
How the contrivance is made 
The Sneak -a- Duck 
A Unique Device for Approaching Ducks and 
HIS story comes from the plains 
of west Texas and the contrivance 
illustrated and described herein 
will be of interest only to hunters of the 
plains country where the ducks and 
geese are plentiful but natural blinds 
are hard to find. Here on the open lakes 
of the west and southwest are thou- 
sands of small lakes ranging in size 
from five to six acres to a section or 
more. The average lake in northwest 
Texas covers about 160 acres of ground. 
These lakes have a basin of wide di- 
mensions, such that during the rainy 
season, the lake will be swollen to about 
twice its normal size. However, this 
swelling occurs mostly during the late 
winter on account of heavy snows and 
rains. In October and November one 
will find the lakes at about half their 
maximum capacity. This leaves a broad 
eraterlike depres- 
sion which is com- 
posed of tight 
prairie land with 
short grass. Very 
few weeds grow on 
this incline toward 
the lake, which 
means that a 
hunter’s chance of 
“sneaking” upon 
the birds is very 
slim indeed. 
The writer has 
spent the past four 
or five duck seasons 
trying to determine 
the most effective 
method of getting 
results on open 
prairie lakes. The 
result of these ex- 
Page 31 
Geese in Open Country 
By W. H. MAHON 
periments is the “Sneak-a-Duck.” The 
methods and plans which we have tried 
and which failed are to numerous to 
relate. I will not burden the reader 
with a narrative of past exploits along 
this line, but I will say that if you think 
of making an imitation horse to use as 
a blind in slipping up on an open lake, 
save time and trouble by not doing it. 
We tried that on the geese last winter. 
Two of us worked all day making the 
“horse” out of sacks and stuffed him 
with straw. 
LARGE bunch of geese had been 
playing a certain lake in the late 
afternoon and thither we drove with 
the old bay horse. We stopped the car 
about a half mile from the water and 
took positions at the left flank of the 
straw pony and began to advance on 

The sneak-a-duck in use 
the lake. The wind was strong and the 
horse was weak. The result was that 
we had a hard time keeping him to- 
gether. 
EING the shorter of the two men, I 
was assigned the dignified part of 
playing the back end. I tried to make 
everything as natural as possible. I 
even switched the flies off now and then 
but when we got back to the car, my 
wife reminded me that it was late in 
November and there were no flies to 
switch. Well, we might have done fine, 
had it not been for the fact that we 
had so far to sneak that we were both 
exhausted long before we got within 
range of the birds. When within about 
three hundred yards of the lake, I sug- 
gested that we sit down and rest a min- 
ute and peep over and see what the 
geese were doing. 
My partner did not 
hear me but I 
thought he did as 
he happened to 
pause for a second 
so I sat down. He 
kept going and the 
result was that we 
pulled old Dobbin 
in two and the 
game was up. The 
folks who were 
watching from the 
car, said the show 
was worth a dollar 
but the geese didn’t 
think so. At least, 
they did some of 
the tallest flying I 
ever saw geese do. 
(Con. on page 55)’ 
