In order to retrieve quickly, a wide-meshed scapnet is a great convenience; but to mark well, a man must be endowed by nature with that peculiar gift. Among the vast mass of undistinguishable marine plants that spring from the muddy bottom and rise a few inches or many feet above the surface, it would seem impossible to determine, within an approach to accuracy, where some bird, visible only for a moment and cut down when just topping the reeds, has fallen; and when another bird rises to meet the same fate, and perhaps a dozen are down before the first is retrieved, successful marking becomes a miracle. With some punters on the Delaware, where their names are famous, so wonderful is the precision that every bird, if killed outright, will be recovered, and even a poor marksman will make a respectable return; but when the gentleman shoots badly and the man marks worse, rail-shooting is unprofitable.
For this sport, thus followed, it will be seen that a punter is indispensable, and it is made the business of a large class of men along the salt marshes where the rail most do congregate; and wherever a punter cannot be obtained, as in the wilder portions of our country, rail-shooting cannot be had.
From the necessity for rapid firing, the immense advantage of a breech-loader must be apparent; the tide rarely serves for over two or three hours, and to kill more than a hundred birds in that time with a muzzle-loader is a remarkable feat, as it requires almost the entire time for the mere loading and firing of the gun; but the breech-loader may be charged in an instant, and enables the sportsman to improve the lucky chance of coming upon a goodly collection of birds, and make the most of the scanty time permitted to him.
None of those vexatious mistakes that occasionally happen to the best sportsmen can befall him; the shot cannot get into the wrong barrel, nor the cap be forgotten; the powder is not exposed to ashes from a careless man’s cigar; and there being no hurry, there is more probability of steady nerves and a true aim.
The charge should be light—three-quarters of an ounce of shot and two drachms of powder being abundant to kill the soft and gentle rail—and pellets at least as fine as No. 9 are preferable to coarser sizes. Old cartridges, that have been split and mended by gumming a piece of paper over the crack, may be used in the breech-loader, provided the sportsman desires to indulge in praiseworthy economy, or is deficient in a supply.
The sport is extremely exciting: the boat is forced along with considerable rustling and breaking of stems and stalks; the bright sun streams down upon the yellow reeds and lights up the variegated foliage of the distant shore; the waves of the bay or river, rising apparently to a level with the eye, sparkle in the gentle breeze that bends the sedge grass in successive waves; neighboring boats come and go, approach and recede; the rapid reports are heard in all directions, like fireworks on the Fourth of July; the sportsman stands erect, and eager with delirious excitement, near the bow; the punter balances himself, and wields his long pole dexterously on a small platform at the stern.
Silently a bird, rising close to the boat, wings its way, with pendent legs and feeble strokes, towards some one of its numerous hiding-places; instantly the punter plants his pole firmly in the bottom, holding the skiff stationary, the sportsman brings up his piece, and, with deliberate aim, sends the charge straight after the doomed rail, which pitches headlong out of sight. The punter has marked him by that single wild rice-stalk with the broken top, and heads the boat at once towards the place; but ere he has advanced a dozen feet, another bird starts and offers to the expectant sportsman, who has his gun still “at a ready,” another favorable chance, and, meeting the same fate, falls into that low bunch of matted wild oats. The breech-loader opens, the charges are extracted and others inserted, just in time to make sure of two rail that rise simultaneously, still ere the first has been reached, and which are both tumbled over and marked down—one, however, wing-tipped, and never to be seen by mortal eye again.
Thus have I experienced it on the Delaware, at Hackensack, and, in former days, among the tributaries of Jamaica Bay, and at many other places where more or less success has attended me. Although never having enjoyed great luck, never having advanced beyond the first hundred, and claiming to be no such marksman as several of my friends, I have had wondrous sport. Of a good day, when the tide is favorable and the game plenty, the excitement is continuous, and increased by a sense of competition.
Other sportsmen are on the same ground, stopping probably at the same hotel and shooting in close proximity—occasionally too close, if they are thoughtless or careless. Not only will a charge of mustard seed sometimes rattle against the boat, but is apt, now and then, to pierce the clothes and penetrate the skin, followed by an irritation of mind and body; but when the tide has fallen, and the sport is over, a comparison of the bag made by each sportsman is inevitable, and no general assertions of round numbers will answer, but the birds must be produced. It is vain to claim what cannot be exhibited, and more than useless to talk of the immense quantities that were killed but not retrieved; such excuses are answered by ridicule, and if the poor shot would avoid being a butt, he must be modest and submissive.
There is danger too, at times, although an upset in the weeds can result in nothing worse than a wetting of oneself and one’s ammunition, and the ruin of the day’s enjoyment; but I was once on the Delaware, opposite Chester, when a fierce north-wester was blowing, which had driven much of the water out of the bay and river. The tide, of course, was poor, having difficulty to rise at all against the gale, which kept on increasing every moment, and the birds were scarce and difficult to flush. The work of poling was laborious; the boats stopped after every push, and the heavy swell from the broad river, rolling in a long distance among the reeds, added a new motion to their natural unsteadiness.