The sportsman resident of the country may at this season of the year have an occasional sun-gilded winter’s day with the setters, when the breeze comes warm from the south. But more often will he be listening to the tinkling, musical notes of his beagles as the brown hare leads them a circling chase through the brier-fields, or the deeper notes of the fox-hounds will strike upon his ear as they echo among the gray cliffs of the brown-treed mountain-side.
Yes, it may not seem to be quite the correct thing to my English readers, but we shoot foxes from a “runaway” in the rough, wooded, hilly country of the Eastern States, where it would be impossible to ride to hounds, and gladly do we accept this chance to rid our farmers of this destroyer of game and poultry.
After the 1st of January, comes the exodus of fashion, sport and ill-health from the rigors and blizzards of a Northern winter, and many are the queries from brethren of the gun, visiting for the first time the land of Spanish-moss and palm-trees, to those who have shot quail among the wild violets and sweet jessamine in the Carolinas during early springtime, or “plugged” alligators in some muddy “backout” of the Upper St. John.
No matter whether he knows how to use a gun or not, nearly every man off for an outing in the South thinks it necessary to take with him some such weapon for the destruction of animal life. This fact, in brief, is sufficient reason for the scarcity of game along the shore and in the waters of the traveled portion of the St. John’s River. Continual bombarding has driven the denizens of flood and field to remoter districts, and if one wishes really good sport, he must literally hunt for it.
The majority of men going South solely for sport take the Charleston, Savannah or Fernandina steamers, continuing by rail, if necessary, to their destination, which is certainly the most economical procedure, especially if one’s dogs be taken. This should always be done, if possible, as a dog fit for a sportsman to shoot over can rarely be hired or even bought in Florida until the end of the season.
If quail-shooting be the expressed desideratum, one had better confine one’s self to the Carolinas or to Georgia, both for quantity and proper ground to shoot over. But if he desires a variety, such as snipe, deer, ’gator and quail shooting, all on diverse grounds, lying, however, in the sweep of a short radius from the spot he makes his headquarters, Florida must needs be his objective.
If one is not going below the Carolinas, a rifle will be an unnecessary encumbrance. Bird-shooting alone will be obtainable unless you visit the wild mountainous country far from the paths of the Northern tourist. Here the shotgun and buckshot are the chief agents used in killing deer, and, in this sport as practiced in that section of the wildwoods, one must nearly always be able to ride well; and unless one is shooting on some friend’s invitation, he must also pay well for the auxiliaries necessary to secure a shot at the denizens of the woods.
The same directions will apply to “jumping” deer with dogs from among the stunted scrub covers of the Florida brakes. One generally shoots from horseback at the small deer of this region, because the saddle affords a much better opportunity of seeing over the clumps of dwarf oaks or palmettos than would be obtained on foot.
For alligator shooting a heavy bored rifle—especially an express—will be indispensable. A forty-four calibre repeater will, however, be found to answer very well for all-round work on the river. And here, let me at once dissipate any tyro’s fallacious belief regarding the invulnerability of the American saurian, save in the eye. I have known them—aye, big ones at that—to be killed with buckshot from a close-carrying shotgun, at a distance of thirty-five yards by planting a few pellets behind the fore-shoulder, and in the thinner skin of the lateral abdominal walls. Frequently a second or even a third shot at close range will be necessary to finish them as they lie floundering in the shoal and blood-stained shore-waters by the side of a half-submerged old tree-trunk. But more of ’gator shooting anon.
Tweed clothes of light color and loosely woven texture should be worn for Florida sporting, as it is warm shooting there even in midwinter. When shooting or outing generally, it is much better to increase the thickness and warmth of the underclothing as the coolness of weather renders such advisable, than to encumber one’s movements by heavy coats and trousers. A pair of thick, oil-tanned grained-leather knee-boots with legs made as narrow as permissible, to be worn with thick-ribbed, long hose, will be found the best shoeing to be used in the Florida bottoms. The long boots, coming over the buttonings of the snug-fitting knee-breeches of whipcord—not knickerbockers, mind you—where they fasten just above the swell of the calf, will be found the most comfortable and consistent rig, whether splashing through the sloppy prairies, along the river after snipe, or tramping the waste fields in the clearings between the pine woods. Should you wear ankle-boots and the baggy knickerbockers, always don a pair of thick leathern leggings as an indispensable precaution against the musical and larksome rattler.