May 5, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 



’ GAME RAG AND GUN | 


On the Sounds of North Carolina. 
(Concluded from page 672.) 
Lake Landing is located on the shore of Man- 
namuskeet Lake. There we planned a goose 
hunt. My friend went to Mr. Clayton’s hotel 
early and helped catch the live geese decoys, 
which they put in boxes and hauled to the lake 
in a cart. Mr. Clayton had a blind built at the 
lake. It was supposed to be about one mile from 
shore, but they found it high and dry. The wind 
had moved the water to the other end of the 
lake. There was then but one of two things to 
do, fix out the decoys around the blind in the 
mud or go home. They decided to fix out, so 
they drove up to the blind and took out the guns, 
lunch, ete., and arranged the:geese around just as 
if they were in water. Then my friend got in 
the blind. Mr. Clayton drove the team up in the 
woods and went hunting squirrels. But the un- 
expected happened. A goose, evidently without 
home or friends, came in to the decoys and my 
friend shot it; but, alas! it had only one leg. 
The other had probably been cut off in some rat- 
trap, as they told us the darkeys often set out 
muskrat traps for geese and occasionally caught 
one. This one probably twisted itself loose. The 
wound had healed over; but it was a novel sight, 
and we called it Peg Leg. From that time on 
we called my friend Peggie, which tantalized him 
much. We ate Peg Leg for dinner the next day. 
After a stop at other towns, we arrived at 
Belhaven after dark, and went up to the town 
for our mail. We stayed there the next day, as 
Peggie had made up his mind to go home from 
that town. It was the first railroad town we had 
touched at since we left Mundon’s Point. I 
did not like to see Peggie go. He had been 
good company. I did not blame him for de- 
parting. I felt as if the trip was getting tiresome 
myself. Still, I wanted to finish it as arranged, 
and decided to go on alone. He took one ot 
the geese with him, and said he did not care to 
carry any more. I was willing for him to take 
all we had to pay up for the peg leg that we ate, 
but he would not, so I shipped them to friends 
in New York. We left at daylight next morning. 
We went out by way of Pungo River to the 
Pamlico River, thence to Indian Island and the 
mouth of South Creek, where there is a small 
settlement. On the morning of the following 
day we started for Bayside, a small town on 
the Pamlico River. From there we went to 
Bath, N. C., a town with quite a history. We 
were told it was the first capital and the oldest 
town in the State, and at one time the rendez- 
vous of a famous pirate named Teets. It has 
as a historical relic an old church, built in 1779 
out of brick brought from England. It is still 
used as a place of worship. 
Leaving Bath, we started for Washington, N. 
C., getting there after dark. While at Washing- 
ton I decided to let the boat go, travel to 
Beaufort by rail, hire a boat there, and go out 
through Core Sound to Portsmouth, Ocrocoke 
and Hatteras. I paid off the captain and the 
steward; the latter immediately left town by rail 
for Norfolk, leaving the captain to get back the 
best way he could. 
That night I went back to the boat for some 
things. I found the captain sitting in the cabin 
all alone. I felt sorry for him until in a burst 
of confidence he informed me of the reason why 
the boat had not made faster time. It was 
because one of the propeller blades was gone, 
he having broken it off several months before. 
He said he would have told me about it before, 
but he had forgotten it until after we had started, 
and then he did not like to tell me. He also 
said that the reason he did not use the sail more 
was because the rigging being old, and the sail 
new, and very large for the boat, he was afraid 
it would not stand. I told him it was very 
thoughtful of him not to tell me before I en- 
gaged the boat. The trip had been pleasant 
but slow, and I believed I could have made much 
better time with a sail boat, which belief after- 
ward proved true. 
As I had heard of the great quantities of 
geese and brant at Portsmouth and Ocrocoke, 
I was anxious to get there. Monday I took the 
train for Beaufort, N. C., where I was fortunate 
in meeting a gentleman from New York, who 
was well acquainted with the boats thereabouts. 
He introduced me to one of the owners of a 
fine schooner which was 6oft. long, 18ft. beam, 
flat-bottomed, and drew 2™%4ft. of water. I en- 
gaged it on the spot. 
I got some decoys, about 150 geese, duck and 
brant, which were rather old, but I agreed to 
put them in good shape if I rented them. I 
rented them and also a battery, which we put 
on the boat. I knew I was going to a place 
where game was plentiful, and as I had plenty 
of room on the boat, I might as well take an 
outfit with me. It took about thrée days to get 
everything in shape. 
We stopped at several towns, one of which 
was Davis. En route to the latter place we saw 
ducks, principally redheads. Thence we went to 
Atlantic, which is quite a town for that locality. 
It is strung along a low sand hill facing the 
Sound for over a mile, and has eight stores. 
The Carteret Gun Club, of whose members 
many are from New York city, is opposite this 
town. 
The people of Atlantic met with a great mis- 
fortune some few years ago. Most of the men 
make their living in the season by oystering and 
fishing, and one day while working on _ the 
shoals in Pamlico near the mouth of Core 
Sound, which is near there, a great storm came 
up, carrying sixteen of their number out in the 
Sound, upsetting their boats, and all were 
drowned. They were most all married men with 
families. One can imagine what that meant to 
such a small town. 
