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I ,1 ay 18, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Ill 
Wild Goose Shooting. 
itor Forest and Stream: 
\ short time ago Forest and Stream printed 
I communication, regarding the gathering of 
s king of waterfowl upon the Platte River, 
ich recalled the days of 1881-2, when I was 
! quently with chosen friends an ardent hunter 
geese on the Platte, being located at that 
1 le in Iowa; and we in our camp evenings 
d to consider the possibility of any other 
,tion of the Central West furnishing equal 
ilities for meeting with so many geese and 
int. That place I found when, in 1887, I 
ved to Larned, Kan. 
n those days, the Arkansas River began 
.ving in June, when the snow began melting 
the Rocky Mountains, filling the sources of 
river and its tributaries, and the river would 
w all the year, or at least until mid-winter, 
jm the first to the middle of October the 
■se and brant gathered in and along the river, 
ting on the sandbars, and Hying out to the 
ms to feed on the green winter wheat. They 
the river about _ daylight to feed, coming 
k from 10 to 11 o’clock, to rest and play on 
1 about the sandbars in mid-stream. About 
'’clock they again went to the wheat fields 
feed, returning after sundown. They selected 
ne one of the many sandbar-islands in the 
. ?am, which were termed “roosts” by the 
■pie, and there was a roost every four or five 
; es. and only upon these particular roosts 
uld they stop, either day or night, 
he market shooters selected some sandbar 
■ put a half mile below a roost, and at a 
[tance of 75 to 100 yards from its lower end 
y sank casks and large barrels in the sand 
blinds. At the lower end of the sandbar 
: tnd out of the water they staked out winged 
Jjd geese and brant, and as the flocks in com- 
in from feeding always flew to the river 
or two miles below the roost, they flew up 
river to it. When the flight began, the 
■ters in the blinds began blowing their calls, 
the incoming flocks lowered their flight to 
or fifteen yards above the water and would 
e a honking match with the anchored geese, 
they slowly passed over them, they were 
ly slaughtered by the market shooters from 
ir blinds. T liese men usually worked in 
I gs of four, three men in the blinds, and one 
gather the crippled geese from the river, by 
ling, the water nowhere being over four feet 
depth. When the flights were over, they 
; lkl tow their game to their camps on the 
r bank a short distance below their blinds, 
arly in the winter of 1887 there were two 
?s of these geese and brant butchers located 
\e Larned, near Garfield, working together, 
they daily shipped east over the railroad 
ral hundred geese, as the morning and 
f flight each gave about two hours’ 
I ding. In addition to these professionals, 
I y farmer and farmer’s son was shooting 
i ’ e . upon the wheat fields from blinds and 
I g' M g their game to town for sale, and so 
! did they supply the markets, that the retail 
es for the largest geese ranged from twenty- 
to thirty-five cents apiece. 
| went out one afternoon with a friend and 
• suc h success that goose hunting lost all zest 
l ne. It was a warm afternoon in November, 
the south wind was blowing at its usual 
in western Kansas, about thirty-five to 
r miles an hour, bringing into the office 
lows a continuous boom from the dis- 
1 8 e of shotguns at the flying geese over the 
1 when this friend entered, with, “Are you 
busy to go for geese this afternoon?” My 
I *'er was that gun and shooting togs were a’t 
borne a mile awav in the northern part of 
| city. 
j‘° ar e mine,” was the reply; “but I have the 
e „and buggy here and we will go and get 
! ^ e ean t get a show, 
1 ■ 1 he river bank 
V 
said I, “listen to the 
is lined with hunters 
l| V^ht, was his reply, “we’ll go to a roost 
1 t tour miles down the river,” and we 
ie roost we went to below town was on 
large sandbar in the river, where it had changed 
from west to east, and flowed directly south 
for a mile and a half, then east for a mile or so, 
then back to the north for half a mile, thence 
east again. Driving over the prairie, we saw 
that every flock left the river at the lower bend 
and faced the wind, flying across the bend over 
the bottom, so we secreted horse and buggy in 
a grove of willows and went to the river, over 
the bank, about five feet high, and we were 
standing on the sods that had fallen into the 
edge of the water, which brought our eyes to 
the top of the bank, giving us the screen of the 
.short buffalo grass for our blind. 
We had hardly got in place before we noticed 
a flock of more than 100 large Canada 
geese flying up the bottom in our di¬ 
rection in an A or harrow-shape flock, when 
I made the proposal that I would take the 
leader and then follow up in the right wing of 
the harrow and that my friend should confine 
his aim to the left wing, which was agreed to. 
T. GILBERT PEARSON. 
Secretary of the Audubon Society of North Carolina 
and of the National Audubon Society. 
