June i, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
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Atlantic City Sports 
Atlantic City, N. J., May 23. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: During the many successful out- 
nigs it has been my good fortune to enjoy in 
Atlantic City in the course of the past five 
years, it has often occurred to me what an 
unfortunately small percentage of the many 
. sportsmen among the hundreds of thousands 
of strangers who annually visit this delightful 
resort realize the opportunity here offered to 
pursue their favorite pastimes. 
Situated on an island, Atlantic City lies at 
the southern end of that vast and intricate ex¬ 
panse of bays and waterways extending from 
Great Egg Harbor on the south, north to 
Barnegat Bay, including the immediate vicin¬ 
ity, Lake Absecon and Reed’s Bays and the 
main channels running north into Grassy, Little 
and thence into Great Bay. 
This extensive territory affords abundant 
sport at all seasons. At present meadow snipe 
are very numerous here. In a morning’s shoot 
last week a friend and myself brought in a bag 
of seventy, and could have shot as many more 
jj had we been so inclined. Yesterday I brought 
in over thirty, and a dozen ringnecks. At 
daybreak and dusk, robin snipe, yellowlegs, 
graybacks, plover and calico backs are plenti¬ 
ful, and good bags are brought in every day 
now. A few belated shelldrakes are still in 
evidence, and I have seen several Hocks of 
geese pass overhead, on their way northward. 
The snipe and shore birds will last well into 
August, when the marlin, willets, curlew and 
blackbreasts appear. 
On Sept. 1, the marsh hen season opens, and 
affords good sport. The legal bag of thirty is 
easily obtained, while an occasional railbird 
i or a “hunchepus” (mouse trap) is not to be 
i sneezed at, especially the latter in the form 
of a stew! Heron are plentiful. 
In another month or so the ducks begin to 
arrive, redheads, teal, black ducks, butterballs, 
coots, cockrobins, bluebills, hairyheads, old 
; grannies, and a few shelldrakes, and with 
! proper weather, a good sneakbox and a boat- 
j man who will take you to their haunts, good 
j luck is sure to follow. 
Then in the early spring, good shooting over 
the decoys may be had at the then numerous 
i shelldrakes, while from the lower bays great 
flocks of brant and geese may be seen circling 
in the upper bays. 
! Excellent train service to the mainland gives 
easy access to fine local field shooting in sea¬ 
son, for which, however, a non-resident license 
of $10.50 is necessary. Altogether, I think you 
! will agree, a fair range of sport. 
As for the fishing, weakfish are just begin- 
| ning tO' run up the channels, and the anglers 
hereabouts are emerging from their winter 
[ lairs. In the Stillwater inside the bar, and at 
sea, there are also caught in season porgies, 
flounders, sea bass, kingfish, rockfish, Cape 
' May goodies, mullets, rudder and butterfish, 
| croakers, and bluefish, to say nothing of those 
crabbing, eel spearing and clam digging par¬ 
ties. In the winter the catches of cod, hake, 
haddock and frostfish bring substantial returns 
to scores of outfits. 
The Atlantic City Yachtsmen’s Association 
has a fine pier at the (Absecon) inlet, to which 
over sixty-five boats tie up in the height of 
the season—knockabouts, cat yachts and 
1 sloops, ranging from 30 to 6o-footers, with 
facilities for a sail for an hour or an outing 
for a week or two, and at fair rates. These 
yachtsmen, the majority of whom cod fish or 
dig oysters for market during the winter 
months, are a fine lot of fellows, thoroughly 
1 familiar with every part of the surrounding 
j waters, not a few of them completely equipped 
with all necessary decoys, sneakboxes and all 
shooting and fishing paraphernalia, and every 
one a fair, clean sport. I am proud to call 
those of them I know my friends. 
Gardiner’s Canal adjoins the inlet, and af¬ 
fords every facility for the visiting yachtsman, 
the Atlantic City and Seaside yacht clubs being 
here located, as also ample wharfage and 
numerous shipyards, machine shops and chan¬ 
dlers’ stores. 
Exciting races between a score or so of 
mosquito, cricket or other small craft may be 
witnessed daily, while power boats innumer¬ 
able cruise the surrounding waters. 
The Yachstmen’s Association holds its races 
in July, at which occasion all the old salts turn 
out in full force for this gala event. Many 
other races are already scheduled for the sum¬ 
mer months, for all of which handsome 
trophies and purses are staked. 
What with all this, its world-renowned bath¬ 
ing beach, horseback riding, a speedway, un¬ 
excelled automobile approaches to the city, a 
beautiful golf course adjoining, crackerjack 
ball games every day during the summer, horse 
and dog shows, to say nothing of the life on 
the five miles of board walk, bowling, skat¬ 
ing, and all kindred sports on the piers, as 
well as every refinement of city life, the lover 
of sport, exercise and outdoors need be no lag¬ 
gard in this burg. H. P. J. 
Duck Shooting in The Basin. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
A few miles from McPherson, Kans., is a 
tract of twenty-five hundred acres of land that 
lacks less than two feet of being exactly level. 
