The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1876-03-12
LES CHAsSEURs DE CANARDS.
ADAY AMONG THE DUCK HUNTERS.

A few days since business called us to the
Lafourche, and an opportunity Offering, we
were tempted to spend day and night with
the duck hunters Of Lake Beuf Under the
guidance Of CUR friend Cyprien Mathern, We
were equipped with gun and ammunition,
two blankets, and sack with ample supplies
OF coffee, sugar, pepper. biscuits and potatoes;
off to the rear of the rice fields for mile and
halt. we took light pirogue and followed
Cyprien in his
| We padded through canals and bayous;
through dark cypress swamps and reedy
prairiss, and in about two hours reached, by
| l o'clock in the day, the destined camp, a
rough but roomy hut built Of broad cypress
pines, or pickets, sides, roof and floor OF the
same material. large shed, close at hand,
served as a kitchen or cook-house. This
camp was located about five hundred yards
from the open water of the lake, upon q
| canal. It stood in the midst of floating
prairie, or prairie tremJIa,ate. Some tall willow
trees had grown up here and formed anisland
of firm land; all around was floating prairie,
a foot or two thick, formed by the matted
roots of the rank grass, and the accumula-
tons of ashes and decayed vegetable matter,
| SO light IS to float, yet firm enough to sup.
port man, while underneath the water was
clear and pure, and three or four feet deep.
| This floating prairie covers many thou sands
of acres of what was twenty years ago clear
water, five or six feet deep; it is constantly
encroaching on the lake, and thickening, and
will eventually settle down to the bottom and
| form prairie just IS the other marsh prairies
of Louisiana were formed.
The vegetation equals in rankness anything
we have ever seen, and each season loose
mat of tangled reeds and grass two feet thick
is formed. One Of the principal grasses is the
wild cats, fOlle GU0i0e ten to fifteen feet high,
whose rich, farinaceous seeds furnish food for
rails and wild fowl, and would easily furnish
food for man, as the Indians found it whole
| some and abundant.
This prairie fairly swarms with rails OF
every variety, pOatle d'eau1 or water hens, and
swamp rabbits almost as large as kid. When
is burned off, and then the hunters come
| with their dogs, and for many weeks can kill
from twenty five to a hundred in day.
Lake LIE Boeuf is about six miles long and
three broad, and has been famous ducking
ground ever since the country was settled
There are ten or twelve camps, each con-
tanning five to six hunters; these hunters
form partnership, running from October to
March. and maintain a steady camp during
| the whole fall and winter, for the purpose OF
hunting for the market They are all Creoles
OF Acaulaus, OIlS iuhuy lrou LILO ftncn SET
tlemeLt of Acadia, in Canada, about whom
Longfellow wrote his poem of "Evangeline.'
| They send out their game every day to Nor
gan's Texas. Railroad and ship it to their
salesman in New Orleans, who keeps an ac-
count current Tor the hunting season with the
recognized head Of the partnership.
Our camp consisted of four hunters, with
several independent sportsmen. We found
them preparing their dinner, which Invariably
consists of water hens, or poale deauc, and
| boiled rice, highly seasoned and called jombd-
lyeeah, and a pot Of boiled COFFEE; they use no
bread whatever, but occasionally roast few
| sweet potatoes.
After dinner the guns, all double-barreled
muZz'e leaders, were carefully cleaned and
| examined; the shot, NJ. only, and powder
replenished; and dry, black moss for powder
wadding, and green moss for the shoI, were
placed in convenient reach in the pirogues,
and soon each one, with gun in front OF him
and paddle in hand, was off for his evening
hunt
This evening hunt consisted in cruising
cautiously and silently around the borders of
the open water, peeping into the little hooks
and around the little islands of floating prai-
rie, chiefly for poule deaus but also for ducks,
and the banging of the guns told that execu-
ton was going on rapidly on all sides. All
these hunters capital shots and take their
game on the wing, dropping their paddles,
snatching up their guns and dropping the
game when flushed, with astonishing expert
ness.
Toward sunset all ensconced themselves in
blinds made out in the open water, by stick
ing into the shallow water long green reeds,
in such manner as to leave the tops four
feet above the water, In two rows, the length
of canoe, with one end closed and space
left between just wide enough to admit a
pirogue or canoe Into one of these blinds
the hunter, with dull call, stations himself
and awaits the flight of the ducks as they
pour into the lake toward nightfall. From
an hour before sunset until after dark the
fl ashes and booms from these treacherous
binds tells the destruction that is going on.
When it was too dark to shoot with accu-
racy, the hunters turned their pirogues to-
ward camp, and upon their arrival we found
that they had from fifteen to thirty each of
ducks and water hens, but chiefly ducks.
Upon their arrival at camp one OF the pro-
fessional hunters makes the fire and puts on
three pots OF water-one to scald what fowl
they design to eat, on for coffee, and one for
the invariable rice and water hens.
The others lay the ducks in pile ; one
picks up duck turns its belly up, strains
back the wings, plucks at single stroke a
large handful of feathers from off the side
below the wing, and pushes the feathers into
bag nung before him; snatches another
bunch from off the other side, then two from
the lower part Of the belly. leaving bare place
about the size of ones palm. Hs then losses
the duck to another man, who is sitting on the
floor; he carefully and cautiously opens
the belly with small, narrow biaded knife,
very sharp, and then throws the duck to a
third man. who draws out the entrails with
quick jerk with one hand, and pulls off the
liver, gizzard and heart at a grasp, throwing
them into bucket, to be dressed and eaten in
camp. Another takes up the duck, presses
into the cavity ball of green moss, which
he rubs around, withdraws and throws away.
putting in as many as three or four of these
moss balls until the bird is clean and dry In
SIDE the ducks are then sorted, tied in
pairs and hung up by the necks until packed
10 be sent Off
No less than sixteen varieties of ducks are
known to these hunters. The canvas back
and its cogener, the red head. are the best,