March, 1919 
FOREST AND STREAM 
109 
SHOOTING DUCKS AT OCRACOTE 
YOU WILL HAVE A MOST RESTFUL AND ENTERTAINING TIME LYING IN YOUR 
LITTLE COFFIN. WITH ENOUGH EXCITEMENT TO KEEP YOU INTERESTED 
By W.R. BROWN 
The coffin and the decoys ready for action 
F one wishes to become accus- 
tomed in the pleasantest manner 
possible gracefully to occupy a 
coffin, it can be done while shoot- 
ing ducks at Ocracote. Said cof- 
fin is nothing more or less than 
one of a pair of shooting floats 
built side by side beneath a flat 
top, with flaps of burlap on frames 
to float on the three windward 
sides to keep the crest of the waves 
from breaking into the boxes, and 
the whole anchored where it is 
shallow and sunk to the level of 
the water, apparently right out to 
sea and surrounded on all sides by 
a huge fleld of the most natural 
decoy geese, brant and ducks im- 
aginable. 
To be exact, your coffin or float 
will be off the coast of the little 
island of Ocracote in Pamlico 
Sound just south of Cape Hat- 
teras, where some of the best 
shooting on the Atlantic coast can 
be had. The town itself is a most 
picturesque little Ashing village, 
situated on a long spit of sand 
that runs parallel to and sixty miles 
from the coast of North Carolina, and 
forms that easterly point of the South- 
ern States around which sailors cauti- 
ously navigate, and are not disappointed 
in their expectations of a stormy sea. 
In the sheltered bay of Pamlico Sound 
the water fowls stop on their way South 
to find a haven of rest and feed on the 
wild rice and celery which grow on the 
shallow shoals of the Sound in great 
abundance a few feet below the surface 
of the water. Particularly after a storm 
they congregate in immense numbers 
from the month of September to Feb- 
ruary, and morning and evening one can 
see great flocks of them sweeping up 
from the horizon like smoke clouds open- 
ing and shutting, or skimming along the 
surface of the water in long flies and 
filling the air with quacks and whirs. 
This is particularly the home of the 
brant, one of the larger and more de- 
licious of the ducks. Long lines of wild 
geese in their curious “V” shaped for- 
mation trail overhead with hoarse honks. 
Flocks of beautiful white swan are seen 
headed for the South, and occasionally 
in the coldest weather the canvas-backs 
come down from their favorite haunts 
in Chesapeake Bay. 
In various places on the surfaces, long 
low black lines show where the flocks 
alight, with here and there a glimpse of 
white breast or tail where the birds are 
feeding and diving to uproot' the suc- 
culent roots from the bottom. 
O NE comes over from the small citv 
of Beauport on a mail packet which 
touches from island to island and 
eventually reaches Ocracote just as the 
sun goes down, and finds a little fishing 
village around a half moon shaped bay, 
surmounted by a tall white light house 
and flanked on one side by a Govern- 
ment lifesaving station and on the other 
by wharves and fishing houses. Little 
cottages nestle among diminutive and 
picturesque cedars which have been 
gnarled, twisted and stunted by the fre- 
quent gales, with tops that bend pa- 
tiently away from the open sea. Thick- 
ets of evergreen bearing red berries 
somewhat like holly form protection for 
small gardens of vegetables,. particularly 
delicious sweet potatoes, and here and 
there one notices with surprise small 
fresh water ponds which fill from hid- 
den springs, coming at least a hundred 
miles under the sea. One is also sur- 
prised to find here abundant pasture 
the year around for small herds of half 
wild ponies, cattle and sheep that wade 
across the sand spits from one island 
to another and browse upon the short 
salty grass. 
Behind the cottages rises the spire of a 
church, and as one approaches in the 
late afternoon, all the white buildings, 
the light house tower and church spire 
are suffused with a rosy light, and make 
a picture of the snug haven town as 
sung by the Ancient Mariner. 
O UR party was fortunate to stop 
with one of the native guides who 
make hunters comfortable in their 
clean and attractive little homes, and 
after a royal dinner of oysters, roast 
duck, sweet potatoes and other delicacies, 
we tumbled early into our feather beds 
on account of the early start to be taken 
the next morning, and were lulled to 
sleep by the roar of the great 
sea beating on the treacherous 
sand bar two miles away. Dur- 
ing the hunting season many of 
the native fishermen put their 
boats, decoys and shooting boxes 
at the service of guests for a rea- 
sonable figure, and take them into 
their clean and hospitable little 
houses, and one is truly cared for. 
The method of hunting is as fol- 
lows: One is awakened about four 
A. M. to eat a substantial break- 
fast by candle light, after which 
he'is taken out of the little harbor 
to the shoals in the guide’s mo- 
tor boat trailing a scow behind 
which is filled vdth decoys, the 
shooting box and <jther parapher- 
nalia. The shoals are a mile or 
two off the coast. Here the wa- 
ter is found only two or three feet 
deep, and all members of the party 
being provided with hip boots, they 
disembark and take a hand in an- 
choring the shooting box and 
weighting it down with iron de- 
coys flush with the surface of 
the water. The shooting box as we 
said before consists of nothing more or 
less than two coffins side by side in a 
flat oblong top surrounded by three flaps 
of burlap on frames resting on the sur- 
face of the water to break the waves so 
that they will not splash in. About two 
hundred decoy ducks, geese and brant 
are thrown out all around the shooting 
box, kept in place by strings and weights, 
and on the outer edge of these attached 
more securely by their legs a half dozen 
wild geese which the evening before were 
feeding quietly on the little fresh water 
pond in front of the guide’s house. These 
geese seem to enjoy the proceeding as 
they have an opportunity to swim about 
within a narrow radius and feed upon 
the bottom and honk vigorously when- 
ever wild ducks fly overhead, and serve 
to call them in. Usually once or twice 
in a season our guides tell us some ex- 
cited hunter will forget their location 
and serve them as he does the wild game, 
to their discomfiture and his chagrin; 
but I imagine that in such a case rep- 
aration is generously and quickly made, 
as was done in the case of the green- 
horn who was hunting moose in the 
Maine woods with a native Indian. At 
the proper time and moment a bull moose 
was seen passing within gun shot and 
the inquiring hunter looked to the In- 
dian for a signal to fire, but the Indian 
sadly shook his head. Immediately be- 
hind the bull came a cow moose and the 
Indian appearing abstracted, the hunter 
killed the cow moose in fine form. Upon 
discovering his error, it being against 
the law to shoot a cow moose, the In- 
dian remarked, “Some hunter when kill 
cow moose give Indian guide five dollars.” 
