The sport kept up. It is useless to describe each individual shot that we made. There is endless variety in every one that is fired, for no two birds come to the decoys precisely alike. There are never the same conditions of wind, sun, position, readiness, and what not, so that each is more or less of a surprise. These the sportsman enjoys at the time, they constitute the great charm of shooting; but they would tire in the repetition in the cold blood of white paper and black ink. It is enough that we had a magnificent day’s sport; “magnificent” is not hyperbolical; we had sport that will be a memory through life, and until the age-weakened arms can no longer wield the faithful fowling piece, nor the time-dimmed eyes note the birds approach. Our store of game lay in a pile uncounted; we knew there was a goodly number, and when at last the tired sun had performed his allotted task and gone to bed, we were not surprised to add up nearly a hundred of what is one of the finest of all the ducks, the handsome little widgeon. Few of our gunners, even the oldest of them, know that there was a time when the widgeon was valued more highly than the canvas-back, when in fact in firing a sitting shot the market gunner would “shew” the latter out of the way, in order that he might have a better chance at the former. Had we been in exactly the right spot, there is no doubt that I would then have reached the bag of two hundred, which it has been the ambition of my life to attain.
On another occasion I had the same misfortune, although from a different cause. I was with Jesse that time, Jesse who, or Jesse what, I cannot tell. So faithful and trustworthy a fellow must have another name, a full name; but often as I have availed myself of his care in the marshes of Currituck, I am ashamed to confess that I have forgotten it. Every one calls him simply “Jesse,” out of kindly feeling no doubt, for a better fellow never set out a stand of decoys; so as simply Jesse he must go down to the immortality that this book will give him. He is devoted to the pleasure of his employer, and never more delighted than when the latter brings home a fine bag of birds; but he is not quite so skillful as his older associate, William Foster. He had observed, when out the day previous, that the birds had a favorite feeding place in a little bay near what in club nomenclature is designated as “the horse-shoe.” To this place we wended our way as soon as we could cross the intervening three miles of distance. The bay was not large, and at its mouth was contracted into two narrow points which were hardly a hundred yards apart. I had never shot at this particular point, and Jesse did not think of the effect of the sun when he made his selection. One point was probably as favorable as the other, with that exception, but the one he selected brought the birds directly between me and that luminary when he shot his burning and blinding rays from mid-heaven. The result was, that before the day was over, reeds and ducks and spots swam before my eyes in prismatic hues. The heavens become alive with them, mixed up with grasses and flowers, the gorgeous colors of condensed sunlight. Scarlet ducks, golden ducks, fiery ducks floated before my bewildered vision, interwoven with such flaming reeds and rushes as were never seen by mortal eye before. To say that under the circumstances I could not shoot with my accustomed skill, is unnecessary; I could not help occasionally mistaking the flaming bird for the natural one, and no doubt would have killed him, had he only been real enough to kill. This was the second occasion when I might have reached my stint of two hundred, if I had only been so fortunate as to locate properly in the first place, or even had had the courage to change when I found out that I was wrong.
There are myriads of wild geese and swans in Currituck Sound and its adjoining waters. The swans are hard to kill, and it rarely falls to the fortune of any sportsman to bag more than two or three of these beautiful birds in a season, but the geese are shot in immense numbers on favorable days—“goosing days,” as they are called. Such days are made by a southwesterly wind blowing hard enough to constitute a gale, and the harder the better, which causes the water to rise and enables the geese to reach the beaches where they go to sand. For this shooting a “stand,” as it is called, of tamed wild geese are required. The sportsman hides himself in a large, water-tight box, which has been sunk in the sand at the spot which the birds frequent, and the “stand” of living decoys are tethered in front by stout strings fastened to their legs and pinned to the ground. The geese come to the stools in flocks, and the slaughter at times is enormous, as many as two hundred being no unusual bag, and that is often rounded out with forty or fifty ducks. It is customary on such occasions to put a live swan or two with the geese decoys, if the sportsman happens to be so fortunate as to possess them, and I never shall forget seeing four swans come to a stand which was located some distance from my own, but in full view from it. I have always believed that birds could converse and had a language of their own, and on this occasion my theory received confirmation strong as holy writ. When I have sat listening hour after hour to the unceasing conversational cacklings of geese, who appear to be the most talkative of birds, I fancied that I could almost make out the words they uttered, and which were certainly understood by the fowls themselves, as the dullest observer would be convinced by their actions. Their expressions of comfort, their mild observations about the weather may not have been quite comprehensible, but their cries of alarm, their notes of warning, no one could mistake. Ignorant hearers not versed in goose language, and a very pretty tongue I have no doubt it is, may call it contemptuously “gabble,” but so is the language of any foreigner “gabble” to those who do not understand it.
