Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1879 — Hunting Wild Geese with Oxen. [ARTICLE]

Hunting Wild Geese with Oxen.

Shooting wild geese was, in the early days of California, an important industry with those men who hunted for the market, and was very attractive to the few amateurs that indulged in the sport. In those days goose shooting was a profitable business for the hunter, and it was no uncommon thing for a skillful one to make from SIOO to $l5O a day, even when he obtained but four or five shots (a shot in hunter’s parlance meaning the discharge of both barrels). The system pursued by the market hunters in shooting the geese was as follows: A docile ox was generally selected by the hunter for his attendant. Then the geese were sought on the large open plains, where they fed all through the day, going to water and returning morning and evening. The hunter marked a flock a half or threequarters of a mile away, and then put his ox iu motion, allowing him to feed as he went along, in order to

make the geese remain unconscious of the lurking figure that moved behind the ox’s body. Old goose-hunters affirm that these oxen seemed to take-a delight in' assi'tincr the shooter to work up to his game. They would approach the geese in an indirect way, never going straight toward them, apparent ! y feeding as they went along. It is also asserted that the geese used actually to know, after being shot at once or twice, the hunter’s oxen. As soon as the hunter got within shot, he discharged both barrels, one at the geese on the ground and the other as they rose, bagging from, thirty to sixty geese. He either rested the gun on the ox’s back, or allowed him to pass on, and then raked them in with his small caDnon. The gun used was generally a four-bore, and never less than six, weighing from fourteen to sixteen pounds, ahd the charge was from eight to ten drachms of powder, an 1 two or three ounces of shot. There were at le?st half a dozen engaged in this business, wli se wealth might be computed at from $40,000 to $50,000, altogether the result of goosehunting.