Events & Discoveries

Every duck hunter can tell whether the season just ended was a good one or not; he has only to ask himself whether he fared better or worse than expected. But what about the U.S. season as a whole, over all the four great flyways and down the length of the country? Well, Atlantic Flyway hunters had fairly tough going. In Maine there just weren't as many ducks as usual; in Maryland the number of hunters was up and the number of ducks killed was down. North Carolina, however, found the season quite up to par. "Anybody who failed to get his limit," said one man, "was hunting on bluebird days. In blustery weather the shooting was good." (Early-season hunters at Currituck Lake, N.C. sometimes find the weather so balmy that they lay aside their guns, pick up fishing rods, and cast from the blinds for largemouth bass.)

Along the Mississippi Flyway, Wisconsin had a mediocre duck season but a very good year for geese. Arkansas, on the other hand, reported the best duck hunting in years. "The high water produced so many birds that 1957 exceeded expectations," said a member of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. But farther south, in Louisiana and Mississippi, high water in the form of winter floods led the ducks—which were plentiful—to spread out all over the winter landscape and throw the hunting picture into confusion. Many blinds, used to advantage for years, were useless this winter. In Mississippi, things suddenly got better in the last 10 days of the season, but by that time many men had given up for the year.

The Pacific Flyway offered good shooting; there were many more ducks in Oregon than in 1956, and more were killed. Again, rain made it easy for ducks to avoid hunters' guns, though flooded cornfields offered fine hunting to those who could devise blinds in unaccustomed places and use their duck calls skillfully.

In California the total bag was higher than last year's. One hunter asked the state to put signs on all ponds in public shooting grounds giving their depth in feet. He had, he said, waded casually into one of them to retrieve a duck, and had nearly drowned in the unsuspected depths.

The 1957 hunting was best of all along the big Central Flyway. In North Dakota 32,000 hunters averaged 12 birds each. Plentiful food and good weather evened out the season. (Sometimes the ducks, hurrying south, pass through the state in one or two big pushes.) There were an estimated 1,250,000 ducks in South Dakota at the November peak of migration. Farmers reported losing up to $115 worth of corn a day to ducks. One hunter, heading home with his bag limit, was stopped by a farmer and asked to help chase the ducks out of his fields. Firecrackers and Roman candles, the farmer said, were ineffective. So, it developed, was a shotgun: the ducks simply moved off 30 or 40 yards and kept on eating.

In Nebraska a man bagged his limit in half an hour on two successive days. Texas reported a million and a half ducks at one time in the Texas Panhandle alone. Though enormous numbers of ducks kept within protected areas like National Wild Life Refuges and the King Ranch, there were enough elsewhere in Texas to make bag limits almost a certainty by Thanksgiving. Coastal shooting was off somewhat because of plentiful water throughout the state.

Viewed over-all, the 1957 duck season was split down the middle by the Mississippi River: it was fair to middling east of that dividing line, very good indeed to the west.

OPEN TENNIS STILL OPEN

Championship tennis is as shy as a ground hog when it comes to getting out in the open. For years top-ranking court champions from Bill Tilden to Bill Talbert have plumped for open competition in which amateurs and pros alike could get together as in golf to determine the real champion. From time to time the United States Lawn Tennis Association itself has gazed thoughtfully at the matter, but always the old guard of amateur tennis has seen its own shadow and gone scuttling cautiously back into the silly fiction of pure amateurism.

As ground-hog day approaches once more, the situation is the same as ever. This is true despite the induction of a brand-new set of USLTA officers who have expressed themselves in favor of open tennis. Nothing positive has been done, of course, but everybody is still hoping. "The subject is dormant but not dead," said newly inducted President Victor Denny. "We will keep abreast of the situation as best we can."