Along the St. John’s, from Magnolia to Enterprise, increasing proportionately as one nears the latter place, fair sport may be had with all the before-mentioned varieties of game by driving or boating far enough into the recesses of the back country, away from the spots easily reached by the average hotel lounger. But for really good shooting one must get over into the Indian River region, or, better still, the Hummocks on the Gulf coast, and especially about Homassassa, if he wants good accommodation and an abundance of deer, quail, and snipe as well as bass fishing. Below Lake Georges and extending toward the Everglades is an immense breadth of country, comparatively unknown, rich in sport and adventure to the exploring tourist who is willing to endure much rough travel by canoe and portage, and to pitch his tent o’ nights in the great dense swamp-lands.
In Florida, quail are mostly shot in the open of the stubble fields or clearings, or in the slight cover underlying the tall, shadowy pine-lands, for the simple reason that the “thickets” in the far South are almost impassable. I remember once following a bevy of quail, flushed from an old maize field, into a bordering covert of prickly plum, cactus and palmetto, with the same indifference with which I generally plunge into the many-stemmed alder-brake or waist-high cat-briers at home. I shall never do it again. Let the bevy go! Start up a fresh one, and trust to your skill in “driving” them into lyings more favorable for your purposes, if not for theirs.
For shooting in the country back from one’s hotel a wagon and pair will be needed, and, unless you are well acquainted with the region, a driver and guide combined, be he “Cracker,” “Nigger” or Indian. As most of these gentry do a little pot-shooting themselves, in season and out, they will generally insure you good sport, particularly if the man is made to understand that an extra “tip” may be forthcoming, when you return in the evening, proportionate with the amount of game found.
A deal of shooting is done driving through the rough country, among the pine woods, leaving at times the sandy road for miles together, provided the undergrowth be not too dense. And with the dogs quartering on each side of the wagon, one has but to get out and shoot when a point is obtained.
I find No. 10 shot, backed by a heavy charge of powder, the best size for shooting Southern quail, which, by the way, are a trifle smaller than the Northern bird, although identical in all other respects. No. 10 shot is also the proper size for snipe. Some capital bags of these migratory birds may be obtained even on the meadows—or prairies as they are called in Florida—suburban to Jacksonville.
But quail and snipe shooting in the South, with trifling differences as to covert, haunt and lyings, inseparable from the richness of the tropical setting and coloring, will be found so analogous to the same sport in the North that further comment is unnecessary. However, it will prove a new and delightful experience to the Northern sportsman to flush birds, as is frequently done, in the scent-laden atmosphere amid the glorious coppery splashes of color of an orange grove, and see through the tree-stems the blue St. John’s flashing its sapphire width in the warmth of golden sunlight, and the solitary giant palm rising here and there along the far, sandy shore.
A day with the alligators is not bad sport when properly undertaken and provided for; and the hide, teeth and feet will put you in possession of much valuable material to be made into bags, leggings, slippers, shoes, whistles, and gun-racks. But since the utility of the ’gator’s hide has been discovered, they, too, are fast disappearing from the places wherein they formerly abounded.
This sort of sport does not demand an early morning start. The best time to approach within easy range of the alligators is while they are taking their siesta at midday or early afternoon, sunning themselves on the bog burrocks, which, in lieu of a beach, mark the line of demarcation between the waters of the bayou and the swampy forest bottoms.
Your skiff and man—who, by the way, should be a good paddler and familiar with the haunts of the quarry you intend pursuing—having been engaged over-night, you may breakfast as late and as leisurely as you will, provided you have not too far to row to your proposed ground before high noon. So, enjoy your repast of fresh fish and game of the region, after having previously coolingly and deliciously prepared your palate with a goblet full of pure orange juice from fruit plucked that morning. Your sable attendant is waiting outside in the warm, genial sunshine, in which all of his color love to work for periods almost indefinite, and relieves your waiter first of all, because to him the most important, of the luncheon hamper, grinning the while, and giving a soft “chaw! chaw!” as he hefts its portentous weight and eyes the claret and beer bottles protruding from one of the partly raised lids. This all being to his entire satisfaction, he will pick up your macintosh coat and shotgun and precede the way to his boat. You take a gun as well as a rifle, as doubtless you will get some shots at ducks and shore-birds as you row to the creek and back, especially the latter, because the evening flight will then be on.
Your man may have pulled you for nearly an hour, and as you near a bay which marks the outlet of a creek leading to the lagoon where you intend paddling for ’gators, an object well out from shore attracts attention. It looks like a water-logged dead branch floating under water, save for three knotty protuberances rising above the placid surface. It is the snout, orbital bone and topmost spinal joint of a ’gator, at least eight feet in length, judging the distances between the slightly exposed portions of his scaly frame. No use firing at him; even if one did hit the small mark he gives at 200 yards, he would only be lost, for a dead or wounded alligator will always sink to the bottom, and there, where that old chap is floating in silent content, the water is much too deep to use the long boat-hook or the grapnel to fetch his body to the surface.