“Heavy shot will make a gun recoil painfully; but if the shot is light the charge of powder may be large without producing unpleasant effects; the shot will be driven quick and strong, and the bird deprived of life instantaneously. Perhaps the pellets are not driven through the body, but the blow is severer and the shock is more stunning. I use one ounce of shot and three drachms of powder, and would prefer to increase rather than diminish the powder. It is a mistake to suppose powder does not burn because black particles fall to the ground if it is fired over snow or white paper; these, I take it, are flakes of charcoal and not powder, and some will fall, no matter how light may be the load.”
“For my part,” persisted the unlucky man, “I think the crippling of birds arises from our inability to judge distances, and from our firing at birds out of reasonable range. The patent breech was meant to remedy the necessity for such heavy charges of powder as are used in the old-fashioned flint-locks. Johnston, the author of an admirable treatise on shooting, which is now out of print, is my authority, and he says that an over-charge of powder makes a gun scatter prodigiously without adding proportionately to the force.”
“That depends upon the character of the bore,” answered the Secretary; “if it is relieved at the breech, and after narrowing above, made a perfect cylinder towards the muzzle, the more the powder the better it will shoot.”
Seeing that an interminable discussion was about to open, branching off, in all likelihood, into the comparative qualities of powder and manufactures of guns, the President interposed.
I slipped off and went to bed. Being a comparative stranger at the club house, for this was the first year of my membership, I had made it a rule to follow the advice and direction of the older habitues, but I wanted to get a chance to try some experiments of my own. This would require a little preparation for which I needed the early hours before the others should be up.
As I have said, the members were not at the time of which I am writing in the habit of using decoys. There was a prejudice against them, their weight in the boat was an admitted disadvantage, which it was claimed was not compensated by any corresponding benefit. My experience in a country where birds were not so plenty, assured me that this was a mistake, but having come to the club house unexpectedly, I had not brought my decoys with me, and had to rely upon such substitutes as could be got up on the spur of the moment. It was with the intention of preparing these that I retired so early.
In those ancient days of Western civilization, it was the habit not only to put several beds in one room, but often to devote one bed to the accommodation of two men, but by being content with a very small apartment, I had succeeded in getting a room all to myself. The bedstead was nothing more than a cot, none too long and by no means too wide. There was a feather bed on it, a couch we Eastern people do not always approve, but which has its compensations of a cold night in a loosely framed house. When I had once felt the insidious wind creeping down my back where the clothes left an open place for it, I learned the superiority of experience to theory. I slept, however, as only the just and the sportsman sleep, my head dropping into unconsciousness as it touched the pillow, and never returning to it until the daylight penetrated the open window with its welcome rays—sleep without a dream, such as youth and health and tired nature only know.
Next morning I borrowed a saw and a hatchet, all the tools that the place boasted, and fashioned as best I could some floats. These I carefully concealed in my boat, and said nothing about them. After breakfast, when we pushed off, I took my course alone. I went pretty well up into the marsh, in fact as far as in my ignorance of the intricacies of the swamp I dared. I chose a point between two creeks, and going carefully into my blind from behind, so as not to break it down in front, a precaution which I observed most of the sportsmen neglected, I concealed myself, and waited the course of events. Mere waiting never suited my views, but on this occasion there was nothing else to do. It was some time before I killed a duck, and I was wondering whether I should have any opportunity to try my floats, when a solitary mallard came within long range, and I was so fortunate as to bag him.
It was a beginning, I set him on one of the blocks of wood I had roughly trimmed into shape that morning. I had noticed the day before that the water was too deep to set up a dead duck in the ordinary way. Neither had I been able to find weights of half bricks, which are the main reliance of the Long Island gunner, or stones, which were an unknown quantity in that muddy country. So the best I could do, was, to thrust down a long reed with a string tied to it at the proper distance from the bottom. My decoy was not as natural as I could have made it with better appliances, but it was the best I could manufacture, and it did some service. In less than five minutes it was joined by another mallard, which first came to look, and was then persuaded to stay by the gentle influence of an ounce and a half of shot.
In a short time all my floats were occupied, and although they bothered me, and wasted my time by breaking away in consequence of not being properly arranged, they brought me, I do not doubt, twice as many birds as I should have got without them. I have much faith in being well hidden. For black ducks, which are the most wary, it is absolutely necessary not to disturb a leaf that their sharp eyes will notice. If the reeds are thick enough of themselves to conceal the shooter, do not either add to them or break them down. I have seen blinds built up, till they looked like straw mattresses set on end, of which the birds would be more shy than of the man himself. I was killing shoal-water ducks, not of course getting canvas-backs, red-heads, or broad-bills so far back in the marsh, and it was not desirable to have many stools for the same reason that it is not right to have too large a blind, they are apt to awaken suspicion.