On September 30, 1896, eighty-two wagons (with two to eight hunters each) lined a one-mile stretch of dirt road heading into the Black Sloughs west of Salt Lake City.  Camps sprang up in the marshes with anxious hunters crowding around campfires while other hunters reported to previously constructed cabins.  Local papers reported that just two sporting goods stores alone had sold over two hundred thousand shotgun shells (two cents each) and rented two hundred shotguns.  A widely practiced fall ritual, born of the unnumbered flocks of migrating waterfowl drawn to the Great Salt Lake, was underway.  Opening day was tomorrow. 

            Each year, growing thousands of hunters would make their way to camps in marshes that stretched unbroken for miles from the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake.  By 1900, the newspapers reported that 2,000 duck hunters were in the marshes of the Jordan River and Black Sloughs for opening day.

As the new century took hold a new phenomenon was occurring.  What began with a fabled duck club in the 1880’s on the marshes surrounding Utah Lake[1] spread north to the marshes around the Great Salt Lake.  According to news reports in the early 1900’s, the duck hunting on Utah Lake was ruined by the introduction of carp.  The pre-carp quality of Utah Lake is reflected in a hunting and fishing trip in the early 1870’s, likely November, recorded by Wilford Woodruff.  Along with a friend, he reported catching 150 ducks, 8 geese and “a ton of fish”.  He may have used the word “ton” quite literally as he would often fish the lake in the 1860’s and 1870’s with men using nets who would catch hundreds of pounds of trout in a single haul.  It was, he reported, “the best place for fishing trout I ever [saw].”

Most fresh water wetlands existed on private land and as the local population grew so too did the demand for access to quality waterfowling.  With a bag limit of 40 ducks, everyone wanted a spot where they could take a limit. The generous limits were intended to curb the excesses of the unregulated market hunting era.  The largest single day bag by a Utah hunter that I have found was by Vince Davis at the mouth of the Bear who claims to have killed 350 ducks in one day – and 7,000 in a sixty-one day stretch.

Over the next 15 years, most of the private marshland around the lake became appropriated by numerous duck clubs.  Often the land was only leased; however, in many cases the clubs owned it outright.  On the north end of the lake, a group of wealthy Denver, Chicago and East Coast hunters incorporated the Bear River Club, merely 6,000 acres at the time (but soon doubled in size) with a fancy steam heated lodge.  Specially constructed boats (the “finest of their kind”) would ferry the out of state sports down the Bear River to the club.  Duckville and many others followed suit.  By opening day 1906, scores of hunters “from around the country” were arriving in Ogden by train to make their way to the Bear River area.

On the south end of the lake, the pressure to form clubs came from local citizens.  According to the reports, by 1904 virtually every pond within the local flyway had been appropriated by a duck club.   This led to some controversy as interest in duck hunting was reaching a fever pitch.  Most clubs catered to the middle class rather than the captains of industry.

                An article in 1904 also noted that the “old hunters and the true sportsmen, however, welcome the advent of the duck club as a protection to the birds.”  It reported that the clubs hired men to control predators during the nesting season and “other clubs feed the ducks during the season by scattering grain over the lands of their reserve.”  How thoughtful.

An article in 1902 also reported that “from the mouth of the Jordan to Decker’s lake there will be one stream of fire that in a distance will look not unlike the long snake-lake blaze on a prairie fire.  The booming of the thousands of guns will resemble a battle going on between this city and the lake.”

The papers described the scene in Salt Lake City on the eve of the 1904 duck season:  “No, brown canvas suits are not the fall style for men’s wear.  A stranger in Salt Lake yesterday might have thought the male population of Zion had adopted a new style of clothing consisting of a brown canvas cap, coat, trousers and rubber boots.  Hundreds of them were seen.”  That year, the papers declared that “duck hunting could properly be called the national sport of Utah.”  Hunters were known to use “horses, bicycles, wagons and carts of all descriptions” to get to the hunting grounds but starting in 1904, there was the expectation that hunters would increasingly use the “red devil” automobile to get to the marshes.

