San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-03-06
A Big Bag of Those Bird'-killinG a
Quarter of a Ton at Five Shots.

Probably the biggest bag OF feathered
game, or rather birds, ever made in this
country was made at a lake in Dakota two
years ago by two sportsmen, who killed over
O quarter of ton of pelicans at five shots
The shooters were Frank r. Eshelman, of
Wooster, O., and Elan Wagner, son of
Dakota settler, with whom Mr. Eshelman
was stopping while on a hunting trip to the
northwest. Early one September afternoon
MIR. Eshelman and young Wagner were
crossing the prairie from a mornings sport
with prairie chickens, and when about four
miles from Lake Alice, southeast of
the Sisseton Indian reservation, where
the Wagner homestead was located,
their attention was attracted by white
objects apparently dropping from the
sky over Lake Alice The sun was shining
brightly and its rays partially reflected by
the moving objects in mid air, and they
looked from that distance like large fakes of
snow dropping earthward. Young Wagner
understood the situation at glance, know
ing that the objects were animate ones, and
that the circling settling fight downward,
unlike the sweeping flight of geese or swan,
showed them to be pelicans, and the season
for the southern fight of geese and swan was
u y.
in Manitoba, and their fall flight to the south
occasionally takes in eastern Dakota, where
they generally drop off for a day or so on the
lakes in the territory.
1t appeared to Eshelman and his companion
as though the blue sky over the lake was
alive with the white objects, and from rise
of ground they watched the down pour of
pelicans, and gradually saw a long line of
If ha
lake. While feeding pelicans swim single file,
the rear ones continually flying over the ones
ahead, leap frog fashion, as the head ones
gobble up nearly all the food obtainable 50
that the rear ones would find poor picking.
Young Wagner had had some experience
with pelicans on Lake Alice, and knew that
when through feeding they would congre-
gate on a sand bar known as THE Point" on
the south side of the lake. Such was the
case, and an hour or so later the bar, from
shore to terminus, about 100 feet out of the
water, was covered with the big birds
Then the two hunters, having reached home
and having anxiously waited for the pelicans
to gather on the sand bar, started for them.
The bar was difficult of access, the country
around being bare, and for several hundred
yards Eshelman and Wagner crawled snake
fashion through the grass. Wagner had an
old double barreled muzzle loader, and Eshel-
man had twelve gauge breech loader Hav-
ing discarded their hunting coats and vests to
make crawling easier. Wagner had only two
loads in his gun and Eshelman had two shots
in his, besides two shells in the pocket of his
flannel Shirt all loads being BIB shot. When
within about sixty yards of the poiut they
rose up. The pelicans were sitting motion
less and in mopish attitudes Fully 300 were
together on the bar, and four loads Of BIS
were emptied into them. Eshelman fired the
fifth shot as the pelicans attempted to raise
and turned over five, having lost one of the
shells from his shirt pocket while "worming"
it through the grass Pelicans set so close to-
gether that it is with difficulty that they can
raise when suddenly surprised, and they were
slow in getting away, their long wings, with
spread Of eight feet or more, striking each
other
Just twenty-one of the flock stayed in the
bar, two cripples attempting to swim off,
one succeeding. The other was caught by
the wing and pulled back by young Wagner,
who rushed into the water waist deep to haul
him back, making twenty-five pelicans
brought to bag by five shots. The birds
weighed from fifteen to thirty pounds, their
combined weight being about quarter of
ton. 1t required wagon to haul them to
the house. Among the lot were several old
males with 4 sssSSornss; Gs.t5eiE bills The old