Wing Shots

Next fall may be the last good bird and duck hunting season for the duration. Reasons : 1) gunmakers are too swamped with war orders to spare time for sporting arms; 2) the government is taking all new twelve-gauge shotgun shells (most popular size) for aerial gunnery training,-war-plant guards and the police (riot guns). Plenty of ammunition is in stock for this year's expected civilian demand, but there will be little left over.

Meanwhile, if duck hunters can solve the gas and tire problem, this season promises a full game bag. An increase of U.S. waterfowl by one-third (to upwards of 100,000,000) led Secretary of the Interior Ickes to stretch the open season to 70 days (60 last year), the daily shooting period to sunrise to sunset (sunrise to 4 p.m. in previous years). The daily bag limit remains the same: ten.

Silver lining in the potentially empty game pocket: War-restricted hunting, thinks the Fish & Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior, may well mean such a rapid increase in all wild life that the U.S. will once again become a happy hunting ground.

After a six-year postponement forced by the government (presumably for political reasons), Australian soccer players last week pushed hopeful plans for soccer recognition of the Soviets.

*Wing shooting and aerial machine-gunnery are basically the same: the mark is a flying target whose speed and direction must be gauged instantly and automatically. The Army Air Forces is using skeet in training. A team of ten officers and enlisted men from the Flexible Gunnery Schools is entered this week in the national skeet championships at Syracuse, N.Y.

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