Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1910-11-18
SLAUGHTER OF WILD DUCKS.
POt-Huntine Brothers Lure Them
With Food, and Then Use Can.
non.
From the New York Timesl

From the New York Times.)
Some of the sportsmen who have been
coming back to town after weekend
duck hunts on the marshes of Maryland
and the Eastern Shore of Virginia are
telling remarkable stories of the methods
OF pot hunters in that locality, which at
one time was one of the best ducking
sections in the East They say that the
pot hunters have well nigh killed the
sport in many of the famous old wild
duck haunts of Maryland, and that un-
less the unscrupulous methods are abol-
lshed the time will soon come when
duck shooting there will not be worth
while.
One duck hunter, who has shot wild
FOWL on the Eastern Shore of Maryland
marshes for fifteen years or more. Col.
Clarence Tubman, was here a few days
ago. and told of the pot-hunting methods
which have killed off most of the sport
IN the Blackwater region of MARYLAND
The game laws have not put a stop
to the pot-hpnting there said Col.
Tubman, although the laws were
framed to break up that very objec-
tionable pursuit. There are quite as
many ducking pirates in the Black
water section as there were in the DAYS
when there were no game laws. On
my last trip to the hunting grounds
learned OF man who is openly violating
the hunting laws almost every night.
and is slapghtering wild ducks by the
wholesale, only to sell them for what be
can get. Open season or closed season.
1t is all the same to him. And his
method is one of the most fragrant |
have ever heard of.
This particular ducking pirate and
his younger brother live in the very
heart of the wild. marshy section of
the Biackwater. Not game warden
lives within 20 miles of them. He is
not sportsman in any sense of the
word, as l will shortly show, although
he has hunted wild ducks there ever
since he was boy. He has made
business of it. Neither of the brothers
Is what IS known as a wingshot. They
prefer to shoot their ducks on the water.
But the pirates are not even con-
tent with potting the ducks on their
natural feeding grounds. They have
constructed wooden trough which
they have submerged in one of the
small lakes near their home. into this
submerged trough they pour about
bushel Of corn every day, beginning
early in the season, when the ducks
begin tn arrive from farther South.
Naturally enough, the ducks learn
to feed from the trough, which is placed
about IL inches beneath the surface of
the shallow lake. One can readily see
the result-a long line of ducks stretched
across the pond, all feeding from the
trough.
''Now. here is where the diabolical
part of it comes in. On the shore of
the lake they have rugged up a swivel
gun which fires a charge like a small
cannon. The gun is trained SO that it
will rake the water over the feeding
trough from one end of the trough to
the other. When night comes and the
ducks are greedily devouring the corn,
the elder brother creeps up to the
swivel gun, claps his hands. and in an
instant every one Of those ducks has it's
head up trying to locate the sound.
There is flash and a roar and most of
the ducks are either dead or crippled
Into the water go the pirates dogs, and
few minutes later the swivel gun has
been smuggled away and there are a
hundred or 30 wild ducks to be disposed
Of next day. 1t is one of the worst ex-
amples of pot-hunting have ever come
across.
This method of batting the wild
ducks ispracticed all through the Black
water section, also in the ponds and
small streams of the Eastern Shore of
Virginia. 1t has done much to deplete
the section of it's wild ducks. Although
most of the pot-hunters have not the
nerve of those two brothers who operate
the swivel gun, many of them shoe,
wild ducks at night. which has the effect
of driving them away from the roostine
grounds. There is law in MARYLAND
which prevents shipping of game sho,
there out of the State, but the pot.
hunters have no trouble disposing O.
their bag.