The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-01-23
THE CAMP HUNT.
A Diversion of Southern Illinois.

Every year the BeaSley boys ana old
 Cap Moseley drift down into the
 Okaw bottoms and gather in at least
 one for a Christmas dinner. These
 three go ''camp hunting every year,
 and when the Beasley boys begin to cul-
 tivate frost in their ousled black locks
 and old Cap dodders so that he will
 not be able to see the front sight of a
 rifle, they will doubtless be found in
 the bottoms on their annual outing, The last time I saw the trio was in De- cember coming up from the river in
 their same old rig. They had squirrels
 without number in the wagon, some
 quail which Gap" allowed they shot | 'a-sittin'" and with grin of triumph
 the old man drew from under the seat
 hen turkey and big gobbler Bronzed
 and bearded was the apcient gobbler
 and Gap" said they had been after him
 fer five years" In a good sized box
 at the back of the wagon was a lot of buffalo fish, seined from the bottom,
 and they had stopped at the crick
 where I was hunting quail to water the
 fish when I met them.
 | Under the wagon were tied 9 couple
 of tan hounds. 'lowset" dogs rather,
 but undoubtedly thoroughbreds They
 were dusty from the journey for down
 there in that part of Illinois the winters are open until quite late and the roads were thick with dust at the time. These hounds were for the purpose of hunting the turkeys I told the boys that I knew they were down on the
 bottoms and they rather pricked up
 their ears and wanted to know how I
 knew. I told them that the day before, coming in late from quail shooting, after night had fallen, had heard the boom of heavily loaded guns far down
 on the river bottom That there were no ducks at that time and that it was
 either coon or turkeys. That I had
 turned to my partner and said: That's
 the Beasley boys and old Cap Mosely
 up to their old tricks again." They al-
 lowed that they had killed the turkeys
 on the roost the evening before, and
 that the way 1t happened was as fol-
 lows: Tom Beasley and Gap" had
 loaded their muzzle-loading double
 barrel shot-guns for turkey and had
 gone to little lake In the bottom to
 leave the seine for the next morning,
 intending to make a haul. As they came back the hound, which had gone along with them and which had been trailing out in the timber, ran flush into gang of turkeys and "treed" them. That the birds scattered in diff ferent trees and that the hound parked for a while at them and that finally he came back to where they were. The ma haa keys rise, and when, the dog returned they sneaked out, trying to locate the turkeys.
 They thought they saw three in a big oak tree and were going to wait until the birds had fairly settled to roose and then try to creep in on them. They were sneaking along, when all of sudden they saw two black objects in tree not twenty yards away. They raised their guns, each sighted an ob- ject, they counted three and fired, l The deep booming reports that followed | were the shots which I had heard. l They killed the gobber dead and | winged and body-shot the hen bird, so | that the hound followed and got her 'Luckiest chance we ever had" said | old Gap" They had followed the rest | of the birds the next day, but although | the hounds got on the trail of them they did not get any more shots at l them. Old Gap" said that ordinarily they got them by having the hounds tree them in the daytime and keep them in the trees by barking at them. Then they would sneak In and down them at long range, either with a rifle ball or with buckshot from the shotguns. if possible. Sometimes the hounds would jump the turkeys and the flock would fly and spread out, and thenfthe men would circle around from where the birds had been scared up and some times get turkey in that way by the hounds routing one out from some fallen tree or thick clump of brush
 It was always hard work getting a turkey, and they considered themseIves lucky when they finally got their bird. They were always willing to lay around n the bottom a week for one turkey f necessary but they usually got their turkey eventually. These Okaw bottom turkeys were good-sized birds, weigh ng 12 to 16. and some IS pounds al- .hough 12-pound bird was more com- non than the larger ones, and they were mighty cunning. Every year they eem to improve in their education. But by careful woodcraft and patience hey could be circumvented. Without be hounds it would be a matter of aking desperate chances, and not get ing a turkey one time out of dozen rips into the bottom. And to get a bird without the dogs was imply an impossiblity, as they looked t 1t. They used heavy loads and big hot, sometimes buckshot and some ines double Bs, which they called turkey shot' They were travelling 'ack to town, and were counting on d g feast with the two birds, not to : nention the buffalo fish, the squirrels, ua1l and some rabbits which lay in 7 ne bottom of the wagon. They didn't ave any coons and Milt Beasley "aI- 1Wed' that they could have got a ouple if they wanted them, but that hey were too much trouble to "pack l. The fish they had caught in the lver bottom in small lake and also the river itself They had eaten the | atilsh and saved the buffalo fish to ( ring home. !, The camp hunt" is quite an institu- on in the southern part of the state. ne proper way to go about it is to fix i; p a wagon with hoops and a cover ~ than the men can sleep in the wagon $ c,,-,