The Deseret News in 1905 extolled the “gentle art of duck hunting” and predicted that the future of duck hunting lay with the man who would retreat to the marsh for relaxation and rejuvenation rather than market gunning.  In 1906, the papers reported that one south shore club had purchased 15,000 shotgun shells and expected they would only last a few days.  Around the same time (give or take a year), a north shore club ordered 25,000 shotgun shells.

            Papers began editorializing about the loss of public access while acknowledging that the clubs had brought more and better managed habitat leading to increased bird numbers.  This controversy would ultimately result in the state developing marshes such as the Public Shooting Grounds (1925) and, later, Ogden Bay, Farmington Bay and others.  There was also common recognition that the clubs provided the impetus for regulated hunting and away from the excessive harvest of the market shooting era and spring hunting.  The club grounds, where most of the market hunting had taken place, were managed to satisfy the club members’ interest in quality hunting rather than resource extraction.  At the same time, there was a good deal of sympathy for the market hunter, who hunted to support himself and supplied the population with wild game.

            By 1908, 17,000 licenses had been sold by the end of August with “many more taken out [in September].”  The papers noted that “thousands of acres of worthless land have been turned into excellent feeding and breeding places by these same clubs.  Water has been turned onto dry land by ditches and dams which shelter millions of ducks where before none could be found.  These ducks are protected by the clubs’ hired deputies far better than the state wardens could do.  Wild rice has been planted by the acre to make feeding grounds, and the nests in the spring of the year have been protected from wild animals that prey on duck eggs. . . Each year the duck clubs increase in number, and of late years each new club is made by impounding water and planting feed on ground heretofore entirely barren.”[2]

On October 1, 1908, “[t]he scene west of the city during the night before the opening and yesterday is the old familiar one to those who have witnessed them.  During the night small red spots scattered as far as one could see denoted the campfires, around which from half a dozen to twenty or thirty hunters awaited the coming of daylight.  Hardly had the first streaks of dawn appeared over the eastern mountains when the banging of the scattergun began.”[3]  The consensus was that the hunting was getting better each year. The local hunting stores expected to sell six million shotgun shells during the season.

The clubs themselves began to prompt changes on other environmental issues that likely would have been delayed by decades in their absence.  In 1909 and 1910, they protested abysmal water quality that was blamed for the deaths of thousands of ducks and the ducks being banned from the markets of Salt Lake City (where a brace of mallards could be had for about 75 cents and a pair of teal went for 45 cents).[4]  This resulted in changes that eventually brought cleaner water.  The clubs were the impetus behind ending spring shooting and market hunting.  The clubs constructed dikes and dams, planted vegetation and “fed” the ducks.  Some changes had unintended consequences.  In March 1907, club dikes in the Black Sloughs and on the New State were dynamited to allow high water to flow more quickly to the lake.  It was reported that the entire area of the Black Sloughs and north to the lake (seven miles) were inundated with six inches to five feet of water with several barns and chicken coops “floating about in the water”.

The habitat was reported to produce prodigious numbers of ducks with cinnamon teal and redhead making up the vast majority of nesting birds.  The ducks most commonly harvested were typically reported to be greenwing teal, pintails, gadwall, mallard and widgeon.

Clubs along the south end of the lake stretched north and south, east and west for miles.  The New Moon Club, Decker Lake Club and Church Farm Club were among the popular clubs south of 1200 South and from the Jordan to several miles west of Redwood Road.  These clubs predominantly drew divers due to their deeper waters.  Further north and east, hunters frequented the Warm Springs Lake, Hot Springs Club and other locales.

The clubs south of the freeway are all under pavement or, in the case of Decker Lake, surrounded by Kentucky Bluegrass and offices.  Those closer to the mountains (the Warm Springs Lake and Hot Springs) are under refineries and industrial complexes.

By Jack Ray