494 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 26, 1908. 
and a proportionate number in the neighboring 
coves, and scarcely one failed to get the number 
of birds allowed by law, namely, thirty-five. 
While the shooting has not been quite so good 
since the opening day, there are still enough 
birds left to make the sport of hunting them 
quite interesting. 
I append herewith the score of one of the 
hunters as given me by one of the men who 
acts as pusher, and I consider this a fair aver¬ 
age: Sept. 12, 35 rail and 1 gallinule; Sept. 14, 
35 rail and 3 gallinules; Sept. 15, 26 rail; Sept. 
16, 28 rail. 
On the opening day I was out myself and had 
a most enjoyable time, getting the legal number 
of birds within a very short time. 
G. W. C. 
Saginaw, Mich., Sept. 1 7.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have read with interest what has 
appeared lately in Forest and Stream with re¬ 
lation to rail shooting. This is never mentioned 
as a sport of the West, and yet we of the Sagi¬ 
naw valley, I think, have as good rail shooting 
as anywhere else. Of course the season is un¬ 
certain, for if we have a hard frost early, the 
birds are gone in one night. 
Between Saginaw and Bay City and above 
Saginaw along the Saginaw River are vast 
stretches of marshland, having fields of wild 
rice which in the old days were filled with ducks. 
When I was a boy it was no unusual thing with 
a muzzle-loading gun to bag 75 or 100 ducks in 
a day. My father told me this, and I remem¬ 
ber going out with him when I was still too 
young to shoot, when the shooting was fine. At 
a certain place below Crow Island, teal flew 
across the river in the evening like the old-time 
pigeon flights, and the bags made with No. 8 
shot were tremendous. While many of the 
marshlands have been drained and converted 
into farms, there is still a large area of wild rice 
existing. It has seeded heavily this year, and 
when we get a north wind, which sets back the 
flow of the river into Saginaw Bay, pushing 
through the rice beds is easier and the birds 
flush better. The high water, of course, acts the 
same as the tides do on Eastern marshes. 
I went down on the marsh on opening day, 
Sept, i, and found the birds quite plentiful, but 
the rice had not fallen. It was thick and very 
hard shoving and also the birds were very hard 
to find after one had killed them. I killed 
thirty-three with thirty-seven shells, but only 
picked up twenty-five of them. My son, who 
is still a schoolboy, picked up twenty-six. He 
had more shooting than I did, but he had a 
better poler; he missed more birds, as his gun 
was too closely choked. My friend, Mr. Morley, 
picked up fifteen, but he had a poor boat and 
did not have a good show. 
On Sept. 3 I went down again taking the 
Inter Urban car that leaves my office at 9:20 
and was back at 5 P. M. I had a good poler 
and a good boat, but did not shoot quite as well. 
I used up 100 shells, picked up sixty-eight birds 
and lost ten. Sept. 4 my son went down alone 
with this same poler and brought back forty-five 
rail. 
I did not go again until Sept. 14 and did not 
leave my office until after ten in the morning and 
was back at 5 P. M. I used just seA r enty-six 
shells, picked up sixty-two rail, lost five and 
missed nine. While at the beginning of the sea¬ 
son the birds were not fat, those I shot on the 
14th were so fat their flight was lazy. 
One of the days I had the good fortune to 
get two ducks, one blue-winged teal and a female 
mallard. It is surprising how far one can kill 
with these squib loads. I shoot a sixteen-gauge 
gun, twenty-six inch barrel, cylinder bore, using 
two drams of smokeless powder and seven- 
eighths ounce No. 10 shot. 
C. H. Davis was down yesterday and had ex¬ 
cellent luck, getting 109. There are not many 
rail shooters here, for the sport is not generally 
understood. The birds are extremely plentiful 
this year. 
Forest fires have raged all through the north 
half of the southern peninsula of Michigan and 
I fear the loss of bird life has been tremendous. 
We have not had any rain for months and 
everything is parched. 
I hear good reports of the Hungarian par¬ 
tridges liberated two years ago. In some locali¬ 
ties they have bred exceedingly well this season. 
W. B. Mershon. 
Milford, Conn., Sept. 13.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: The rail shooting opened this year 
with plenty of birds—thirty to fifty birds to the 
boat. There have been two arrests; one for 
shooting more than the limit, and one for no 
license. F. S. D. 
