Sport: The Goose Hangs Back

The U.S. duck hunter, primping for his blind date this fall, looked forward to a heavenly sight. Thanks to Ducks Unlimited and other saviors of Canada’s vast nesting grounds, this year’s migrants had been expected to number about 100,000,000—the thickest flight in 15 years.

War had not doused duckhunting yet. Shotgun shells weren’t short or rationed (despite WPB freezing of all 12-gauge shells for aerial-gunnery training, war-plant protection and riot squads). Not all coastal marshes and inland waters were restricted. And most comforting of all, the Government is counting on the sportsman’s annual 54,000,000-lb. bag of waterfowl and small game to help fill the U.S. dinner plate.

But last week—after four weeks of open season in the Northern Zone and one week in the Intermediate Zone—wildfowlers had been stupendously stood up. So far, they had got little but goose-pimples. As yet, duck weather on the home prairies had not been chilly enough to send the wildfowl south.

Big-game hunters had better luck last week. Many areas in Western States are overrun with deer and elk. Game commissions, plainly worried about mounting damages to ranchers for destroyed haystacks, are talking about an added open season, an all-doe season or just plain market-hunting.