In learning the art of shooting on the wing—and this is the only way in which a shot-gun should be used—the following suggestions may be of some help, but no amount of printed directions can teach you to shoot. Practice is the best teacher. Nine out of ten young sportsmen shoot too quickly. A game bird rises with a startling whir of the wing (and sometimes when least expected), which gives the idea that he is making much greater speed than he really is. Beginners are apt to become excited, and throw up the gun anywhere in that direction, and blaze away with no definite aim. For this reason it is best to begin with blackbirds, rice-birds, and rails.
In almost every shot it is necessary to hold ahead of the bird, to allow for the time it takes to explode the cartridge and throw the shot to the bird. Even in this short space of time a cross-flying bird would be safely out of the shot circle if you aimed right at him. If a bird flies straight away from you, neither rising nor dropping, you should aim right at it. If flying straight across, you should hold well ahead of it. If quartering, still hold ahead, but less.
Many will ask how far to hold ahead, and this is a difficult question to answer accurately, as we have no means of knowing just how far ahead we do hold. One might say six feet and another six inches. What might appear to be an inch at the muzzle of the gun might really be a foot in front of a bird forty yards away. It must be learned by experience, and when accustomed to it the aim will be taken almost instantly, governed by the direction of flight, the speed of the bird, and the distance from the shooter.
It is best to ask permission of the owner to shoot over his land. You will seldom be refused, and will frequently be given permission to shoot over land which is posted “No Shooting.” The land-owners know that it is the lawless hoodlums who do them damage.
Every true sportsman strictly obeys the game laws, and it is to his advantage to do so, although in many States the laws are practically a dead letter. Shooting out of season has nearly killed the game in many localities, when it would still be abundant if the game laws had been observed.
Chapter XIX
TRAPS AND TRAPPING
Snares and Deadfalls
The ways of trapping are as various as the ingenuity of savage or civilized man can devise. I like best the traps that one can make. They seem to give the animal a fairer show; they develop our own constructive faculties; and the nearer we can get to the savage way the more fun it always is. Steel traps have a place that wooden traps can never fill; but give me something that I can make with my own hands, with the simplest tools, out of whatever materials the spot affords where the animal lives.
Of all the animals in this country there is none that affords less harmful sport than the rabbit—more properly hare—of which there are several species. Its wonderful powers of increase enable it to hold its own, as far too many of our best and most valuable animals do not. Furthermore, rabbits are very easily trapped.
Every one knows its little trail, as broad as one’s hand, through the bushes or broom-hedge, or its footprints as it hops over the clear snow. Here, where the path goes under a fence-rail, it has stopped to gnaw. The rabbit follows this path in season and out, though in the far North, where the snows keep piling and piling up, its little road may change with each successive snowfall. Trappers there put out a large number of snares, setting them right in the middle of these paths. In Fig. 1, No. 20 soft brass or copper wire is used—a piece say twenty inches long being bent into an oval or round noose some four inches through, the end being twisted around a convenient limb or root, or stick thrust into the snow over the path, and the space on each side bushed in with evergreen twigs, so that the rabbit will be sure to pass through the noose. Snares are easily taken up and set somewhere else after each snowfall. The best way is to rig the noose to a spring-pole (Fig. 2). The spring-pole that I have seen the Indian trappers make is simply a pole lashed to the side of a convenient sapling, the heavy end being high in the air, while the short end is caught under a stake with a crotch or little limb sticking out, driven into the ground at the side of the path. A “twitch-up” is a sapling bent down, but this generally needs to be held down in another way. On each side of the path a stake is firmly driven into the ground. About seven inches from the ground, and on the sides which face, a deep notch is cut into each stake, and a stick flattened at each end is placed across, like the letter H. The sapling is bent down, a strong cord fastened to the end, and tied around the middle of the cross-piece. The noose dangles below, clearing the ground by two inches (Fig. 3). If the pole is strong enough it lifts the game into the air out of reach of predatory animals. All stakes bearing strain of pulling must be firmly driven into the ground, or in wet weather they will pull out.