Salem, N. J., Sept. 19.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Referring to your article on rail shoot¬ 
ing in your issue of Sept. 19, I beg to take ex¬ 
ception to your statement as to the increasing 
scarcity of the rail bird and as to the shooting 
of the days “that cannot be seen again.” There 
are vast areas of marsh land on which the rail, 
owing to want of sufficient tides to push for 
them, are never molested and countless myriads 
are left for reproduction. I have noticed for 
many years that a very dry summer is followed 
by a plentiful supply of birds, as was notably 
the case in 1881, and this year has been no ex¬ 
ception. 
Our season begins here Sept. 1 and the aver¬ 
age of the shooting to each boat per tide has 
been eighty birds, the score running from “high 
boat,” 156 birds to thirty-four, the lowest made 
when high water was after dark and many more 
birds could have been had had there been light 
enough to see. 
I have had access to a game score kept by men 
who were good shots in the sixties; of course 
using muzzle-loaders, and the count was from 
say seventeen to thirty-five birds on a tide. That 
certainly does not look as if the rail were being 
killed off and in danger of extinction. I am not 
in favor of indiscriminate slaughter of even 
migratory birds, and fifty rail on a tide is enough 
for any one to shoot, but I think the supply of 
• migratory birds is a question but little under¬ 
stood. 
In regard to rail being so dead easy to shoot, 
they seem to have become educated, and with 
a fresh breeze blowing you have to handle the 
gun mighty quick, as they keep on going as if 
they had a pressing engagement. 
Mud Hole. 
The Forest and Stream may be obtained -from 
011 v newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you reqularly. 
Southern California Shooting. 
Los Angeles, Cal., Sept. 12.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: Certainly no one can complain of 
the shooting prospect for the coming winter, 
judging by the bird supply already in, but the 
scarcity of natural feed suggests that the horde 
of fowl of the grain-eating varieties already here 
will be very apt to clean up the chief induce¬ 
ment for their remaining, before a gun can 
legally be fired, and in that case the birds will 
be apt to stand little grief, but strike out for 
other localities less hunted, very early in the 
game. In some seasons the weather stays fine 
until late November and then the ducks come 
south in a body. Sprigs never are particularly 
scarce on the southern California clubs at any 
time during the season, but after being shot 
at a few times they come to know a lot more 
about the range of a gun and content them¬ 
selves with sailing about at such dizzy heights 
that nothing short of a rifle can harm them. 
The sprigs as they come to us early in the 
fall are in magnificent condition, fully equal 
in fatness to the more mature birds of the San 
Joaquin valley flight later and more apt to be 
tender. They are, in fact, the best ducks we 
get. 
All the clubs are busy filling their ponds, the 
fortunate ones, comprising all in our section, the 
Bolsa, which is pre-eminently the duck country 
of southern California, having but to uncap their 
artesian wells. A few others pump their water, 
which is an expensive undertaking for a duck 
club. Much work has been done in cleaning out 
ponds, mowing, raking and burning weeds and 
grass, re-setting and re-dressing blinds and mak¬ 
ing ready for the four and a half busy months 
that come in every year. It takes from a month 
and a half to two months to put things in readi¬ 
ness each summer. 
Quite a number of new clubs will enter the 
field this winter. Most of the good land is taken 
up, but there always are fellows who would 
rather try something impracticable for them¬ 
selves than throw in with an old and established 
club in many of which there are shares for sale 
now on account of hard times. A wealthy tourist 
could spend his winters here, get the finest duck 
shooting in the land, and really have as riiuch 
fun out of a club membership as the men who 
live here the year around. Quite a few do. 
The outlook for a good quail season might 
easily be better without anyone being the worse. 
There is only a fair supply of birds as com¬ 
pared with last summer at the same time. The 
season was rather dry and there is no doubt in 
my mind that a large proportion of the quail, 
in many sections at least, gave over nesting until 
a more favorable year. How the little beggars 
know feed is to be scarce and that they will 
have enough to do feeding their own mouths 
without raising a brood is one question that is 
over my head. In the best watered sections the 
birds apparently have bred well enough. On 
the desert and east of the city a scarcity seems 
in prospect. In San Diego county a few locali¬ 
ties report a good outlook, but they are in the 
minority. 
A large number of bay snipe of various sorts, 
dowitchers. marlins, curlews, willets, stilts, sand¬ 
pipers and small plover has come in on the 
rapidly filling duck ponds, but a misconceived 
game law will not let them be shot until Oct. 
