In addition, you had to be tough physically. It takes a strong person to withstand the kick of a four-gauge. Early records do not indicate that the market hunters had dogs, but it is imagined that they did use dogs to ferret out the dropped birds and those that were only wounded. It wasn't until the 1920s that the Labrador was introduced to America, so in early times water spaniels were popular bird dogs, as were the curly coated retrievers. The day hunters would spend their nights on the market hunters' barge.
Today there is a barge from that era that underlies one of the duck clubs.
This soon became a well-favored area for duck and geese hunting. People from San Francisco journeyed by boat to bag their limit. It was a good day's travel from San Francisco up to the Suisun Slough or one of the other sloughs. In 1879, duck hunting in this area was to go through a sudden and great change. It was in that year the railroad was built from Benicia to Suisun City.