The San Francisco call., 1895-10-08
READY TO PEPPER DUCKS
The Teal Club Will Fight
Those Who Trespass on Its
Preserves.
Arks That Are Being Fitted Up for
the Accommodation of
Sportsmen.

Among the sportsmen who witnessed
the Inanimate Target Associations tour
nament yesterday at the Oakland Trotting
Park was E. j. Bell, who will have an ark
located within easy reach of the Teal
Clubs shooting ground on the 18th inst,
for the accommodation of sportsmen, who
desire some good duck shooting on the
Suisun marshes this year.
When asked for an opinion regarding
the right of sportsmen who are non-mem-
bers of the shooting ..clubs to shoou on
the salt marsh preserves this year, Mr..
Bell said that he had consulted few of
the prominent attorneys OF the City and
was led to believe by their statements
that In accordance with the law as 1t now
reads in regard to trespass on salt marsh
land, sportsmen have legal right to shoot
on marsh lands over which the tide flows.
Mr.. Bells ark will be located near Espin-
osa station, and as the Espmosa Gun Club
failed this year to get renewal of its lease
from the farmer who owns the land hunt
ers who will visit that section of the coun-
try can look forward to some good shoot
ing until the advent of the heavy rains.
"0f course [ expect considerable annoy
ance from the Teal Club" said Mr.. Bell.
"but 1 have every reason to believe that
the Tealers and Cordelias will conclude to
leave visiting sportsmen alone after we
have had few weeks duck-shooting.
''The Teal Club has already shown it's
teeth, and from what l can understand the
keepers have been instructed to make the
sport as unpleasant as possible for sports
men who are in no wise connected with
either the Teal or Cordelia clubs.
''The Teal Club employed men few days
ago to blockade the navigable sloughs that
run through its preserve and heard from
friend VINO resides in Suisun yesterday
that large piles have been driven down in
such manner as TO preclude the passage
of a small boat. Well, there is way and
means of accomplishing many difficult
tricks, and feel satisfied that there will
be but few piles to obstruct navigation
when the proper authorities will take the
matter in hand.
"Of course, this system OF defeating the
aims of sportsmen is in keeping with the
action of the club when it invited the
hunters of the country at large to their
preserve just for the purpose of annoying
the Cordelia Club, with whom it had fall
ing out. This happened few years ago,
but the unsportsmanlike conduct of the
Teal Club members is still fresh in the
minds of the sportsmen of the surround
ing country, who had very little sympathy
for the Teal Club.
"The landowners who leased large
tracts of marsh land to those wealthy clubs
now regret having granted them leases
for hunting purposes, and l can safely say
that in a few years hence there will be few
acres of marsh land in the vicinity of Sui
sun under lease for shooting purposes.
"The Espinosa Club, which had the shoot
ing right of several hundred acres of land,
had to move its quarters this year because
the owner of the property positively re-
fused to. grant the club a renewal of its
lease at any figure. Other landowners
will do likewise just as soon as the lease
granted some of the clubs will have ex-
pired. There is ample space on the Suisun
marshes to accommodate with good shoot
ing the sportsmen who visit that section
of the country during the season, if the
preserve clubs are done away with.
Game is plentiful and will always con-
tinue plentiful If the birds are protected
during the breeding season. The preserve
clubs, so called, are exterminators of birds.
They feed their ponds, and instead of kill
ing birds in singles and doubles as true
sportsmen should do, the members secrete
themselves in blinds near the ponds and
blaze away when two or three hundred
birds gather for mornings feast. Their
keepers will not deny this fact, and it is
doubtful if the members would say mo-
if the question were put to any of them.
However, expect there will be some
son for duck-shooting will have fairly COM
menced."