The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1903-11-04
TIE GUNNERS ARE HARD At IT.
A Days Sport With the Wild Fowls
G. the Gulf Coast-Duck Shooting
at It's Best Down South.


at It's Best Down South.
New York Sun.
The h%ouseboat Skeeter lay in Bayou
Marie, moored by a stout rope to the
trunk Of a liveoak whose green branch
es o~verspread her deck. Smoke curleo
from the funnel of h e galley where
Alphonse was at work.
Two miles below her the Mexican
Gulf beat upon the Louisiana coast.
The blue waves creamed white in the
winter sun and a wind that Travelled
ten miles an hour but had no sting in II
came from the southwark.
Half a mile to the right and back a
mile from the sea was a marsh which
contained pools Of fresh water and in
the POOLS were weeds on which grew a
black bean attractive to ducks The
hoarse clamor Of wild fowls CO C,e from
It.
Out Of the sea horizon lines of them
stretched, making inward to the daily
feast. They came V-shaped to lessen
the air resistance and each flock was
led by it's oldest male member.
High overhead sailed with solemn
honking a group of Canada geese and
the foreman gander was so years old
If a day. Lower down, but still far out
Of gunshot, mallards went by, headed
by q drake of five seasons.
Pintails and bluebills swept in, guided
by leaders Of experience, and the rule
held good ever to the mass Of green
winged teal too numerous to assume the
proper formation, hurting by with the
speed almost of shot, but still with the
older birds still in front, the packed mass
behind lowering and rising and darling
to right or left as the darted.
It was'a great sight from the deck
Of the Skeeter in early morning, for the
u hung two yards above the eastern
sea-line and breakfast was not ready.
Even at the distance, the beating of the
myriad wings put a tremor in the ear
tinted wings showed all the hues Of a
painters palette.
AS the fiocks a hundred yards high,
or a mile high, rushed above the marsh
they half-Shut their wings and dropped
downward with quickening swiftness,
circling once, still going down, then
settled slowly. It was the old, and al
ways new, miracle of aerial fight made
without effort and almost without Volt
ton and envy was in the breasts of the
men who watched.
The Farmer had sloshed a bucket of
cold water over head and shoulders and
stood rubbing himself with a coarse
towel.
"Tve counted fourteen varieties Of
ducks since I care on deck" ne said.
They're coming in fast this morning.
Well have to talk to them after a
while"
Alphonse poked his white woody head
above the companionway, saying:
"M'sieurs, ~d'jeuner!"
They went below to a southern
breakfast Of coffee strong enough to
stain the sides Of the cups, broiled ba-
con, broiled birds, hot biscuit, waffles
and sugarhouse molasses. The Doctor,
who has the purse Of a garnet poet
with the tastes of Lucullus, dined on
jacksnipe brains OF toast. The brains
Of so snipe went to make his repast
and he pronounced it good. Then pipes
were lit and they hurried into rubber
boots an canvas shooting coats.
Thei guns are as various as the men.
The Farmer, who is. a Louisiana plant
er and the host of the party, had a gun
was made in France in 1910! 1t was
originally, Of course, a muzzleloader,
but has been changed to a breech-
loader with hammerless locks.
The barrels are of 14-gauge and "a
inches long. They are of a beautifully
threaded metal, sc soft that it can be
cut easily with a pocket knife. Indeed,
they were once SO inches long, but near
h muzzle were worn to the thickness
of letter paper and were cut off.
The stock, of finest English walnut,
Is straight without the pistol grip and
scrolled and carved. On it's left side,
near the butt, is an inscription in dog
Latin, the letters filed in with silver:
"Legere ct scribere pedagogi est sed
optime collinere est DEL" which is
ing may be had Of the schoolmaster.
but a crack shot is the work of God"
It is very. old-fashioned, this gun, is
cylinder-bored from breech to muzzle,
IL too long for modern likes and balan-
ces badly in unaccustomed hands, but
II shoots with marvellous strength,
making an evenly distributed close
pattern, and the Farmer is deadly with
It. Because Of the softness of the metal
and his use Of smokeless powder, the
breech swells badly after a hard day
and then he puts in wooden plugs Of
proper gauge and hammers it down
witt a little hammer that has Gather
owe. its end.
gun because his grandfather
downed mallards with it in days when
imported slaves spoke only African d.
alects and his father used it on deer
and woodcocks up to 1851, when he
went out with a Louisiana regiment
against the men Of the north and was
killed in his first battle. The grad
son and son is wont to extol it's merits
above the merits Of the new weapons
and back himself with it for moneys,
marbles or chalk.
A wonderful field shot is the Farmer,
with an instructive judgment of wind,
speed and distance and he knows to an
inch just how far and strongly the old
So~uble-barrel will shoot. To watch him
IS a liberal education ad to spend q
week in a blind with him, or in tramp
ing the brakes or marshes, is to be-
come n of the elect.
He is Of the old school Of shooters.
too, believing in the use of big shot for
big birds and he does not think that
No. IS are sizeable for CRATES. He
uses No. Is for mallards, canvasbacks
and r~edheads, No. As for other ducks
Of medium size and feathercoats and
No. IS are the smallest he will allow for
teal. Also he asserts that the shot for
the wild goose is the low mould" buck
shot.
A gangplank a foot wide ran from the
houseboat to the bluff bank of Bayou
Marie and the party trotted over it one
by one, the pockets of the coats sag
ging far down with the weight of the
Sh01c Thof dow u-oS ANA &c th~ 11~~,