Casting Digital Nets

Protecting the Wild Fowl

It is claimed that a bunch of market hunters are about to commence operations on the lake or have already done so. The local sportsmen are investigating the matter and if the charges are proven or the hunters are caught infringing on the state game laws the penalty of the law will be given them. It is claimed that these hunters follow the spring flight of wild fowl from the gulf to Canada and the fall flight from Canada to the gulf, and inasmuch as part of this bunch came here from New Orleans, the claim that the are market hunters is not without foundation. It should be the aim of every sportsman to keep such hunters from slaughtering our wild game, and it is an assured fact that if these fellows are here for the purpose of marketing game they will be detected and fined according to the provisions of the state game laws.

It is the gun of the market hunter that is causing the decrease of game fowl. He will in a single season kill and ship thousands of birds. Hunting is to him not a sport but a business. As a shot he is without equal. He wastes no ammunition, as he never shoots at a bird out of range and the swiftest of fowl is too slow to etcape escape his gun. He will drop bird after bird calmly without joy or exultation, recognizing no limit as to number and paying no attention to the bag limit set by law. He is the kind of hunter who will shoot the mother bird on her nest, caring not that in the killing of the one bird he incidentally destroys several. A true sportsman does not shoot wild fowl in the spring time, which is the mating time of the birds, but from the fact that at the mating time the birds are less on the lookout for danger than any other season the market hunter has better success at that time.

It is not the wish of the citizens of Lake Andes to keep the legitimate hunter, who hunts for the love of the sport, away; rather do they extend a welcome to all such; but it is the intention to protect the game from the inroads of the unscrupulous hunter for market purpose and all such are cautioned to ply their nefarious business elsewhere or suffer the consequences.

Duck Hunters Arrested.

Three young men, two of whom are named Hughes and the other Wisner, claiming to hail from near Aberdeen, were arrested Friday by Game Warden Branch and Deputy Hall on a charge of hunting without a license and taken before Justice Davis. It was reported that these men were from Chicago and were here for the purpose of shooting ducks for the market and a number of local sportsmen decided the matter required investigation and if the information received was correct the men should be fined. The men claimed to have been citizens of the state for some years past and that they were here for legitimate sport and not for the purpose of marketing their game, hence they were not prosecuted.