I did not consider the shooting about there 
good enough to warrant my stopping any length 
of time, so we went on to Lupton, thence to 
Harbor Island; this little island consists of a 
shell heap of about three acres, which, at an 
ordinary tide, is from six to eight feet out of 
water. It is owned by the Harbor Island Gun 
Club, which has built a fine club house. The 
club is well equipped with all the paraphernalia 
necessary. for getting ducks, geese and brant. 
As the island is situated two or more miles from 
shore, out in the middle of Core Sound, they 
are not bothered much by outsiders. The man- 
ager, Mr. Jack Emory, has his family there, and 
looks after the property and comfort of the 
club members and guests. I was invited to stay 
there all night, but I was so comfortably fixed 
on my boat that I refused, although I spent a 
very pleasant evening at the club house. 
From Harbor Island, we started for Ports- 
mouth, N. C., and the quantities of fowl in- 
creased as we went in that direction. When 
about half way there, we could see thousands of 
geese, brant and ducks on the flats, but we 
passed them by, intending to return and spend 
a day with them before we left Portsmouth. 
We arrived at that town at sundown, and, as 
usual, went straight to the post office. As the 
captain of my boat met some of his relatives 
there, I was soon introduced all around, and 
before I returned to the boat that night had 
several invitations to go “goosing.” One of the 
captain’s cousins, Mr. John Wallace Salter, 
offered us his outfit to use as long as we were 
there. As it was a much better one than we had 
on our boat, we accepted. His outfit consisted 
of a sailboat about 2o0ft. long, 8it. beam, and 
drew about I6in. of water when going before 
the wind. On this boat he has a comfortable 
single battery with plenty of iron decoys to hold 
it down and a good setting of goose, brant and 
duck decoys. 
The next morning before daylight we rowed 
up. the creek where the outfit lay and started 
with it toward Harbor Island, where we fixed 
out on a shoal and where the geese and brant 
had been so plentiful the day before. Soon 
after sunup, it commenced to get windy and 
the birds seemed restless. We were quite a 
long time getting everything in shape, but my 
men had hardly left me when the birds com- 
menced to come to the stool. It was there, at 
that time and place, I made the record of my 
life shooting, as I killed eight geese, nine brant 
and sixteen ducks that I got in about thirty 
minutes. They were lying on the water dead 
all around me. The birds had been coming so 
fast the boys refrained from coming to me to 
pick up. They said they knew the sport would 
soon be over and thought they would keep off. 
They were right; for while I was doing all this 
shooting, the wind was getting bad, dark clouds 
were coming my way, and the water suddenly 
got so rough it came over the wings of the bat- 
tery into the box, but I bailed it out until one 
big wave just about filled it. Then I dropped 
some iron decoys overboard, having first tied 
a string to them. This lightened it up some, but 
I had no more time to shoot—it kept me busy 
keeping afloat. I got all the weight off the 
battery I could, and by bailing got along very 
well until the men got me out. My dead birds 
in the meantime were blown toward the marsh. 
Many of our wooden decoys broke their anchor 
strings and drifted ashore. I was as wet as if I 
had jumped overboard, but stuck to the job 
until we had the battery securely lashed to the 
sailboat. Then we commenced to pick up the 
decoys that were left. After we got all there 
were in sight and the iron ones which I had 
thrown off the battery, we sailed to the lee of 
a little island, took the skiff we were towing and 
went ashore, where, after walking about three 
hundred yards, we came to our dead birds and 
decoys. I don’t believe we lost any decoys, but 
believe we lost some birds that were crippled. 
It was a long time after I ceased to shoot be- 
fore we commenced to pick up the birds I had 
killed. The storm got so bad, we had to leave 
our outfit there, and went back in the skiff over 
the shoals where the water was not so rough. 
lf was aeshort shoot, but’ a good one. The 
wind died out toward evening and we went aiter 
the outfit and returned it to the creek, where 
we got it. I packed up my birds ready to ship 
to New York to my family and friends. 
I want to mention that one of these geese 
weighed eighteen pounds. All who saw it at 
Portsmouth said they had never seen such a 
goose before. I have asked many of the mar- 
ket hunters about their big geese, and they all 
had the same opinion about the weight of 
geese, which is that the ordinary goose will 
weigh about nine pounds. Occasionaly one will 
weigh twelve pounds. Once in a great while 
they get one that will weigh sixteen pounds, but 
I failed to find any one that had shot one that 
weighed eighteen pounds. I have killed a great 
many geese in the west, but never killed any 
there that weighed over twelve pounds. 
We stayed around Portsmouth two days and 
found it a grand place to shoot fowl. The town 
consists of seventy or more houses and six 
stores. There are no streets in the town, and 
as there are only two or three wagons, they 
don’t need any roads. 
Portsmouth is situated on a sandbar sixty 
miles from the nearest railroad. and any one that 
wants to live there can do so if he can get lum- 
