Los Angeles herald., 1909-10-04
SOONER SHOOTERS
DEPLETE COVERTS
GAME LAWS ARE WOEFULkY
DlSREGARDED
WARDENS NOT IN EVIDENCE ON
SHOOTING GROUNDS
sportsmen Declare Quail Have Been
fIarried and Killed Before OPEN
ing Day-FieIds StreWn
with Shells
BY CHARLES JERNEGAN

The quail and duck season is open.
The advance guard of the hunter army
has gone forth for the first skirmish
and returned with the same tales of
broken up coveys of quail, birds as
shy as the shyest bird back of Roscoe
about the first of February, and piles
of freshly fired shotgun shells all about
the country.
Probably three out of five of the
hunters who venture out after quail in
the districts where ranches are close
together or where the city is not too
far away will agree the birds have
been shot at long before the season was
legally open.
In the more remote districts, for in
stance some of the quail grounds back
of Oceanside, where the city is far
away and the ranches scattered, this
will not prove true, but all through
the San Fernando valley, in the washes
to the east of the city, from San Ga
briel to San Bernardino and along the
foothills from the Tejunga wash to
Azusa, the evidence of "soonering"-
shooting before the season is Open-is
unmistakable.
1t is claimed it is about time a
change was made in this game law
busness--a big change at that. Either
enforce the laws as vigorously and fol-
low those breaking them as the sher-
ifs office would do in the case of
other and more serious crimes, or else
repeal our present impotent game laws
entirely and throw everything wide
open
1t is getting a trife monotonous for
the law abiding man to trek afield at
the opening of the quail season and
year after year find evidence unmis-
taxable that others wiser if less law
abiding had SKINNED the cream of the
shooting weeks before.
Game Protection Slight
It is a fact-if an unpalatable one
that there Is practically no game pro-
lection in this end of the state COM
pared with what there should be were
our game license fund expended as it
ought to be. For every arrest made
by the handful of wardens there are a
score-nay, a hundred-of infractiOns
of the game laws that go undetected
and consequently unpunished,
The commonest OF all is shooting
quail out of season. They are strange
birds, at times seemingly conhding in
the mercy of mankind beyond all rea-
son; at others as wild and suspicious
as so many hunted bucks.
Every one who has stayed for any
length of time in the foothills or in the
outskirts of the city where the quail
coming into the very dooryards and
running about as confidently as so
many chickens. This trait OF the quail
nature makes the blue birds easy prey
for the scoundrelly sooner, who can
ground -sluice" a whole covey at a
time.
1t is high time we had a stirring of
the dry bones and an explanation on
the part of the powers that be as to
XThU uyhnn W. into
of the state for the benefit of the game
and shooting and fishing in general
over 100000 a year, we have to go into
the field year after year to find the
quail harried into a state of wildness
not exceeded by that of the end of the
season and to have the conviction
borne in on us that some city sport
or neighboring rancher has been bang
ing away at the blue birds weeks be-
fore the season opened.
Laws Are Not Enforced
In an IDEAL state the laws would not
need enforcement their mere passage
would be enough. In our present i'm,
perfect state of existence laws that
are not enforced are dead letters. This
is the condition of our game laws at
present.
The writer with a friend heard from
deer hunter of the wondrous number
of the quail to be found in the hills
along the Verdugo canyon. Although
mistrusting the location as being too
close to the city and therefore exposed
to the raVages of the sports sallying
forth with rented guns all through the
summer, the writer and his friend de-
termined to go out Thursday evening,
camp out all night in the park of the
Verdugo canyon and be on hand for
the first peep of the Friday morning
sun over the mountains.
Theoretically the result should have
been good shooting. Practically, while
probably a thousand birds were seen
In the days tramp, but three shots
were fired through the whole days
hunt at quail and these three were
desperate chances which did not score
The coveys We're as wild as the
writer has ever seen-and he has
hunted quail for the past six years.
They would flush before the hunters
could get within three hundred yards
when they happened to be feeding in
the open. They would fly to the high
brushy hills and then run like rabbits
to the safety of the thicker brush at
the summit of the hills. They were
even wilder than the San Fernando
valley birds in the midst of the season
which is saying a great deal.
Too Early Shooting
L Il6 IGdSOl IOI llllS HeXDllGdDle
wildness was not hard to find. From
Verdugo Park to Canada, following the
quail feeding ground, there ran a trail
of new yellow shells, fired apparently
the day before. They were not of Fri
day mornings vintage for the reason
that the two hunters were on hand
before any one else could have been,
and in addition to this the shells bore
a slight coat of dust, wet down by the
fog of several mornings and the inside
We're in some cases covered with cob
webs Keeping these shells company
were fully five hundred shells of other
makes and ages, varying from the
bleached out shells of months before
to shells that had been fired within
couple of days. They might have been
fired at rabbits-but they were not. In
the partys tramp they saw but ten
rabbits in the entire day--hardly
enough to justify the expenditure of
shells that had taken place. Those who
have hunted in the quail grounds from
Roscoe north to San Fernando, know
that the ground is fairly covered with
shells The ground near the hills along
this Verdugo canyon had no fewer
shells than the San Fernando valley,
but they had been fired in the summer