For shooting in shallow water, small shot are, perhaps, as good as anything, but in deep water buckshot or ball are the best. Any one at all familiar with pickerel shooting has noticed that many fish captured in this way show no marks; they are simply stunned or killed by concussion. The pickerel spawns in the early spring, for that purpose ascending narrow brooks, creeks and ditches as soon as the ice is clear. The shooting season generally lasts from one to two weeks, or as long as the fish run. While the ice remains firm in the ponds there is always good sport, but when that disappears and the frogs, with throats cleared of frost, set up their nightly croaking, it is ended.
During the last two decades there has been such a renaissance of sport, so to speak, among the American people, both in forest and on stream, that what was once regarded merely as the pastime of the idle and wealthy is now recognized as suitable even for the pillars of the church and state. Every class seeks relaxation from business cares and worries in outings with rod and gun. Whatever may be the cause of this change, the fact remains that sporting has been reduced to almost an exact science. The effects of this are very palpable; for instance, pickerel shooting to-day is not what it was twenty, or even ten years ago. True, we have a law which forbids catching them through the ice, or shooting them, yet no attention is paid to it, except to impose an occasional fine on fishermen using nets in the lake. In direct violation of this law, great numbers are taken through the ice, and very many shot, and were they not wonderfully prolific, the species would soon become extinct. Whereas a few years since only a few sportsmen shot fish, now every one that can lay his hands on a gun or muster a spear makes a wholesale business of it during the season.
The best sport is obtained when, after a heavy fall, the snow melts with a rush, so as completely to cover the marshes. On a certain Good Friday I remember shooting fish at the base of a cobble, where a Canadian named Isaac was chopping wood. Now Isaac had a sense of humor, and thought to spoil our fun. He was half blind, but he told us if we shot a fish “we’d have to be darned slide about it.” We rolled them up right under his nose, however, and he was apparently none the wiser. I have enjoyed many a day’s outing with the pickerel, but none that would quite compare in zest and novelty with the day when I made my first shot.
BALL GROUND, DETROIT ATHLETIC CLUB.
THE DETROIT ATHLETIC CLUB.
BY JOHN A. RUSSELL.
THE city of Detroit has had, within the past fifteen years, a variety of experiences with outdoor sports. It is nearly that length of time since the enthusiasm for boating was aroused, which spread over the adjacent territory and culminated in bringing out amateur boating crews of such national fame as the Hillsdales and the Sho-wae-cae-mettes. That enthusiasm was intense while it lasted. Every schoolboy, and many of larger growth for that matter, who could command the wherewith to buy or hire a boat, was out on the river, practising the characteristic strokes of Terwilliger or the Nadeaus.