Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1905-08-24
SEASON OPENS SOON.
CHICKEN SHOOTING ONLY TEN
DAYS LisTANT FOR ENTHu.
sIAsTic HUNTERS.
Feathers viii Begin to Fly Here
abouts September 1.-THE Birds Are
Plentiful-ln South Dakota the Up
land Country Teens With Chickens.

Ten days more and the prairie
chickens are ripe.
Hundreds Of sportsmen are cleaning
up their guns and training the bird
dogs preparatory for an onslaught on
the birds. By many shooters chicken
hunting is considered the best sport
Of all. At any rate it is certainly
more comfortable than going after
water fowl, for the weather is warmer
and there's no danger of getting your
feet wet.
Reports from South Dakota and Ne
braska, especially from South Dakota,
indicate that the chicken crop this
season is the largest in the history Of
the states. The game laws have had
something to do with it, but the sea.
son has been good, except along the
lowlands where the nests were drown
ed out
In the central part of South Dakota
along the Milwaukee & st. Paul road
chickens are so thick they are flushed
along the right-of-way by trains. Pas
sengers from the coach windows could
enjoy several hours good shooting 60
ing west from Mitchell, If they were
allowed to use guns on the trains.
The birds are probably not as num-
erous in the eastern part of the state
as they were several years ago, ow
ing to the campaign made against
them by the sportsmen and others
who are not sportsmen. Moreover,
the chickens prefer a country not
thickly settled, so that the best hunt
ing grounds in South Dakota will be
found west Of the Missouri river.
Shoot Grouse With Rifle.
Even when there were only a few
settlers in the reservation country,
grouse and chickens we're to be found
in large numbers along the gulches
and creeks. The birds spend a part
of the day in the buffalo-berry patches
and it was no trick at all to go out
and bag enough game to last several
days.
Few, if any of the settlers owned
bird dogs ten years ago and the meth
cd of finding the birds was regarded
as unique by the eastern sportsmen
who has all the up to date parapher-
MALTA for hunting.
All one had to do was to stand on
high bank above a buffalo berry patch
and hurl sticks into the underground.
Almost Immediately with a whirr of
wings brown spot would rise out of
the gray bushes and whirl rapidly off.
From an eminence the shooter had an
excellent chance at the bird.
Later in the fall the grouse are ac-
customed to roost in the cottonwoods
of the timber along the creeks. Ranch.
men along White river were accus-
toned to picking off wagon load of
the birds by means of Winchester
rife.
The grouse flock together and it is
no unusual sight in November to see
a tree loaded with them. The hunter
or pot shooter" has then only to lie
in concealment and commencing on
the lower limbs Of the tree begin pick.
ing them off. The birds sitting above
those who are being exterminated are
startled, but they merely crane their
necks and stare curiously at their fiut.
tering companions beneath. If the
shooter picks off a bird in the top of
the tree when the body flutters down
through the branches, possibly strik-
ing some of the birds roosting there,
the flock Immediately takes to flight.