The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-01-10
NEW HAVEN FRIDAY

falls and rapids, and is utterly unnavi-
 gable except by the peculiar hat-boats We use down there, and it requires an
 expert to get either up or down the Iiv-
 CT even with one of those,
 ] "The river is quarter of Q mile wide, and the rocks that project every
 where above the surface from shore to shore are scooped out in curious hol- lows, For miles up the river the shores
 are lined with oak and beech trees and all kinds of berry bushes, Tn their sea-
 son aeorns and beech nuts and berries fall into the river in enormous quanti- ties. AS they are carried down the stream they lodge by the hundreds of
 bushels in the hollows of the rocks. These great accumulations of choice
 food attract wild geese in immense numbers to Warren county. But the geese are just as shy and watchful as any other geese, and, fortunately, just as big ninnies. If they were not, they might feed and fatten on those nuts
 and berries year in and year out with out doing us any good, except what
 good there might be in picking one off
 with rife now and then, for the ditfi-
 culty of getting about in boat where they are feeding would make the hunt ing of them sport very barren Of re- suits. But they are regular geese. So
 we play it on 'em. and gather a very lcreditable goose crop every season.
 T don't believe there is another place on earth, or rather, on water, where | IVA in # ha bag em on the Roanoke, down in War ! ren county. It's original with us, and
 a plain case of things adjusting them selves to the necessities of the case. We just turn in and drive the geese along down the river to a blind, where
 gunners are hid. something the way
 grouse are driven to their death on i English moors. A blind that will con- ltain two men is made on the very
 smallest rock that will hold them, and I a right smart distance below some good feeding place for geese. The distribu- ] ton of the rocks where the berry and
 nut caches are found is such as to scat
 ter the flocks as they pasture along,
 and while there may be a thousand or
 more geese in sight, there will be rarely
 more than five or six in a bunch. So < you see, we've got to get those fowls i together, and this is the way we do it:
 About daylight the men who are to l sit in the blind, row out and get into it. The geese begin to come in early to l feed, and when the river is pretty we'll
 alive with them, q third man gets nui- i etly into his boat, far above the feed- l ing-place, and drifts down with the
 current Now any one who knows any thing at all about wild geese knows I that a man in boat can't get within
 gunshot of one, That Is. a man in a
 boat who doesn't try it in the Warren
 county way. I don't know, and no one
 else in our county knows, I guess, who
 discovered that a man whistling in a boat exercises something like a hypno- l tic influence on wild geese. but 1t is a l fact that on the Roanoke river such is
 the case. As the man in the boat drops down the river he whistles as loud as I he can. He whistles any tune that < may come into his head, or his whole
 repertory of tunes, or no tune at all, if ! he doesn't know any, but he whistles. l Instead of getting out of that water only too quick, as they would if the
 man wasn't whistling, the geese pick 1up their ears, so to speak, seem to for l get about the nuts and berries, and di- rect all their attention to the man in I the boat and his whistle, the little
 groups, meanwllile, unconsciously
 gathering together into one flock. f They are not sure, so they drift down
 the stream away from him as the boat
 losses along cafeiessiy ofi the rapids. \ skilful driver will So manipulate his
 boat and his whistle that he will have
 hundred or more geese drifting and
 gazing wonderingly at him. and chat tering among themselves as to what it
 all may mean, by the time they draw near 10 the blind, all well punched and
 affording great opportunity to the hid
 den gunners.
 When the geese have foated to
 within thirty or forty yards of the
 blind the gunners cut loose. The poor
 geese rise in such confusion at the first fire that it is easy to give them a sec ond volley before they get out of range
 and the driver, his hypnotic whistle now silent, is pretty sure to drop few himself as the frightened fowl wing \ their way over him up the river. Tn this way we get lots of geese on the ] Roanoke river, down in Warren coun-
 ty"