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FISHING AND HUNTING NOTES Many naturalists make a mistake in declaring that turkeys invariably roosc over water. This is an .erroneous notion, for they are just as apt to roost miles away from a watercourse "as over it. Northern hunters remark on their first trip south that white-tail deer are persistently night lceders; hunters1 seldom see one browsing during the day, even where food is most plentiful. In the hill sections they are prone to bed all day in the roughest and most inaccessible places in the swamps they remain in thickets of blackberry, greenbrier and cane. An incoming duck is an easy shot notwithstanding the belief held by many hunters to the contrary. Forget all your former ways of aiming at an incomer. Hold right on its breast as it comes toward you, move the gun rapidly forward until you lead the bird. The instant during this process you lose sight of the duck press the trigger dont jerk it! The swiftest flying bluewing or canvasback can lie stopped easily in this manner. It is easy to distinguish the hill from tiie swamp deer by their feet. The former suffers the inflictions of flint rocks, and the hitters feet arc free from any signs of wear until they migrate to the hills, due to continuous hunting or scarcity of feed. By their blunt hoofs the tracks of a hill deer can be readily classified the moment they travel to the swamps, or anywhere that the character of the soil is receptive to the impress of their hoofs. Notwithstanding tiie complaints of hunters along parts of the Mississippi Aalley over tiie poor duck flight this fall. In other idaces there Is a.notlceaile increase in wildfowl- Ducks, however, stem to make their stopping idaces above the Keokuk dam. Then a palpable hiatus is observed in the flight until southern Missouri and northern Arkansas, where they are in abundance. The greatest goose territory extent is now in Scott and Mississippi Counties, Missouri. Shooting will remain excellent there until the Father of AVaters gorges with ice. In the southern mountain streams wall-eyed pike and small mouth bass can be taken with flies luring the winter season. In the swift Ozark streams they are not prone to hibernate and are caught with minnows even throughout the coldest periods. Most of these streams are maintained by immense springs and small mouth bass like to lay among big rocks close to the spring-fed side of the watercourses and can then be tempted to rise to flies. Frequently they have been taken, weighing as high as six pounds, with flies in the vicinity of the big springs. They are slow to rise and seldom appear before the fifth or sixth cast. Their favorite flies in winter are ibis and white, and a combination of yellow may with red tail.