It is surrounded by higher land, and has no 
outlet for the water until it has raised several 
feet. No water except the rainfall gets into 
it, so in dry seasons the water is very shallow. 
At the time I was there, about 1887, the water 
was three to six inches deep over the entire 
tract, except perhaps thirty acres, which was 
covered to a depth of twelve to eighteen 
inches. The bottom was about three inches of 
mud covering a “hard pan” bottom. It was 
practical to' drive all over it with a horse and 
vehicle. The mud was thickly covered with a 
fine, hair-like grass, and a thick growth of 
aquatic weeds grew to about the height of a 
man’s waist, except where the water was deep¬ 
est, and there the water was free from vege¬ 
tation. Our old duck shooting friends will 
readily see that it was a paradise for mallards, 
and also for a mallard shooter. There seemed 
to be good picking for the ducks all over. 
There was no flight shooting. The ducks 
were not in flocks, but were scattered here, 
there and everywhere throughout the weeds, 
and were hunted by walking quietly through 
the weeds and jumping the ducks. Of course, 
a good many of the birds rose out of gunshot, 
but many others waited too long, and made 
the finest shooting. The sport was best when 
there was a good stiff wind blowing. By 
walking against the wind the ducks were not 
alarmed so soon, and could not get away so 
fast when they rose. I had several afternoons 
of glorious sport. No big bags were made, 
but there was enough doing to make it inter¬ 
esting. A three hours’ tramp would get from 
six to twelve fat mallards. 
The old residents said the shooting was no 
good; that they used to get sixty to one hun¬ 
dred in a day before the place was. “shot 
out.” But a dozen was good enough for me, 
and if I had had a dog to get the dead ones, 
it would have been good enough for anybody. 
The weeds were alike everywhere, and so 
thick that it was hard to see a dead duck more 
than six feet. If a double was made, the 
chances were that only the last one would be 
found, and a sneaking cripple was not to be 
found at all. I soon got to marking the spot 
where one fell, as nearly as possible going 
there without taking my eyes off the spot, 
and if the bird was not found at once, I would 
circle round and round the spot where it fell, 
making each circle wider than the last, but 
would soon lose the spot where the bird fell, 
and then it was altogether good luck if it was 
found at all. After losing several birds in that 
way, I marked the spot by hanging a hand¬ 
kerchief on the top of a weed, and could then 
circle round the spot with some certainty, and 
was quite sure to get the bird, if it was dead, 
where it fell. This didn’t help getting both 
of them when a double was made, so I quit 
knocking down more than one at a time, and 
also soon learned that it was best not to take 
any chances on long shots, for cripples could 
not be found, and the shot would frequently 
flush birds out of range that would have given 
fair shots if not flushed by the report of the 
gun. 
One cloudy afternoon the sport was so in¬ 
teresting that dark came on before I got out 
of the weeds, and I soon found that I had little 
idea which way to go, and there would prob¬ 
ably have been a weary tramp of it for me if 
my shooting partner had not gone out before 
it was quite dark and was waiting for me at 
the buggy. He answered my yells, and thus 
gave me a pointer. In the early days, when 
that basin was twenty miles from anywhere, 
there must have been all the shooting that the 
greediest one could ask for. No doubt by this 
time the place has been drained and is pro¬ 
ducing unlimited bushels of wheat and corn. 
O. H. Hampton. 
Alabama and her New Laws. 
Montgomery, Ala., May 20 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Since the passage of the new game and 
fish law, which went into force March 19, 1907, 
the sportsmen of Alabama are congratulating 
themselves on the fact that they have one of the 
very best game and fish statutes on the continent. 
The splendid result that was attained was accom¬ 
plished only after years of assiduous labor. 
In some sections of the State a few black bear 
are yet to be found. These are in the main safely 
ensconced in the jungles of the swamp and overflow 
lands of Mobile, Baldwin, Washington and Clarke 
counties. Deer occur from the mountains of North 
Alabama down the western line and in the black 
belt' counties of the central section of the State 
and range to the Bay of Mobile and the Florida 
line. That noble bird, the wild turkey, still 
abounds in the mountains and in the river bot¬ 
toms. Squirrel are abundant as are doves. Last 
February a dove shoot was had over a baited 
field, and over 8,000 were killed in one day. This 
shoot took place in Barbour county, and 135 men 
were on the firing line. The new game law pre¬ 
vents the baiting of dove fields. 
While in close proximity to the cities quail are 
scarce, yet in the rural districts and especially 
in the pinev woods these birds are plentiful. We 
had a mild winter and the prospects are most 
propitious for an abundance of quail next season. 
There are many superb tracts of land in this 
State that would make ideal game preserves, and 
movements are already on foot looking to the 
establishment of one in the Tennessee valley. 
It is safe to say that under our new condi¬ 
tions the sportsmen of the truest type will 
take more interest in hunting and fishing, and 
that within a few years Alabama will become the 
sportsman’s elysium it was in the golden days 
of long ago. Alabamian. 
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