Honk! Honk! Honk!
CHINCOTEAGUE ISLAND, Dec'r 19th, 1873.
EDITOR FOREST AND STREAM: --
I had been stopping for several days with Mr. Griffin, in Accomac county, Virginia, awaiting Jake's coming, and was somewhat annoyed at my gunner's delay in not turning up. However, on the 3d of this month, near the cotton field at the end of the garden, I heard honk! honk! honk! And rushing to the house for my gun, was making for the open fields near the shore, when who should I meet but my stalwart gunner, Jake, in person. My first question was, "are there any geese yet at Chincoteague, Jake?" His reply was reassuring to a degree. "Yes, sah' lots of 'em; my boat is on the creek, and by the feel of the wind, I 'spose we might make Chincoteague to-night." I was somewhat doubtful in regard to the weather, not relishing exactly a thirteen mile sail in a cranky boat of a stormy evening, but on Jake's assuring me that he "was bound to do it under thee hours, if I didn't mind getting jess a little wet now and then," I put on my water-proof, took my two guns, blankets and valise, and consigned myself to Jake's care. One hour out in the bay, I had rather good reasons for regretting my voyage. The wind blew from the northwest, "a good wind for geese," as Jake remarked, "but a might unsartain one for folks in a boat." The water broke over our craft repeatedly, the spray driving with stinging violence against my face, though thanks to my water proof, my body was perfectly dry. The gun cases I had lashed under the thwarts, and the ammunition, being in the for'castle hole, I knew would not be damaged. The wind came in so strong that Jake reefed close, but instead of three hours, it was nearer seven hours before we made Wallop's Island. A few hundred yards back of the inlet, on a point, I was welcomed by one of Jake's colored friends. In fact I found every preparation made for me. No sooner had I thrown off my wet wraps than supper was announced, and a glorious one was it. Imprimis, a brant stuffed with persimmons; secondly, a slice of baked drumfish, some fried spot; lastly, a roasted coon with sweet potatoes, all flanked with flapjacks and corn pone. How will this do for a Chincoteague supper? But gunners always do live on the fat of the land, providing they can accommodate themselves to circumstances. In the present case Jake and I were old friends. With these colored people of the better class, for Jake had been the body servant of an excellent master before the war, money was no object. What Jake wanted was to be treated with that respect which he was entitled to, and which he fully merited for his faithfulness and honesty, not counting his sportsmanlike ability. Jake's invariable price is $3.00 a day, including stools.
I turned in and had a comfortable night. Next morning I was up at daybreak, it wanting about an hour to flood tide. Isaiah, Jake's friend, had four live geese stools and ten pairs of decoys. They have no blinds at Chincoteague; we therefore made the boat the blind, easily accomplished by nailing cedar brush, some two and a half feet high all around the boat. The live geese stools were arranged on a platform of wood, a kind of raft, a piece of leather with
string to the geese, keeping them to the raft. In order to secure the platform from floating off it was anchored with a brick at each end. At each corner of this platform three pairs of decoys were placed, the wild geese being on the platform itself, with strings leading into the blind boat.
I now instructed Isaiah to take the live geese stools and platform in his boat, to place them about a hundred yards forward of some sedge grass, and to wait there until we came up with the blind boat. It was still pitch dark. While this was being done, and the tide was making up fast, Isaiah soon completed his task, and we rowed to where he was and took hold of the strings which were attached to the geese, which we fastened to the rollocks of the blind boat. Isaiah was now ordered by me to take his own boat to the Bay side and to scare up the geese and drive them in. I had hardly got through eating my breakfast before Isaiah had rapidly pulled around the point, and I heard him honking away merrily, Jake playing second fiddle. The first gray streaks of morning commenced to show the coming dawn, allowing me to look over my guns and arrange the ammunition, which was all in good order, I was using my swamp angel, (according to the judgment of some of your FOREST AND STREAM critics,) a 10-bore Snyder-Allen breech loader, and a muzzle loader, Greener, 8-bore. I had prepared my cartridges as follows: 5 drams of powder and an ounce and three quarters of single B, for the Snyder-Allen, and 6 drams of powder and full two ounces of B's for the Greener. There is no use of bringing pop guns down here. You must load up, as geese have to be killed and killed dead; for if you load as for pigeons, you waste your time in picking up wing-tipped birds, for geese, even when badly wounded, can swim with the tide faster than you can row after them.
Jake now commenced pulling the strings on the geese, imitating the cry of the live decoys, they fluttering their wings and making the spray fly. The decoy geese seemed to understand their business thoroughly, having doubtlessly taken advantage of Isaiah's instruction. Presently a flock of five geese came up on the wind out of the sedge, where they had certainly been feeding, and made directly for the stools. Now I wanted for once to understand the character of the live decoy birds we were using, and whether the wild geese would really approach close to them, so I determined to forego shooting the first flock and watch their familiarities. The new comers, they were young geese, absolutely alighted on the platform, and made advances to their captive friends, not honking, but whistling, the sound not resembling in the least the hiss of the tame goose. We were in the blind-boat, not more than thirty yards from the platform. They must have staid there fully three minutes, when all of a sudden, from some unknown cause -- for we were in the boat hidden and perfectly still -- they rose as if alarmed all at once, and with such a sudden jerk, using the platform to make their flight from, that they upset the platform and submerged for a moment our educated birds. I was so intent on watching the antics of the wild birds that I was slow in shooting. Though having shot geese in this neighborhood for the last fourteen years, it was the very first time I ever had an opportunity of noticing geese as closely, or of acquiring so much knowledge of their habits and actions.
They must have got away fully twenty yards before I could get the Greener to my shoulder, and I dropped two and wing-tipped one which I did not recover.
I have always observed that wild geese, when feeding, leave one bird on the watch, and most thoroughly does she perform the task. With outstretched neck, watching on all sides, and listening to every sound far and near, she keeps a wary guard. Nor does she look for a single worm or scollop, however famished she may be, till one of her companions sees fit to relieve her guard. Then the former sentinel sets to work at her feeding with an eagerness which shows that her abstinence while on duty was the result, not of want of appetite, but of a proper sense of the important trust imposed upon her. If any enemy, or the slightest cause of suspicion appears, the sentry utters a low croak, when the whole flock immediately run up to her, and after a short consultation, fly off, leaving the unfortunate sportsman to lament having shown even his head or the muzzle of his gun above the sea sedge grass.
About an hour afterwards -- it was now high flood tide, and the wind blowing dead on the shore -- I heard Isaiah "honking," and to my delight saw him rise and drive a flock of as many as two hundred geese towards our side over the point. Approaching our stools, they divided into two flocks, one going apparently to the southward and the other answering the cry of our live stools. Here Jake showed some excitement, and asked me to allow him to use my Greener. "Take anything," I said. The geese came on swiftly to the stools, swept past them for a moment, then circled back, Jake jerking at the strings attached to the educated geese. The wild birds seemed to hesitate, but all hands honked away, and after a moment they all swooped down, and were just about alighting, not more than three feet above the stools, when Jake and myself fired off four barrels almost simultaneously. Eleven geese we killed outright, stone dead, they falling into the water with a loud flop; five we wing-tipped, three of which Isaiah secured in the pick-up boat. It took us fully two hours to gather the birds, and by this time the tide had fallen so much that the geese, although still flying in flocks, sought other bars and points to alight on. Towards evening we had a few more shots, but nothing of special interest, and I should not have written this letter save to record the excellence of the live stools, and the fraternization of the wild geese with our educated ones.
Very truly,
C. B.
Total bag, three days' shooting, 24 geese, 5 broad-bills, and 1 whistler.