58 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 8, 1910. 
heard excited voices and following up the sound 
presently came to the noisy group surrounding 
a prostrate buck. They were evidently trying 
to take him somewhere, for all had hold and 
each was pulling in a different direction. 
The excitement subsided as I came up, and I 
learned the particulars. The artist got back in 
position just in time to see the buck start across 
the lagoon on the ice directly toward him. The 
farmer took his stand 200 yards down the lagoon 
just in time to see the deer start to climb the 
bank and took a hasty snapshot. Examination 
showed that he failed to land. The artist’s two 
shots fired at short range took effect, one in the 
neck and the other through the body just back 
of the shoulder, and the deer fell dead at the 
top of the bank. 
It was a fine specimen of upward of 200 
pounds weight. The horns, though not the very 
longest, were very even and symmetrical and 
make a splendid head, mounted. Being a taxi¬ 
dermist as well, the hunter mounted his own 
trophy. E. P. Jaques. 
Small-Bores Favored. 
Los Angeles, Cal., Dec. 27. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: Quail hunters have taken a new lease 
of life since the rains have carpeted hills and 
valleys with the glossy green of the alfileria and 
started the young grasses everywhere. Shooting 
conditions are ideal at present. Days are pleas¬ 
antly warm at noon, but cool morning and eve¬ 
ning when most of the shooting is done, and 
tramping is a pleasure. The moisture enables 
dogs to work to more purpose. I am glad to be 
able to say that the dog as a hunting companion 
is coming more into his own each year in Cali¬ 
fornia since it has been learned that properly 
broken a good setter or pointer is of real ser¬ 
vice as well as a source of added pleasure to 
the man who loves sport. This is the best of 
all times for the man who uses a dog. The 
brush is softened underfoot, and dust is laid. 
Scent lies better, birds are apt to do a little less 
running, although they always do enough of that. 
Bags are good if one goes away from town. 
The nearby covers were drawn to their limits 
the first week. Each year sees more and more 
gunners afield here, and it is well the sportsmen 
of the State awoke to the need of game protec¬ 
tion while there yet remained something to save. 
The finest sport I have heard of has been en¬ 
joyed in San Diego county and the northern 
part of Los Angeles county. The twenty bird 
limit, shot clean over good dogs, offers greater 
possibilities of keen enjoyment than the same 
number killed single-handed, which often is pos¬ 
sible to a good shot out of one flock once they 
are terrorized into lying quiet. 
The twenty-bore gun seems to have taken a 
firm hold upon local quail shooters, particularly 
those most expert, and many are using No. 10 
shot in these little arms with excellent results. 
They claim with reason that the extreme velocity 
of the twenty-gauge with No. 8 shot will take 
many feathers into the flesh of the bird, and 
that No. 10 shot tears quail less, kills them 
with less apparent marking, and giving a fair, 
uniform distribution is more apt to kill them 
clean at the close ranges, usually a feature of 
the sport as conducted here. The fifty shells 
weigh but little and the six or six and a half- 
pound gun is a pleasant relief after the heavy 
twelve. Edwin L. Hedderly. 
Showing ’Em Just a Few. 
The jolly carp fisherman had tied his heavy 
skiff to the dock just north of the middle ele¬ 
vator, where it chafed restlessly in the little 
chop the southeast wind sent. Though De¬ 
cember, the sun was warm and the wind gen¬ 
tle, letting us swap yarns in comfort while the 
carp fisherman caught tomcods. He unhooked 
his reel, and with a hippety-hop motion of his 
elbows and a swing of his body began to wind 
up the small steel cable, drawing the steel- 
bowed net swiftly up through the water. After 
scooping up the hundred or so tomcods and 
dropping the net back for more, he turned to 
me: 
“You remember Pete Teal, don’t you?” 
“You bet,” I replied; “and crazy Mag, too.” 
“Sure—well, Pete he was a layin’ up at 
Jones’ dock a-fishing fykes, so me and Doc 
went up there a-duck hunting. We had my 
fish boat and a sail; it was in December and 
nice weather, too, but that night it came up a 
northeaster, snowin’ and blowin’ to beat all, 
and in the morning the cove was snowed full. 
So we out and for home. When we got out 
of the splosh in the cove I h’isted Mr. Sail, 
and away we went, fairly flying. On the flats 
inside of the lighthouse I saw a million ducks, 
more or less. It was a-snowin’ so they didn’t 
pay no attention to us, and we sailed right up 
on to ’em. ‘I’ll show ’em just a few,’ said 
Doc; ‘You tell me when I’m near enough to 
shoot.’ Doc he crouched down in the bow 
with his double-barrel muzzleloader and my 
old army Springfield that I had bored out to 
shoot shot—an’ she could shoot, too—and 
when we got up about as far as from here to 
the end of the dock I says, ‘Give it to ’em, 
Doc! Show ’em just a few.’ 
