Wild-Fowl Shooting in Old Virginia
It was three days before Christmas and we had planned to spend a week on the Broad Water and divide our time between shooting ducks and loafing aboard the sloop where we were to live during our stay. A "mutual" friend of ours, one "Doc" Morton, was to join us on Christmas Day, making a trio that had ofttime enjoyed the best of sport together and whiled away many a long evening with song and story.
Jim and I were routed out early the next morning and left the train at Cheriton, a little town in Virginia about four miles north of Cape Charles. Here we were met by a team that carried us and our luggage to the shore, where our guides awaited us; and we were soon seated in the cabin of their forty-foot sloop enjoying a bountiful breakfast while the guides got her under way and made things snug.
As we were informed that our anchorage would not be reached until afternoon, owing to the necessity of a stop at Cobb's Island for provisions, no shooting could be had that day. We contented ourselves, therefore, with sitting in the sun on deck watching the flocks of brant, geese and ducks that rose before us or flew past on their way to and from their feeding grounds, while the salt breeze fanned our faces and the spray flew up in glittering showers from the bow of our good boat.
By noon, we had taken aboard cook and grub and were off again. We then descended to the cabin, unpacked our stuff, put guns together, and got into a comfortable rig, discarding "store clothes" for the rest of our stay. When we appeared again on deck, the boat had come to anchor and we looked upon our new surroundings with interest.
To the east stretched the brown salt marshes, cut up by innumerable leads and channels, while beyond rolled the broad Atlantic, the boom of her breakers on the beach coming faintly to our ears.
To the north, in the distance, lay Hog Island; to the west the mainland, the "Eastern Sho'," while the dim line of blue on the horizon to the south showed where Cape Charles lay.
The Broad Water well deserves its name and fame; it is one of the best feeding grounds for wild fowl on the Atlantic coast.
Black ducks predominate, although mallards, broadbill, pintail and other varieties are sometimes found. Geese are abundant, and swarms of brant may be seen blackening the water or rising in great clouds when disturbed by some passing boat.
It is the fact of their presence that makes the Broad Water especially interesting to sportsmen, as brant do not visit many of the feeding grounds frequented by other water-fowl. They are found in large numbers on the coast of
Southern California, but on no part of our Eastern coast are they so plentiful as here.
The one drawback to the hunter's happiness here is the fact that as a rule but half a day can be spent in actual shooting, as the birds come to the shoals where the blinds are built only on the falling water, and when the rising tide covers their feeding grounds too deeply they retire to the marsh. Here they feed quietly, hidden in the high grass, and it is only when stirred up by rough weather and a heavy wind that they come to decoys to any extent. But occasionally when these conditions are fulfilled, the marsh shooting is the best of all.
The sun sank below the hills, and we were called from watching the long lines of geese winging their way to the sandbars for the night's feeding, by the announcement from below that dinner was ready.
One description of a meal, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner, will suffice for the week, as the menu rarely varied: Biscuits, eggs in any style desired, ducks and oysters likewise, coffee with condensed milk, potatoes, and canned tomatoes -- and at rare intervals a piece of leather, called steak, completed the list; but things were well cooked and we had hunters' appetites; so what restaurant in town could compare with it?
We spent this, our first evening, in swapping yarns with the guides and hearing how many geese one had killed this day and what a boatload of brant the other got on that, while to keep our end up we related exciting but entirely imaginary adventures with wounded moose in the North Woods or with elk in the West. But finally, getting too sleepy to invent anything more, we turned in, and although our quarters were a trifle cramped, managed to get a comfortable night's rest, with dreams of geese that never got quite within range or of guns that would not go off, until we were called at daylight and hustled into our togs for the day's work. After a hasty breakfast we started, George and myself in one boat, while Jim went with the other guide, Hugh.
A row of a mile or so brought us to a point of the marsh covered with high grass and sedge, and here George put me ashore, while he busied himself throwing out the decoys. When this was finished to his satisfaction he shoved ashore and we dragged the boat up into the grass, which, being bent over it, formed a perfect blind.
Then, having seen me comfortably settled in her, George withdrew to a safe distance, while I loaded my gun, and, placing my shells in a convenient position, looked about me and waited.
The day was a charming one, too charming, indeed, for ducks; hardly a breath of wind ruffled the surface of the water and not a cloud could be seen in the sky. The air was mild and balmy as an April morning, and altogether the shooting prospects could not be worse.
However, after an hour's waiting, I discovered a small bunch of black ducks heading in my direction, and lay back in the boat with gun ready, watching them.
On they came, until, sighting the decoys, they set their wings and sailed down, and were almost within range, when, suddenly turning off, they flew rapidly away.
Looking around to see what had scared them, I discovered George standing about forty feet away, with his back towards me and intently watching something in the distance.
