The South's Great Shooting Preserves

[…] Ful acres. It is estimated that more true sportsmen have been on this preserve than on any other one in the country.

One of the most enthusiastic sportsmen to go South each fall is W. F. S. Hart, the New York attorney, of the firm of Hart & Tompkins. His preserve is at Woodville, Va., and is one of the finest in the South. He kills a number of wild turkeys here each season, one of the hardest game birds to get because hunting them requires endurance and, most of all, patience.

"How do you get these turkeys?" a sportsman who went South one fall asked Mr. Hart.

"You get out before daybreak into the blind," replied Mr. Hart, "and lie perfectly still after the light comes. These blinds are located in swamps. Then you give the call of the hen turkey. It is the same way in which moose is called. After a while, if you stay very quiet, you may see one pop his head up just for a minute from behind some underbrush. Then is the time to shoot because he isn't going to hold his head there long."

"What! Get your bird on the ground?" inquired the visitor.

"If you think it is easy and unsportsmanlike try it."

This visitor did not get a single turkey. These are the most wary of all game birds and many a hunter who makes a practice of going out after birds each fall has never seen one. They refuse to come close to anything that looks dangerous, and they inhabit swamps. They seldom expose more than their small heads as a target, and the shot is almost always a difficult one because of the thickness of the underbrush. The only way to get them is to give the call of the hen turkey on a piece of bone. Besides the turkeys Mr. Hart has many quail, pheasants and partridges on his preserve.

Of course the Jekyl Island Club is a famous preserve which includes all of Jekyl Island and abounds with game. Because of the immense amount of game on this preserve the hunting is not considered altogether perfect by the seasoned sportsman who reckons his pleasure by the fun of the chase and not by the slaughter he brings about. Many wealthy men belong to this club, including Pierre Lorillard, Harry Payne Whitney and George Brewster.

Another famous club of the South is the Oakland Club in South Carolina. Shares in this club are worth $11,000. At least that was the price obtained for the last ones sold; no shares are to be purchased at the present time and there probably will be none offered for some time to come. The finest duck shooting in the country is to be found here, and the preserve also abounds with quail, wild turkeys, deer and bear. Edward Johnson of Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturers of surgical supplies, and Edward F. Hilton of New York are leading members of this club. It includes 60,000 acres.

The Santee Club on the Santee River in South Carolina is another famous old hunting ground of the wealthy. If somebody were to get up an advertisement for this preserve, which of course no one ever does, he would say that "everything was to be found here to suit the tastes of the most discriminating sportsman." Besides the deer, bears, quail and wild turkeys there is wonderful fishing for the Isaak Waltons among the members. George McAlpin, Clarence Mackay and Percy Hudson were the original members and are at present the largest shareholders.

B. M. Baruch, the Wall Street broker and operator, has one of the finest private preserves in the South at Winyah Bay in South Carolina. He has twenty [...] acres here stocked with the best game and his place is estimated to be worth half a million dollars.

One of the most picturesque preserves in the South is the property of Pemberton Hare Powell of Newport. It was to one of Mr. Powell's forefathers that the original grant of Newport was made. With Edward Morrell of Philadelphia, who was a State Senator, he has an enormous quail preserve at Barber Junction in North Carolina, where they entertain their friends each year. This property includes 10,000 acres, and it is devoted almost exclusively to quail. Both owners are very wealthy and go in for the game and the shooting box on an elaborate scale, this shooting box being one of the finest of them all.

C. M. Taintor has 5,000 acres at Camden, S. C., where the quail predominate. He is also the great polo enthusiast and is the man who brought a carload of ponies East from his ranch in Wyoming, from which the American team picked its mounts for the recent international match. This is a private preserve. At Camden is also the Woodstock Club, where quail shooting is the principal sport. Besides the hunting grounds there are a beautiful polo field and a magnificent clubhouse.

To move a little further South and slightly out of the multimillionaire belt, there are some fine shooting boxes [...] closely the popular notion of a shooting box because of their rough interior. One of the most famous is that of Col. W. L. Moody, the Galveston banker, whose place is at Lake Surprise, Texas. This is where William Jennings Bryan, the Secretary of State, goes at least once each year to hunt with his friend Col. Moody.

The place has a rough shooting house and the hunters go after quail and other game birds of the woods. The duck shooting is also very fine, Col. Moody's place bordering on Galveston Lake.

At Rockport, Tex., is the Tarpon Club which was established by E. H. R. Green. [...] Though few persons know it, Mr. Green is one of the most accomplished sportsmen in America. He once owned the Paris baseball team in the Texas League and supported it for his own amusement and the fun of his friends. He used to send the club around the circuit to play its schedule in his own private car, and he and his friends would travel with the team. Paris is on the Texas Midland Railroad, which was property that his mother gave him to play with and which he converted into a profitable investment, although the line did not start from any place in particular nor did it run to any definite point where population had gathered. He constructed some of the finest trackage in America on this line of [...] miles.

Mr. Green goes to the Tarpon Club every year and takes his friends. This sport requires quite as much activity as hunting birds, as one of the big fish is seldom landed in less than two hours of fighting.

The Carmichael Club, outside of Augusta, Ga., is the place where Mr. Taft was entertained with a real Southern barbecue dinner when he was President of the United States. The property of the club is studded with fish ponds, and one of the traditions among the members is that each diner must go out and catch his own fish. This is not as difficult as it sounds because of the plentiful supply of fish. Many of the members also insist on cooking their catches. Besides the fish ponds, fine hunting abounds.

Of course there are many other famous shooting boxes in the South. The world famous Ogeechee Club has fifteen thousand acres in Georgia, and shares in this club are sold for $5,000 each. There are bears, deer, turkeys, ducks, quail and wonderful fishing. It borders on the Suwanee River. Among the members are C. M. Taintor and Pierre Lorillard. In South Carolina is Alexander Turnbull's private preserve of 5,000 acres. Frank Fleer has a 10,000-acre preserve at Thomasville, S. C. Then there is the Vanderbilt estate at Biltmore.

To prove that most of these hunters are good and careful sportsmen just read the newspapers with the idea of seeing how few persons are injured through carelessness with firearms on the preserves. Most of them observe carefully all the rules of the game.