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Forums10
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Apr 26th, 2024
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 4,081 Likes: 472
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 4,081 Likes: 472 |
Market hunting in the US using a punt gun wasn't considered a sport or recreation. It was typically done by watermen trying to make a living.
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Joined: Jul 2009
Posts: 196
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jul 2009
Posts: 196 |
Just to put this into perspective, there are probably < 20 active punt gunners in the UK today, and far from shooting "hundreds of sitting waterfowl", the most successful shot in a season - and it may be one of the very few - could be a handful of duck if you are lucky. The average punt-gunner does not get a chance to be out much given conditions are often not right, and the skill involved in approaching a highly cautious and wary quarry are very significant indeed, especially on a strong tide. I doubt any punt-gunner nowadays shoot even close to the number of wildfowl an average shoulder-gunner does, especially one shooting over decoys from a blind.
Read "Morning Flight" by Peter Scott to get a sense as to punt-gunning, although remember this was over 80 yrs ago and there are no where near the same number practicing this skill any longer.
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Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 2,736 Likes: 96
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 2,736 Likes: 96 |
Try also 'Grey Goose' by Michael Bratby. 'The Gun Punt Adventure' by Colin Willock A lot of the older British wildfowling books have chapter devoted to it. One of the best is 'The Complete Wildfowler Ashore and Afloat' by Stanley Duncan and Guy Thorn which has everything you need to know and more besides. Hard to find books but worth the effort. Lagopus.....
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Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 15,456 Likes: 86
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 15,456 Likes: 86 |
Shooting rafting waterfowl by the hundreds
Yessireeeee that's a sport(?) that I'd certainly want to romanticize. Maybe someone could come up w/ a marathon hog butchering video. I mean, if you want to talk about doing manly things w/ manly men WOW that'd be one to see!!
WTF are you people thinking anyway??
have a day
Dr.WtS I remember it like it was yesterday...  I made a similar remark several years ago and Destry/Markethunter has been pouting and raising hell ever since.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 13,149 Likes: 1147
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 13,149 Likes: 1147 |
Best article I ever read about punt-gunning was in a sporting clays mag about 15 yrs. ago. It was about an old-timer on the Chesapeake, if I recall correctly. His gun slipped the gimbal mount and recoiled into him, knocking him out of his punt, nearly freezing him in the bay before a game warden who heard the shot found him. Well written story. Wish I could read it again.
SRH
May God bless America and those who defend her.
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Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 12,743
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 12,743 |
Shooting rafting waterfowl by the hundreds
Yessireeeee that's a sport(?) that I'd certainly want to romanticize. Don't see much difference in this than shooting a thousand or so birds a day with 3-4 boys picking up. You just use less shells & I do believe these guys retrieve their own birds.
Miller/TN
I Didn't Say Everything I Said, Yogi Berra
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Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 15,456 Likes: 86
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 15,456 Likes: 86 |
All they need to do is offer Argentina punt gunning and some idiot will pay to go.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,737
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,737 |
Well, Wonko, tell me the difference between that and "dove shoots" down in South America where guys sweat in the heat for 8 hours a day engaged in a massacre of large proportion.
And then get up the next day and do it again...and again....
You get the picture
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Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 4,081 Likes: 472
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 4,081 Likes: 472 |
There was a book out of the tidewater of VA/MD, The Outlaw Gunner by Harry Walsh. He detailed the legal and illegal market hunters and their techniques including punt guns, trapping, night shooting, live duck tolling, etc.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,278 Likes: 11
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,278 Likes: 11 |
Well, Wonko, tell me the difference between that and "dove shoots" down in South America where guys sweat in the heat for 8 hours a day engaged in a massacre of large proportion.
And then get up the next day and do it again...and again....
You get the picture I'm not in love w/ that either BUT they are not the same thing at all. The dove shoots are a great marketing ploy that make money from pest eradication. Those bazillions of doves being shot provide a nice income that would otherwise be an expense to poison the roosts. Those millions of birds decimate crops, not something I recall ducks being noted for. I understand market hunting just fine. I do NOT understand so-called sportsmen romanticizing slaughtering wild fowl any more than I would understand hunters speaking glowingly of their fave old time cattle butcher. again - WTF is wrong w/ you people? If you think just having a gun in it makes something wonderful I got some real bad news for you. have a day Dr.WtS
Dr.WtS
Mysteries of the Cosmos Unlocked
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