Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1888-01-25
HUNTING ALLIGATORS.
Lively Sport on the Gulf Coast
Near New Orleans.
Perils Of That Frisky Gran Known as tho
PirOguc-WOrking the Oyster Beds
Pelicans and How to Kill Them
-Pot-Hunting.

''There Is money in gator hunting" said
the grizzly old captain to a New Orleans
correspondent of the Chicago Herald, 'but
taken altogether, it is hard work. Have
you ever padded a piroguei The first time
man steps into pirogue it ducks away
from under him and leaves him lloundering
in the water so smoothly that he can't help
remembering the thing. 1t is a canoe hol-
lowed out of single cypress log, and is so
light that the weight of man hardly forces
Il below lhe surface at all 1t practically
slides over the water, and hence is the best
boat made for shadows.
"As soon as it grew dusk I would take
my rife and little dark lantern, which
bought in New Orleans for seventy five
cents, and, after seating myself on the bot
tom of the piroPue, paddle up the bayou,
flashing the eye Of my lantern upon either
shore as l passed. When the light would
strike gator it was only necessary TO keep
the flash in his eyes. and he was blind as
Dat. Not knowing which way to move to
escape the danger, he would not move at all
until l sent bullet into his eye, when he
would thrash around with his tail for few
seconds or sometimes make an ugly rush to-
ward me, swapping his jaws, and then sud-
denly drop motiOnless.
"As soon as he was dead would haul him
well ashore and keep on up the bayou. The
gators are plenty enough in Louisiana
swamps, about as plenty as chickens in a
farming country, so that 1t was seldom that
/ padded more than mile or two without
killing half dozen of them. AS rule
did not want more than six in a night, as it
is big piece of work to skin an alligator, to
salt down his hide and bury his head"
''Bury his head!"
Eyes his jaw-bones, in order to remove
the flesh and loosen the teeth. After being
taken of, the hides are covered with coarse
salt, folded up and thrown into a barrel.
They bring from fifteen TO sixty cents each
in the markets, and the teeth are worth as
much more. The larger teeth are used for
umbrella handles-sometimes bringing as
much as four dollars for single tooth;
while the smaller ones are turned into jew
elry, and bring the hunter, in the rough a
dollar pound.
''In the summer of 1888 l reached the
coast one morning at seven O'Clock. There
was high wind and heavy swell on the
water, and hundreds of the birds were fol-
lowing the waves. They flew at distance
of about yard from the water, rising ana
falling with the waves as regularly as
though they were floating upon them. When
a fish shows himself the bird will drop,
scoop up the victim, sling it into his pouch
and go on until it has load of ten pounds or
more Of fish.
"Well. sir, there were so many of them
that did not trouble to set the line, but
padded out among them, and before the
day was done I had settled thirty-eight of
them, killing them with blue whistler. It
took me all night
What is a blue whstler."
"You put heavy charge of powder into
1 u
wad; on top of that you ram in five buck
and still FIVE; another tight wad, and you
have blue whistler"
''Is not buckshot big dose for birdi"
Not for a pelican. You have to take
them breast on in order not TO injure the
wings; and. like ducks breast, the peli-
cans front will turn light load of lead.
Well, as i was saying, it took me all night
and most of the next day to strip and pack
the feathers. but as got twenty-six dollars
for the lot I did not begrudge the work
But that was big day. Sometimes, when
the oysters were out of season, it seemed
as though every thing went wrong. might
paddle arosnd all night and mover find q
gator. and keep my lines set all day with
out catching a bird. Often and often have
been so poor that had to paddle out into a
itCC HClu. edbucT II pSCk UT 40 OF tlc green
rice, and eat it boiled without any other
seasoning than pint Of salt water thrown
into the pot. Sometimes l could get moth
1 ing but pelican meat. 1t tastes to me
| like spoiled fish; but the negroes down
South like IL They boil it for few hours,
and then bake it with sweet potatoes. as the
Kentucky negro cooks 'possum. But the
/ black man will eat any thing. While was
camped down in Assumption County, La,
night shooting gators the field hands would
come 70 my camp and carry away every
/ tan / would give to them They cut the
/ gator tails into strips, dry them, and some
! times eat them raw, and sometimes make a
/ soup Of them.
Il used To shovel oysters for about eight
/ months in the year ON the lower Bayou La
| Fourche, barrel them and send them around
! to New Orleans, where they brought me
| from six to twelve bits barrel. The Gulf
! oyster, as a rule, is small; but they are al
! most as plenty as pebbles For fifteen
/ miles from the coast every little bayou in
Louisiana is an oyster bed. Where the
stream is more than four feet deep the oys-
ters are taken with dredges In the usual
way: but that is such slow process that
the shallow beds are more favored. Here
| one has but to wade out into the water with
! Q scoop or a fock and shovel his dHgout full
in no time OF course when they only bring
seventy-fve cests 10 one dollar half bar
| rel in the New Orleans market there is not
much money in the business; but q little
money goes longway to the bayou dweller.
'whIe working the oyster beds wes 50
near tbs eoast that used ts put ia day
or tfpo each week pelican fishing You
| take long lihe-a sea-grass line rig II out
with sbout thirty hooks set IN puEches Of
thrses, lsshed back 70 back; keen the lIns