On came the flock not over fifty feet from the 
round, and when almost directly over us, I 
took the leader with the right barrel and two 
more coming together with the left; broke the 
gun, put in two new shells and got two more 
shots into the disorganized, bunched-up flock 
just over me, and then the flock parted, half 
flying up across the river, and the others down 
the river but across the prairie. 1 hen arose 
the greatest noise of honking 1 ever heard be¬ 
tween the two parts of the flock. They turned 
and came toward each other and met directly 
over us, and each one got in four shots. Then 
the geese flew, wildly honking, in a disorgan¬ 
ized flock westward, away from the river. 
We climbed the bank and picked up our birds, 
nineteen large Canada geese, and with the box of 
our buggy filled, so that our legs had to hang 
out sidewise, we returned to the city. The 
butchery we were guilty of, under the" excite¬ 
ment of the occasion, when considered in cold 
blood at home, ended my wild goose shooting 
on the Arkansas. 
In 1891 the irrigation of Colorado lands first 
took all the water from the river, and since then, 
in the wild goose season, the bed of the Ar¬ 
kansas River has been a mass of dry, drifting 
sand, and western Kansas has no wild goose 
shooting along the river. The State of Kansas 
now has an action pending before the Supreme 
Court of the United States against the State 
of Colorado, with the Irrigation Department of 
the United States an intervenor, to determine 
whether the water of tjie Arkansas shall all be 
used in Colorado, or if it shall again flow over 
its bed in Kansas. Should Kansas win and the 
water again flow in the river, would the geese 
be in existence to bring back the old-time shoot¬ 
ing is a question no one can answer. 
A Roving Sportsman. 
Deer Shooting in the South. 
Hendersonville, N. C., May 5 .—Editor Forest 
and Stream: As I get so much of interest each 
week from Forest and Stream, I feel that I 
ought from time to time contribute some of my 
experience in hunting, shooting and fishing also. 
Some years ago I was stopping with a brother 
of mine at what , was then a farmer’s country 
hotel, thirty-five miles from the nearest railroad 
station in western North Carolina. We used 
to go deer hunting and grouse shooting there, 
d'he building and forest are still there, but few 
deer remain, yet they are now on the increase 
again. We had a fine pair of well trained 
hounds which I had trained myself. These dogs 
would pay no attention to rabbits when deer 
hunting. 
About daylight one morning in November I 
heard the dogs—mine and half a dozen more— 
in the yard, all answering the call of a horn that 
had just been blown by a man who had them 
in charge. I got out of bed at once and raised 
the window, when the hunter called out to me 
from his horse that he was going to drive the 
Panther Mountain, and if I wanted to do so 1 
had better go to a stand. 
My brother preferred to wait for a hot break¬ 
fast; but I went without any. A good three- 
mile walk brought me to the chestnut stand 
which I selected, as I was familiar with the 
wods. Panther Mountain was three miles 
further. I took my place 011 a large, flat rock 
with a chestnut tree growing quite near it. 
I waited patiently, hearing dogs and the sharp 
report of a rifle in another direction and feared 
the hunter had “gone back on me.” A ruffed 
grouse was drumming not far away, and I thought 
of going after him Then, my brother, having 
enjoyed a hot breakfast, came up and I told 
him of the dogs and gun I had heard, and 1 
feared it was no hunt for 11s. Then came the 
distant music of hounds from the direction of 
Panther Mountain, and I sent my brother back 
to his stand. He was hardly out of sight be¬ 
fore I saw three deer jump over a little run 
about three hundred yards below me, and soon 
were hid by a little rise. Patiently I waited, and 
long enough, and yet no further sight of them. 
The dogs were at least a mile behind them. So 
I quietly got off my rock and was going to run 
about two hundred yards up the trail to head 
them off, when, like a flash, I remembered losing 
a fine buck some years before by leaving my 
stand to head him off, so I stepped back again 
and none too soon. 
The deer were quietly listening to the cry of 
the dogs, and as the cry got nearer, on they 
came and I was ready. I was using a double- 
barrel gun. I covered the largest and fired, and 
then cocking the other barrel, I covered another 
and fired; but all three went up the side of the 
ridge with flags flying. Then I thought I saw 
one fall. My brother came, and so I walked 
over to the spot where I thought one had fallen. 
The distance from gun to deer was 75 big steps 
for the first, the other further. There lay my 
deer. Meanwhile the dogs had gone on, and I 
heard the sharp crack of a rifle and went to it. 
In the yard of an old hunter friend I saw 
him dressing the other deer I had hit. The old 
man was sick in bed, but the music of the hounds 
was too much for him. He had to get up and 
shoot the deer a second time. He did not claim 
it, but of course we made him share with us, and 
I was glad to have aided in getting him up on 
his legs again. 
Never leave a stand for another possible place 
a deer may go unless specially directed to do 
so by one thoroughly familiar with the woods. 
Many a shot is thus lost. 
Ernest L. Evvbank. 
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