Virginia Eastern Shore
BELLE HAVEN, Va., Dec. 4. -- It has been some time since I have sent you a notice direct from our game lands. In this part the "Eastern Sho'" of Virginia, a deer or turkey would frighten our local sportsmen; but at duck and quail shooting we are in our natural sphere. Ducks were never thicker or less shy. Our boys get from a dozen to fifty per day. Our shooting is bothered considerably to what it was a few years ago. Oyster and clam boats work on the feed grounds in greater numbers than ever, and consequently keep fowl off in parts where they are hard to get up with. Just at this time, when young ducks are plentiful and foolish, we are not bothered so much, but a few weeks' shooting will teach them a lesson. Our kinds of ducks are blackheads, black ducks, brant and a few geese, also a variety of divers. Geese are scarcer every year, owing to the many oyster boats about their feeding bottoms. They keep on now to the Carolinas instead of frequenting our bays in myriads as they did some time ago.
Redhead, canvasback and mallards are rarely seen with us, as the water is too salt. In Chincoteague Bay, on the coast about thirty miles above here (Hog Island[,] Broadwater), redhead are plentiful, but canvasback are not found on the coast except in the head of large bays, like the Chesapeake and Delaware.
Our game wardens went on duty last week. They have almost broken up trapping and night-lighting, and since this law has been in operation our shooting has greatly improved. Lighting in Chincoteague Bay has in the past few years been injuring shooting there to such extent as to prevent any shooting worth attention, except in the severest weather, but the warden there this year will enforce the law and keep the violators down.
After the 1st of January, 1900, the local law will cost wild water fowl non-resident shooters $10 the first year, $5
J. H. JOHNSON.