SHOOTING NOTES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 7, 29 April 1914, Page 7

SHOOTING NOTES.

(By Eno's.) The glorious first of May, the most enjoyable day of a sporting mans life, is rapidly approaching, fehootists are now busily engaged in getting guns and gear into good order and the air is thick with the talk of ..braces of pheasants," "mobs o qaail," "flocks of grey duck and teal " etc., etc. Indications point to a goodlv number of license-holding sports being out bright and early on Friday morning next. En conversation with a prominent member of the local Acclimatisation Society the other day, I learned that the Society has appointed three rangers for the coming season. These rangers are now in business and, if the Society will take advice from an old sport, I should, advise them to press for the heaviest penalty obtainable from anybody j caught shooting without a license or shooting protected game. 1 believe the maximum penalty is a fine of £'2o. If one or two lines of this description were levied, it would have a wholesome effect on those mean-minded, unsportsmanlike individuals who make a practice of shooting without being license holders. "' The Society, spends annually three or four hundred pounds in endeavoring to build j up the shooting and fishing of the j district, and individuals who are too mean to spend £1 for a license are not deserving of any pity when they are caught transgressing. Pukeko are not protected thi s year, and as these birds are naturally slow fliers and easily shot,l think it would be as well if the Society were to arrange with some farmers who have a patch of swamp on their farms to preserve the birds in that patch, as, if that is not done, these birds will speedily be shot out. On the whole, 1 think that the season should be a good one, as the only birds that are protected are Paradise duck and native pigeon. This gives sportsmen a good range of game, and I sincerely trust that all who invest the modest £1 will be rewarded with good bags.