776 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 25, 1911. 
Game Along the Mississippi. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
During a cruise which I have been making 
down the above river since the last of August, 
I have had a great opportunity to see the best 
game country as well as do a little shooting at 
waterfowl. Near St. Paul, in what are locally 
known as Spring Lake, Mudhen Lake, Sturgeon 
Lake, the sloughs of Lake Pepin and other 
smaller waters, ducks and snipe were fairly 
numerous for the time of year we were there, 
Sept. 1. A good many could also be found on 
Lake St. Croix. 
Further down at smaller waters flowing into 
the Mississippi and the sloughs which are a part 
of the river overflow, fairly good sport has been 
experienced by local shooters. Redheads, blue- 
bills, pintails, ruddy ducks, or fool ducks, as 
they are sometimes called; mallards, blackducks, 
and a few other species we have seen by dozens 
of thousands since getting below St. Louis. I 
have observed them, floating down stream, heads 
under their wings, on the coldest days. Just 
above Caruthersville, Mo., we saw hunters cov¬ 
ered up in their boats with brush and anchored 
on the side of the river which the ducks floated 
down ready to pot when in range. 
Geese have been seen on sandbars thick enough 
to say that the ground was black with them. 
They made an awful fuss night and morning 
going to and coming from the cornfields behind 
the levees. One old timer told me that he had 
tried to locate the feeding ground of a certain 
lot of geese for nearly a week, and as yet had 
not succeeded. He said that one bunch scared 
up when he was stalking them would lift the 
entire regiment from the feeding in a dozen 
fields and they would make off. We have seen 
them so thick on the water and bars that it was 
easy to kill one with a .25-20 rifle at long range 
just by shooting into the mass. 
From the time we struck Cape Girardeau, Mo., 
we found that turkeys were numerous. Hunters 
were already going out for them before the sea¬ 
son opened and were bagging a few, which were 
fat and juicy. There is little regard for game 
laws along the river; in fact, the settlers who 
live along it would fare badly if it were not 
for the game and meat they get from the woods 
on the islands and the water. More years than 
not, their little patches of corn and cotton land 
overflow, and they are then out of a crop until 
next season when the same thing is liable to 
happen again. 
I hear a lot of bad rumbling for the deer 
hunters who are using dogs to chase the deer 
out of the country in Arkansas and Southern 
Missouri. I think it is against the law in Mis¬ 
souri to hound deer, though it was not some few 
seasons ago. The average hunter resident in 
these parts does not have patience and skill to 
still-hunt his game like the Northern hunter. He 
wants it brought to him so that he can shoot it 
a good deal like potting it. 
In Kentucky and Tennessee we found game in 
all the markets. Ducks, geese, fish of all kinds 
were in abundance. I think that most of this 
stuff is caught in nets. I saw barrels of black 
bass and ducks in the markets along the whole¬ 
sale districts of Memphis. Further, I have seen 
no fishermen using anything for taking fish, but 
nets. Hooks and lines are tabooed. At one 
place where the fishing was exceptionally good 
we found a large party of fishermen with their 
families camped and fishing in Missouri and 
selling their catches in Kentucky. Their policy 
is that the sooner the game and fish is killed off, 
the sooner men will have to go to work. And 
the destruction goes on. Amos Burhans. 
Snowed-In Hunters’ Tales. 
Las Animas, Colo., Nov. 10. —Editor Forest 
and Stream: In the early ’80s a number of us 
were snowed in at Sulphur Springs, Middle 
Park, Colorado. The boles of the pines were 
THE WASHINGTON STAR’S SUGGESTION FOR A SCHOOL 
FOR DEER HUNTERS. 
wrapped in snow to a man’s height, and as the 
elevation was upward of 10,000 feet, it was ex¬ 
ceedingly cold. 
The elk and deer had long since gone to their 
winter range in the deserts of the lower Yampa. 
Camp robbers and grouse were the only birds 
seen during the long winter months. Fool hens 
occurred in considerable numbers, and from the 
higher mountains where they summered there 
came to us a member of the grouse family that 
was perfectly white. In size it was midway be¬ 
tween the quail and pheasant, and sitting on the 
snow it was to be distinguished only by its black 
eyes. Along the streams the tumultuous waters 
kept a pathway clear, and here one often saw 
signs of some fur-bearing animal. 
What most impressed me in this grand pano¬ 
rama of peaks and chasms was the awful silence. 
In traveling through the forests it sometimes be¬ 
came so insistent that I have stopped in my 
tracks, wondering if some catastrophe were not 
impending. I have felt the same sensation in the 
summer months, but then one does not walk far 
without disturbing a squirrel or some game, and 
then in summer birds are continually in sight, 
and one’s eyes are always seeking the ground 
ahead for game or their signs. In winter the 
trackless snow stretches away on every side, 
muffling even the fall of the pine cones, and 
hiding them in its bosom. One feels like crying 
out, but if you do the snowy mantle smothers 
the echo and you feel all the more alone. 
What I was going to tell of is this: We were 
short of provisions, and in the evening in our 
cabin with the dried skins that we had hung to 
the roof logs waving ghost-like from the fire¬ 
place draft, we played cards to see which one 
of the company should go out in the morning 
to replenish the larder. 
One evening the lot fell to Ute Bill, who with 
his long yellow hair falling over his shou’ders— 
hair which now looks like oleomargarine, for 
this was a long time ago—still lives a few miles 
above Sulphur Springs on the Grand River. On 
his return in the evening without game, being 
questioned, he said he had killed an elk, had 
followed the herd, and on returning to his quarry 
found that it had been eaten by bears. 
That evening in our game the lot fell to a wit 
whose name was Ed. On his return the fol¬ 
lowing day, gameless, he explained that he had 
killed a bear. It seems that there were several 
of them, and lie had followed the survivors 
hoping to bag a second one. This he did not 
succeed in doing, and on returning to the place 
where he had made the kill, he discovered that 
a herd of elk had found his bear and con¬ 
sumed it. 
Ed’s face and Bill’s were serious, but the rest 
of us roared. From this incident a feeling was 
engendered on Bill’s part that made our enforced 
association unpleasant thereafter, and for this 
reason I think we were all glad when the melt¬ 
ing of the snows allowed us to go our several 
ways. F. T. Webber. 
Quail Shooting. 
Raleigh, N. C., Nov. 11. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: The hunting season in a good deal of 
North Carolina began Nov. 1, but here in Wake 
county not until the 15th. Quail this year are 
well grown. Johnston county, east of here, has 
perhaps as little game law as any county in the 
State, and this difference in a way is demoraliz¬ 
ing, for as a matter of fact the State needs a 
uniform law. Many bears are being killed in 
the eastern section and deer also. Herbert 
Brimley has been on a trip to his favorite lakes 
where he secured a great many specimens for 
the museum and bagged forty ducks. 
A Johnston county farmer had a very curious 
experience last week. He tells me he was driv¬ 
ing his wagon to a village when suddenly some 
wild turkeys flew from the woods by the road. 
Two went away and out of view, but the third, 
a splendid gobbler, went right up in the air. He 
fired, and the shot cut off one w r ing clean, the 
big bird falling in the center of the empty wagon 
and the wing beside the highway. The gobbler 
weighed over sixteen pounds. 
During the summer there was in this section 
a great amount of black-tongue among the dogs 
and in nearly all cases it proved fatal. Mayor 
