River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1902-07-10
LAKES IN THE DESERT.
Small Bodies of Water Attract Ducks
by Thousands and They Are
Easily Killed.

Just as irrigable and irrigated lands
will produce better and more certain
crops than lands which depend upon
rainfall for moisture, SO ponds or lakes
made in arid lands are the best duck
ponds in the world. Never on any
northern body of water are wild fowls
packed together as on artificial sheets.
The reason is simple. They are the
only waters within many square miles
of territory and ducks and geese go
to them because there is nowhere else
to go, says the New York Sun.
Within nine miles of the city of San
Antonio, Tex, is lake or pond of
this character, called Mitchells lake.
1t was made by damming up the lower
end OF a natural landfall and this dam
resulted in pond mile long by half
mile wide and shoulder deep in the
center.
1t soon became rich in duck grass
and edible weed and some wild rice was
planted in it. Then ducks visited it in
tens of thousands.
They were confined in so narrow a
space that killing them was no trouble
at all. If driven away by repeated gun
fire, they flew some miles to the south
or west and, finding no other water, re-
turned Thus on shooting days at
Mitchell's lake there was a constant
egress and ingress of wild fowls and
the gunners shot until their heads
ached.
The lake depended upon rainfall and
in dry seasons there was sometime
not more than two inches of water in
its center and much of it's bottom was
dry. In these seasons jacksnipe pre-
ferred it and settled upon it's fiat in
swarms.
Many times a hundred mallards
have been killed by a single gun at
Mitchell's lake between daylight and
late breakfast and the snipe have been
taken off it by the gross. The pond lies
$50 miles above the Gulf coast and is a
stopping place for birds which make
the saltwater their winter home.
Nine miles south of San Antonio, near
the old Spanish mission and not far
from San Antonio river, some men have
purchased 300 acres and will make a
pond similar to Mitchell's lake. 1t is
intended solely for private shooting
association.
These ponds are now being built in
many places throughout the west and
southwest. The land in those regions
is cheap and much of it is not fit for
anything save to be put under water.
Where the course of dry creek can
be found, a creek draining a good bit
of territory when there is anything 20
drain, the construction of a shooting
lake of this kind is not costly. The
dirt may be had as low as So an acre,
and building a dam amounts to little.
However small lake of this kind
may be and however far in the desert,
the wild fowls &nd it as soon as it has
water and duck feed. They do this
though it be 500 miles off the regular
air lines which they travel in going
south or coming north, the two routes
being distinct and widely separated.
Always, too, around these ponds
there is great increase of wild life and
vegetation seems to spring up to shell
ter it. Quails, blue and brown, seek the
waters, as do wild turkeys and doves.
Jacksnipes find it as readily as do the
ducks, geese and swans. Small birds
fy to it from no one knows where and
nest by it.