everyWEDNESDAY
The weekly feature page of the University Daily Kansan November 16, 1977
They come from all over the country to Sumner, Mo., including the kids in the Tri-County Sure Shots Club, whose only goose all season wasn't shot but found in the bush and beaten with a stick. The old-timers come too, but are too old to do anything but talk about hunting.
Yet everyone seems to enjoy . . .
Hunting
in the 'GOOSE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD'
Little piles of brush and old rags are scattered throughout muddy grainfields and perched on platforms in dead-looking timber in the countryside around Sumner,
Len Berke, St. Louis, wanders among geese decoys placed around his blind.
The little piles of brush are duck blacks. Inside, small groups of hunters peer at the sky, waiting for an uncautious goose or duck to stray from nearby Swan Lake Wildlife Refuge, where they are preformed "Gosse Capital of the World," the hunters were not having much luck.
Some hunters grumbled about the weather and some grumbled about their shooting skills, but most of them agreed on one fact—the more than 200,000 wild game birds at the nearby preserve were not going far from home.
Some also said they enjoyed bringing people with them when they ventured out in the mud and cold. Members of a hunting club from near Sedalia, Mo., the Tri-County Sure Shots, said that the fellowship during winter was the most important part of the sport.
SURE SHOTS MEMBER Charles Rayi
bringing home game from his hunting trips.
brating home game from his hunting trips.
"Shoot, I don't care about an out goose." Other hunters said that the experience of being outside was more important to them than actually shooting a duck or goose.
Bill Davis, 43, from St. Charles, Mo., said the beauty of the birds on the water at daybreak was one thing he enjoyed about goose hunting.
"You should have been here really early and those seee gossips rising off the lake," he said. "That sun coming up, that red sunrise, that chaparral rising off the lake. It was beautiful."
ONE HUNTER had more on his mind than just the beauty of the scenery. Me尔Doernehoefer, 49, a hunter from St. Louis, said that he had been hunted for many years and was beginning to notice a new breed of hunters in the sport.
"I like to see that, besides hunt," he said. Davis pointed through the branches around the top of his tree blind and described the early morning scene.
"You have to be a pro and you have to be successful; you have to study." he said.
Dhoernoehl said that he had been hunting ducks since he was five years old and that he thought the relaxation of the sport was as well as the friendship among hunters.
Doernheefer said that study, fancy equipment and expensive rigs were not important when he began hunting many years ago.
"My style of hunting is fast coming to a close."
"THEIR'S A camaraerie and a kinship duck hunters that's great," he said.
Photos by Randy Olson
Story by Melissa Thompson
But, he added, if a hunter tries to claim someone else's bird before the rightful owner can scramble out of his blind, he probably would have some colorful words
Increased regulation of hunting and
stricter catch limits have not taken any of the fun out of hunting, Doerhoefer said.
A first-time hunter might tell you that the challenge of the kill is nothing compared to
the thrill of watching one's bagged bird be dressed for the oven.
C. L. Lewis, Columbia, Mo., watched as his first goose was plucked, gutted and sacked. Workers at the plant where Lewis took his prize said they could take a bird from full feather to bare skin in 10 minutes or less.
BACK IN TOWN, a few blocks from Summer's 40-foot statue of 'Maxie, the Largest Goose Statue in the World," a retired hunter sat on the steps of an old building and expressed his discontent with the state of hunting.
The man, Walter Wheelbarger, 67, is a lifetime resident of Summer and was a hunter for many years before poor health forced him to quit. He said there was less competition among hunters in the "old days."
In spite of his discontent with the change in the spirit of hunters, Wheelbarger said he begged for a change.
"It kid of gets under your skin," he said wistfully.
Fabian Simpson and Water Wheelbarre are two older veterans of Summer geese hunts Below, C.L Lewis, Columbia, Mo., watches as his goose gets a three-dollar dressing.