In the instance that I am about to mention with the swans, there could be no difficulty in understanding every word. There were four of them, the wise father, the inquisitive mother, and two pretty, innocent, dove-colored cygnets. They were sailing along far up in the heavens, away out of danger, when the attention of the young ones was attracted to a nice, gentle old swan seated happily among a body of geese that were evidently having a good time and abundant food. In all the innocence of their uncorrupted hearts they uttered a shout of joy and started to join him, the mother who was curious to understand the meaning of so happy a combination, following eagerly behind them. In vain the cautious father warned them to “go slow.” They would not stop to listen or to heed. On they flew or swam after alighting on the water, giving free expression to their feelings of pleasure. Louder and louder grew the warning notes of the head of the house, who hung back and tried to keep the others back, but his efforts were useless, the young were guileless, and the foolish wife inquisitive. He was too devoted to leave his family, although the danger into which they were running was apparent to him. Soon his worst fears were realized. He was out of gunshot, but his wife and children were within the fatal reach of the deadly gun. Several loud reports followed one another, and all was over. In an instant he was childless and wifeless. The two cygnets were killed dead, but the mother was able to fly a hundred yards, and it was pitiful to see him go to her, braving all danger, and to hear his cries of lamentation. He could not save her, however, and when the boat approached with a gunner to complete the deadly work, the poor old swan had to leave her. Still he kept circling round for some time and filling the air with his bitter lamentations.
In wild fowl shooting it is essential to learn the various calls of the different species of ducks and of the geese and swans. These it is impossible to reproduce on paper, and about all that can be said is that the raft ducks make various modifications of the word “pritt,” if it can be called a word; that the widgeons whistle, the geese honk, and the mallards and black-ducks quack. Jesse had a curious way of calling the shoal-water ducks by uttering in rapid succession the word “Kek-kekkek, kek-kek-kek-kek;” and he seemed to attract them as well as the patent duck-call which I had purchased in the gun store for a dollar. For black-ducks, however, I prefer the manufactured duck-call, and in going out for them, I cannot too strongly impress upon the reader the necessity for the utmost caution and the most careful hiding. When shooting at some small pond hole in the middle of the marshes, it is better to only use one or two decoys and to be covered entirely, except for a single opening in front, just large enough to fire through, overlooking the stools. A single tamed wild duck for this kind of sport is worth all the wooden decoys in the world, and his quack is better than Jesse’s “kek” or my “squawk.” Some gunners can set up the birds they have killed so as to be almost as natural as the living bird, and to deceive even the elect, but it is not an easy knack to acquire. Usually such imitation stools look so fearfully and abnormally dead, that they would drive any duck, with the fear of ghosts before his mind, out of the country. It is only the most experienced gunner that can take such liberties with the dead.
At the North, where the winters are colder than they are at Currituck, it is customary to shoot in the ice. No waters that ducks frequent are ever entirely frozen over; there are always what are called “breathing holes,” where the gunner can place his stools, and which the ducks frequent for food. He dresses himself in white linen over his other clothes, so as to be as near the color of the ice as possible, and he uses a light skiff provided with iron runners underneath. This he shoves rapidly over the ice without much labor, carrying his dozen or so of stools aboard, and using an iron-pointed pole to propel himself with. He has his oars stowed under the narrow deck, so that he can row across open water, and is safe in case his skiff should break through the ice. When he has reached the open hole that he has selected, he throws out his stools and cuts a place in the ice at the edge of the hole, to hide himself and his boat, piling the cakes that he takes out alongside of him, to further assist in hiding him. The decoys he uses are black-ducks and whistlers, which will stool to one another indiscriminately. He must then lie down on his back in the skiff, and no matter how cold he may be, he must not move or stir. Though his blood chills and the marrow of his bones freezes, he must bear it, for there is no telling at what instant the birds may dart down upon him from the heavens, as they have a way of doing without giving the sportsman the least warning. Shooting in the ice has sent many a healthy man to a consumptive’s grave.
In closing this article, let me give a final bit of wisdom in the words of William Foster. It is well known to every wild-fowler, but his way of putting it covers in a few words the whole ground: “Remember, that as a general rule, the shoal-water ducks go with the shoal-water ducks, and the diving ducks go with the diving ducks, so they will pretty well stool in the same way. Each prefers his own kind a little the best, I think, but not enough to make a decided difference, provided the stools are of the same class. Widgeon like widgeon, and canvas-backs will only stool to canvas-backs or red-heads, but broad-bills will come to canvas-back stools almost as well as they will come to broad-bill stools. Black-ducks prefer black-duck stools, but sprigtails and mallards will come to black-duck stools nearly as readily as they will to their own. Don’t, however, use canvas-back stools for black-ducks, nor, above all, black-duck stools for canvas-backs.”