“Doc, he rose up and aimed the double-barrel 
muzzleloader right into the thickest of them 
million ducks. ‘Click! Click!’ I heard her go 
and Doc cuss. He up then with my old Spring- 
field and took aim again. ‘Click!’ she went, and 
again Doc cussed, a-lowering the muzzle of the 
gun to put it down, when ‘Bung!’ she went 
right through the bottom of the boat. By gee! 
I never supposed a gun could tear such a big 
hole in a boat! ’Way went them million ducks, 
and I tell you we had fun a-stuffin’ our coats 
into that hole and a-gettin’ home—but we 
fetched it.” 
The net was ready to hoist again, and as 
another hundred tomcods came in, the weather¬ 
beaten carp fisherman smiled again. 
' Julian Burroughs. 
Hunting on the Coast. 
San Francisco, Cal., Dec. 27.- —Editor Forest 
and Stream: The ducks which were driven off 
by the storm early, this month began to come 
back to their accustomed haunts a couple of 
weeks ago, and in some places there was de¬ 
cidedly good shooting. The weather has been 
more or less stormy since then, however, and 
from the latest reports the fowl, while quite 
plentiful in most districts, are badly scattered, 
and it has been hard to get a full bag on the 
preserves of the principal clubs. According to 
reports from the Yolo tule basin, the outlook 
is not very promising. Last year the shooting 
fhere was very poor, and the four or five gun 
clubs that have the best preserves leased spent 
a lot of money with meagre results. The recent 
rise in the river put so much water into the 
basin that the birds have a wide range, and the 
ponds have been deserted most of the time. A 
similar condition exists around the Suisun 
marshes, the fields being full of small pools 
with plenty of food for the ducks, which seem 
to scorn the ponds in the preserves. With most 
of the ducks in the up-river country, the bay 
shore hunters have been out of the game until 
the last few days, when cold and frosty weather 
in the interior has caused some of the game to 
return to salt water. 
The sport seems to be best at present along 
(he San Joaquin, especially around Los Banos, 
and the sportsmen who visited that section last 
Sunday brought home a good many limit bags, 
though there has been some difficulty there on 
account of heavy fog, which made it very diffi¬ 
cult for some of the duck hunters to locate their 
blinds. Geese are feeding by thousands on the 
west side of the San Joaquin, but it is difficult 
to get a shot, as they stay close down and far 
out on the ponds. Many English snipe are also 
reported in that region, though few of them 
have been shot. 
Canvasbacks and bluebills are beginning to ap¬ 
pear again about the upper waters of the bay, 
and there are a good many sprigs and spoon¬ 
bills which will probably attract gunners next 
week. No teal are appearing in that district, 
and while geese are plentiful they generally fly 
too high to be shot. Reports from the Tomales 
Bay district are favorable, several limit bags 
being brought back from there last week. 
Bay Farm Island and the adjacent marshes 
were formerly good grounds for duck hunting, 
but a large part of this land was annexed by 
the city of Oakland recently. It is feared that 
the law against discharging firearms within the 
city limits will put a stop to hunting there, but 
so far the local gun men have paid little atten¬ 
tion to the law, and no arrests have been re¬ 
ported as yet. 
With favorable weather, quail shooters had 
good sport in Marin county last Sunday, espe¬ 
cially in the hills around Tomales Bay. The 
birds had been driven to cover by cold weather 
the night before, and several limit bags were 
taken when they came out to feed. 
Heavy snow has covered up the usual sub¬ 
sistence of the quail in Inyo county, and some 
of the farmers around Independence are putting 
out food to keep them through the winter. The 
snow has been cleared in places and the quail 
are fed regularly, flocking to the feeding ground 
by thousands, according to Ed Dunn, who visited 
that district last week from Los Angeles. 
A. P. B. 
Lost in the Storm. 
While their friends were snugly ensconced in 
cosy homes, surrounded by families and friends 
on Christmas day, two sportsmen were fighting 
for their lives in the blinding snow storm. Their 
frozen bodies were found two days later on the 
shore of Swayne’s Channel near Wildwood, N. J., 
and their overturned boat lay on the' meadows. 
They were Dr. Lewis Krautter, Jr., assistant pro¬ 
fessor of botany in the University of Pennsyl¬ 
vania, and Ernest J. Chamberlain, a son of Dr. 
John M. Chamberlain, professor of botany, of 
the same institution.' They had started hunting 
on Christmas eve. 