"I'll be dog-goned if that don't look like the big yacht that was down heah last fall," he remarked, as he saw me looking at him over my blind. "See it away down to the south, comin' up 'long the beach?"
"What do I care about that yacht? I'm not after yachts, but ducks. Didn't you see that bunch of black ones that were coming in so nicely until they saw you and shied off?"
"No, I was watching that boat. I didn't see no ducks. But say, don't she look--"
"Oh, get down and keep quiet or you'll be scaring another flock." With an aggrieved look and a muttered remark about the yacht, he subsided, and I did not hear from him again until the tide was so high that we were obliged to pick up and go back to the sloop. In the meantime, I had killed a couple of single ducks that came to stool, and with these as our grand total for the morning's work we reached the boat, to find Jim and Hugh already there with a similar tale of woe.
"It ain't no use," remarked Hugh; "they won't make no shootin' till we
get the wind up heah to the nothe, and blowin' some. Then, look out."
But there wasn't any sign of wind, and we spent the afternoon loafing about the sloop, as the guides insisted that it was no use going to the blinds on a high tide. The next day was a little better, Jim getting some good shots and bringing in an even dozen, while I managed to run him pretty close, with ten to my credit.
About four o'clock that afternoon a sail appeared in the distance, and George, after a careful scrutiny through the glasses, announced that it was Carl, who was to bring Doc Morton from Cheriton and act as his guide during the rest of our stay.
Soon we could make out Doc's familiar form, and I, jumping on the top of the cabin, wig-wagged "Merry Christmas" with my handkerchief.
Back came the answer, "Same to you," and then, "How many?" This I answered, and added, "Got anything good for Christmas dinner?"
Doc's reply was indistinct, as he shouted it through his hands, but it sounded like either "some" or "Mumm." As it turned out the latter was correct. They were soon alongside, and greetings were exchanged at short range. Going below we made him acquainted with the history of our trip up to date, and presently, dinner being ready, we all sat down to it and made a jolly party until late that evening, when Doc went aboard his own boat for the night.
Next morning we awoke to hear the wind singing through the rigging and to find the bay covered with white caps.
After breakfast we separated, and, as the tide was falling, went out to the brush blinds which dot the surface of the bay and mark the shoals where the birds feed at low water. Such a day as it was!
Never had I spent a more uncomfortable one and never had I seen more ducks flying. The air was full of them all the time.
First, a flock of brant came tearing down wind, and, as they passed, George and I opened up, dropping four among the decoys. Then a bunch of black ducks swung in, which paid toll to the extent of five of their number, and so on. When shoving out to pick up the slain we almost always spoiled one or two good shots before getting back to cover, but there were plenty more coming, so we didn't care.
I remember one incident in particular that goes to show with what rapidity the birds came in. We had just knocked over a pair of black ducks and were reloading our guns when George whispered, "Keep still; here come a bunch of mallards from the north." In the hurry I got a shell jammed in my left barrel, and while working at it the mallards swung in and lit among the decoys.
George kept quiet, and before I had extracted that shell and replaced it by another no less than two other flocks had come in and were sitting in the water around the blind. When we did get up to shoot they rose on all sides, and we only brought down three out of the lot, owing, no doubt, to the fact that one did not know just where to shoot, there were so many of them.
By twelve o'clock the tide had risen so as to cover the shoals, and the flight ceased. We picked up stool, and after a stormy passage across the bay reached the sloop. Doc was already aboard and sat smoking on the cabin with a smile of satisfaction on his countenance.
"How many?" I asked. "Twenty ducks, fourteen brant, and seven geese; and I didn't half shoot. What's yours?"
"Haven't counted them yet, but we did fairly well." Then George began throwing the birds on deck, while I arranged them in piles according to species. When I was through we had to our credit thirty-one ducks, mostly blacks, sixteen brant, and three geese; not so bad for five hours' work in that wind.
Jim soon arrived with another good bunch of birds, and we went to lunch with appetites that threatened to drive the cook to drink and make a large hole in our provision supply.
When that was disposed of, the afternoon was spent in cleaning guns and comparing notes on our morning's sport. That night we changed our anchorage to a more sheltered spot, as the storm increased and looked like a stayer.
The next morning we went into the marsh, and if the previous one had been fast shooting, this was lightning.
The wind was blowing a fifty-mile-an-hour gale, and the black ducks and geese driven from their feeding grounds in the bay poured into the marsh for
shelter, and kept things lively until the tide drove us out, and we returned to the sloop with fifty-seven ducks and twenty-one geese, a number I am rather ashamed of, but as my friends in the North among whom I distributed the results of that day's work seemed greatly pleased, I felt myself partially justified.
Jim and Doc did equally well, and as we started for Cheriton the next day all agreed that if a bad beginning always made as good an ending to our trips we would be more than satisfied, and we pledged ourselves to return at some future date and enjoy another week's outing in Virginia.