. The water-fowl family . has stopped two out ofthe small flocks that have come his way and haspiled up some twenty birds. A large flock, lowdown, leads toward the blind. Such honking, abedlam! Finally, as they are about to turn in,an old gander raises his voice above the others;something has caught his eye, he swings the wholemass around and heads them for the middle ofCurrituck Bay. The end goose comes in a bit toofar, and with the shot he makes just twenty-one. But what of the swan? Tied to his stake he hasenjoyed the performance of the morning as muchas the geese, though he hasnt honked ou
. The water-fowl family . has stopped two out ofthe small flocks that have come his way and haspiled up some twenty birds. A large flock, lowdown, leads toward the blind. Such honking, abedlam! Finally, as they are about to turn in,an old gander raises his voice above the others;something has caught his eye, he swings the wholemass around and heads them for the middle ofCurrituck Bay. The end goose comes in a bit toofar, and with the shot he makes just twenty-one. But what of the swan? Tied to his stake he hasenjoyed the performance of the morning as muchas the geese, though he hasnt honked out anysentiments. On this particular day he earns hissalt, for along toward noon three swans, an oldbird and two cygnets, see him and come. Theydont make any noise about it, but the geese honkaway; and when they are straight overhead a guncracks twice, one of the cygnets closes up andfalls on hard ground with an everlasting big is a good way to wind up, and the decoysand dead birds make a boat load. The finish of. SNOW GEESE Goose-sbooting 209 the day came in the evening at the Club, and witha pipe before the fireplace those birds were allshot over. IN THE STUBBLES Throughout the West, geese frequent the stub-ble fields, and here they are often shot from pitsor shacks; pits are by far the most satisfactorymeans when it is possible to dig them. It is oftendesirable to allow the birds to feed about thechanged surroundings for a time before attempt-ing to use decoys; then if they happen to come insmall relays instead of in a large flock, there maybe a good chance. To me this form of shootingis particularly attractive, and I recall many timesmy first experience in a goose pit. It was several years ago, in October, andabout the middle of the month, that young JimBosworth walked into the kitchen of the Bos-worth farm with the information that there was abig flock of geese feeding on the west was news we had been waiting two weeksfor. Jim had seen the geese that
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectfowling, bookyear1903
