow them far before they disappear 
from view in the palmetto or water. 
Therefore, practically every hunting 
party carries one or more slow trail deer 
dogs. These dogs may be hounds, but 
more often they are terriers or half 
breed mongrels possessing a keen sense 
of smell. 
Using a dog for slow trail work is not 
to be confounded with using a dog to 
chase deer. It is entirely different and 
is not at all unsportsmanlike. In fact, it 
may be compared with using a dog to 
hunt quail. The method of procedure is 
as follows: The dog has a collar around 
its neck to which is attached a stout leash 
of about 15 feet in length. The hunter, 
or the guide, as the case may be, ties the 
other end around his waist. The dog 
always takes the lead and coming across 
the trail of a deer at once follows and 
will stay with it until the deer is jumped 
or the hunter gives it up. Sometimes the 
deer is found lying up in the palmetto 
a few hundred yards away; sometimes a 
mile or so away, and at other times trav- 
els so far, or goes into some swampy 
place and cannot be found ; in which case 
it must be given up and a fresh try made 
elsewhere. 
If the wind is right the hunter is able 
at times to approach to within thirty 
yards of the animal before it jumps, and 
when it does jump it offers a bounding, 
running shot as it tears off through the 
woods. Sometimes it will jump when the 
hunter is a hundred yards or more dis- 
tant. It depends upon the wind, and 
whether or not the animal has been re- 
cently frightened, as to how close you 
can approach one. 
It is best to have a slow trailer, broken 
sj it will not bark on the trail. If it does 
the deer will be frightened and will get 
away before offering a chance for a 
shot. A dog of small stature is to be 
preferred for this work, as a big, heavy 
dog, such as the hound, will tire a per- 
son half way to exhaustion through con- 
tinual tugging at the leash. Further- 
more, in case the leash should give way 
and the dog get loose, the small dog will 
be far less likely to run a deer down 
than would be the case with a hound. 
The best slow trailer I ever saw was 
a little terrier bitch. She was so thor- 
oughly broken and obedient that she did 
not need to be tied. She was as wise to 
the deer trailing game as a crack bird 
dog is to handling quail. It is remark- 
able how proficiently a dog can be trained 
in slow trail work, and still more re- 
