Page 27 DECOYING WITH FOOD.

DECOYING WITH FOOD.

FEEDING.

    Food is also used to attract the fowl far enough up the pipe to enable the Decoyman to cut off their retreat back again to the pond.
    Feeding is one of the cleverest arts of the Decoyman, and one only learnt by long experience. The secret of it consists in just knowing how to give both the tame ducks, and the wild ones that are following them, as much grain as appeases their hunger for the moment, and the NEXT moment makes them wish for more. As long as the Decoyman can keep the birds exactly in the right state of hunger, he has them, so to speak, under his thumb.
    If too hungry, the tame ducks will rush away from the wild ones up the pipe (who will then fail to follow). If not hungry to a certain extent, they will not come up at all, or if they do, so slowly as to be of little use.     If the wild ducks get too much grain thrown them they will not follow with the tame birds up the pipe, but cluster round the food and remain stationary. All this has to be attended to by the Decoyman when in the act of feeding.
    Tame ducks and wild ducks should be so fed that they mingle together if possible, or at all events swim steadily up the pipe, whether together or separate.
    So that the Decoyman as he walks away from the birds towards the tail of the pipe and behind the screens, gradually, and inch by inch, by judicious throwing of grain over the top of 'each screen in succession-not too much and not too little-draws the fowl after him. He continually peeps through the screens as he passes along their rear to see how matters are progressing in the pipe. Finally, he leads the birds a few yards under the net to the spot in the pipe at which he knows their retreat can be barred by his showing himself at its entrance.
    If wild ducks are very hungry they will now and then swim up a pipe after the food without the Decoyman using the tame birds to lead the lead the way, as the latter may be out of reach of his whistle across the pond.
    But usually some of the tame Decoys, who are generally paddling about the mouths of the pipes, swim up first, and first commence feeding on the grain thrown into the water, near the entrance of the pipe, of the pipe, by the Decoyman.