Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-07-26
IOWA SPORTS I Lk
Unlawful Shooting OF Prairie
Chickens Has Already
Begun.
Field Shooting to Be Controlled
by a Few Iowa Sportsmen's
Clubs.
Birds Are Plentiful in Northern
Part OF the State--.The
"Jiggers.

Even now complaints are coming in
of unlawful chicken shooting. Boone
county sportsmen are asking tnat
game warden be appointed to stop the
Slaughter of half -grown birds. Ii re-
ports are to be credited, and they are
generally more under than overdrawn,
parties are killing and selling young
chickens too weak to rise above the
stubbes. There are complaints of tn.
same nature from Hamilton county and
the shotguns are merrily popping all
over northern Iowa taking toll OF the
soft pinfeathered birds. TO a white
man the audacious lawlessness of it all
is astonishing. In the real chicken
country this breach of the state law is
assumed as AN inherent right The
poachers always have shot chickens be-
fore the pinfeatheis We're gone and
any breach of their time honored privi-
lege is resented as a personal and UNI
provoked affront. Few covies in the
state will not have been squandered
and decimated by the time legitimate
sport opens. Sad to say. this sort of
crime is not entirely confined to the
prairie or the smaller towns. There are
well-au authenticated stories atioat of
Marshalltown men, who know better,
sneaking afield before the law allows
shooting, and sneaking back home with
a half dozen young birds hid beneath
their coats.
The w-breaking poacher and the
growing distaste of landowners against
iadiscrmnate shooting over the fields
will settle the entire question within
few years. Good shooting is scarce in
Iowa now and the favored spots are
overrun in the season by an increasing
army of gunners The time is not far
distant when corporate clubs Will con-
troll the shooting by arrangements with
the farmers and there keepers will pa
troll the territory after the English
fashion. Here in this country the man
who has money usually gets what he
wants and the privilege OF shooting
over farm lands is for sale and legiti-
mately So a club of fifty at 500 per
member would find no trouble in large
ly controlling the shooting privileges
over a county. That is what it will
come to some day and then the last
stage of the market hog will be worse
than at present. 1t will make trouble
also for the shooter of moderate means
who manages to get a half dozen days
afield under the present system.
In the east this ownership of shoot
ing privileges already exists and field
and shore shooting is leased and paid
for readily. Trout streams in the Cats.
kills are stocked and guarded by their
owners and the city fisherman who
works the brook pays 81 per pound for
his catch at night. There is no trouble
to find the fisherman willing to enter
into this sort of an arrangements: the
difficulty is to find sufficient number
of good streams to supply the demand.
Reports that came in earlier in the
season told of great losses of prairie
chickens as a result of the heavy rains
that had transformed the low lands and
river bottoms into lakes. From infor-
nation gathered recently it appears to
be a fact that this condition of affairs
does not exist and that thruout the
northern and northwestern parts of the
state the hatch of birds is said to be.
abundant The first hatch brought out
had gotten their wings before the floods
came and We're able to tage care of
themselves. and those not old enough to
fly were piloted to higher ground out of
the waters reach by their wise moth
ers The quail have not been seriously
affected, for the bob white, as n usual
thing, nests on higher ground than his
feathered brother, the prairie chicken.
If reports are to be credited the field
shooting this fall should be excellent in
those portions of the state referred to.
People interested in fish protection all
over the state were highly gratified over
the report that the historical Bonaparte
dam had been carried away by high
water. The report proves unfounded,
however, as later advice denies any
damage. This later report says: Fish
in great abundance are being caught by
pulling hook thru the water. Many
bass. buffalo, carp, catfish and game
fish can go up over the dam If many
fish are being caught by dragging the
hook thru the water the pirates down
at Bonaparte are "jigging' below the
dam or in the wheel pits. The hook
which catches great quantities of fish
when dragged thru the water" is a gang
OF four large hooks arranged back to
lack and heavily weighted with lead. A
short line and a stiff pole and the Jig
gers" outfit is complete. But Juggling"
is about as despicabe a method as dy-