hunting more prevalent than at the wild-celery lakes of Lake Surprise,

Stephenson’s Lake and the smaller nearby Lake Wallis (Chambers County). These

three lakes made up the pre-eminent canvasback hunting grounds on the Texas

coast.Of the

three lakes, Lake Surprise was regarded as the most preeminent canvasback

shooting country in the U.S. That said by none other than well-respected Emerson

Hough, a well-respected columnist for the prestigious outdoor journal of its time, the Forest

and Stream.In

January 1889, a party of Chicago sportsmen visit Lake Stephenson for canvasback

shooting. They reported when returning to Chicago that the canvasbacks swarmed

in the thousands, and the numbers surpassed anything they had hoped for. Market

hunters were among them. One Chicago game commission man was sending two or

three barrels of canvasbacks to Chicago every day, packed on ice, which

required daily trips of a sailing vessel to Galveston.