THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 20, 1995 TAG: 9512200032
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
JACK DUDLEY, a Morehead, N.C., dentist, has written a splendid book, enriched by remarkable old photographs, that captures the spirit of waterfowl hunting on the wind-whipped marshes, lakes and ponds of coastal Carolina's northeastern sector.
It's called ``Mattamuskeet & Ocracoke Waterfowl Heritage.'' The volume, published by Coastal Heritage Series in Morehead City, is available at all Outer Banks book stores.
To collect stories, information and photos for it, the writer-photographer spent many weekends taking the long journey across Pamlico Sound by ferry.
``I traveled in my truck and usually slept or read on the ferry,'' he said.
The book is extraordinary in its sweep and gives a passing glance at waterfowl hunting, decoy making and conservation today. But it is most interesting for the spirit of the past that it evokes with sensitivity and understanding.
Dudley's work is so encompassing that it's impossible to explain in a few words. Here are some snippets of information gleaned from it that I found interesting.
Glimpses from Ocracoke:
Owen Gaskill of Ocracoke is 80. The bearded fisherman posed outside his house for a photograph and told the author about the night he honked a goose out of the sky.
``I was born and bred right behind the lighthouse,'' he said. ``I honked a goose down one night. He circled the lighthouse three or four times. And I had to jump aside when he landed. . . . I jumped on him. I put him in a pen, fed him corn and put him in a pot.''
Before World War II, tame geese and other waterfowl were more common than chickens on Ocracoke Island. The typical goose ``pound'' was a fenced-in structure about 10 by 30 feet, built so that half was in the water and half on the shore.
Experienced hunters of yore hunted from sink boxes, also known as battery boxes. Each box was painted or aged to a natural color, and heavy weights or iron decoys were placed on the deck to sink the box nearly flush with the water surface. The boxes took such a toll on waterfowl that they were outlawed in 1935.
During World War II, when lumber was scarce, the last two remaining battery boxes on Ocracoke were used to build coffins for the four British sailors who washed ashore after the HMS Bedfordshire was torpedoed by a German submarine. They are buried in the well-known British Sailors' Cemetery at Ocracoke.
The most prolific decoy maker on Ocracoke was George Washington O'Neal, who died in 1949. Most of the bodies were made from juniper cut on the mainland, but some were made from old telephone poles!
Clinton Gaskill, 90, is the oldest hunting guide and the oldest man now living on Ocracoke. Gaskill lives in a small bungalow directly behind the lighthouse.
In the years before 1924, Gaskill served as a hunting guide. ``I had lots of decoys and made many of them myself,'' he said. ``I chopped them out with a hatchet and made the heads out of cedar limbs. I smoothed them down with a plane and a rasp. Some had iron spikes on the bottom, so they wouldn't turn over. . . . I am still a bird carver.''
On Mattamuskeet:
Lake Mattamuskeet, a stone's throw from Pamlico Sound (which is the southernmost limit of the Canada goose) is one of the most famous waterfowl hunting areas in the nation. Mattamuskeet is the largest natural lake in North Carolina. It averages 2 1/2 feet in depth, is 18 miles long and more than 6 miles wide.
The abundance of waterfowl around Mattamuskeet was noted by Thomas Harriott, the scientist who visited Roanoke Island and its environs and wrote a report of his findings in 1588. The lake is named for the Native American Mattamuskeet tribe, which had a reservation on the site in the 1700s.
From the turn of the century until the 1950s, the lake was known as the goose hunting capital of the world. Lake Mattamuskeet was made a national wildlife refuge in 1934. Today there is no goose hunting and limited hunting of swans and ducks there.
From 1900 to 1935, fewer handmade decoys were used for goose hunting at Mattamuskeet than in most places. Instead, hunters preferred live decoys.
The guides would tether live geese to a stake in the shallow water of the lake and sit waiting for geese lured by the ``Judas birds'' to drop down into gunning range. An anchor rope was used to give the live decoys limited swimming and a pedestal slightly covered by water was given to each of the decoy geese for resting.
In the book, there's a wonderful photo of guide Leslie Simmons, whose live Canada goose decoy named Old Tom sits proudly atop a fence post beside him. Sometimes a crippled goose could be domesticated and taught to make motions to lure wild geese. The live decoys were outlawed in 1935 because of their devastating success.
The book, naturally, includes a section on the Mattamuskeet Lodge, probably the nation's best-known hunting lodge in its day. There's a stunning two-page color photo of it in the book. When the lodge was full, Dudley notes, it took two people just to cook the oyster fritters.
With its flying goose weather vane atop a terra cotta roof, the striking structure remains a symbol of the heyday of waterfowl hunting at Mattamuskeet. And of the North Carolina coast. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo from "Mattamuskeet & Ocracoke Waterfowl Heritage"
[Mattamuskeet Lodge]
by CNB