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Forums10
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Apr 29th, 2024
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 683
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 683 |
It's not a sport, it's a trade. Market hunting is illegal in the US, same for game animals matter.
Also restrictions on bore size for hunting, as you no doubt know.
Last edited by Genelang; 05/30/12 01:54 PM.
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Joined: Mar 2006
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Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 1,232 |
How is making one shot with a punt gun and killing a dozen ducks after rowing and skulling the boat all morning long against a strong tide while risking life and limb so much more wrong than sitting in a warm dry duck blind and killing a dozen ducks with their feet down over decoys with 12 shots?
Wonko you obviously know nothing about the sport of punting. A dozen or so ducks is a big shot these days. The boys that do it are just keeping history alive, slaughter doesn't even begin to come into it.
You can actually still legally sell the ducks in the UK but there are no professional gunners left. When you see ducks in the market it's ones that have been killed in driven shoots on estates.
If you punt in England or Scotland you've got to use non-toxic shot in the gun. Steel shot doesn't work with black powder so it's either bismuth or tungsten matrix for the few punters that are left. Can you imagine how much it costs to make just one shot? That's dedication and something to be admired, it's not slaughter and anybody who thinks so is an idiot.
Destry
Out there at the crossroads molding the devil's bullets. - Tom Waits
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,050
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,050 |
Howdy John Punt gun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUiTBC0AfVEThere is available, a video of a punt-gun - in a punt - being fired upon a raft of balloon-ducks at a SxS gathering in Ohio some years ago. If anyone here has the 'puter savvy to post it up, PM me. You and the shooter/owner can work out the M.O. Also, a 4-bore gets touched off on the 'cripples'.
This the same fellow who for years used to fire a blank load from his boat at the Point Mouilee Waterfowl Festival . His grand-daughter, an accomplished duck caller, used to help him by being the 'powder monkey'. He has restored an impressive number of West End of Lake Erie/Detroit River fowling craft, as well.
Anyone interested in the waterfowling clubs, boats and history of the area would find him a solid and documented source. He really needs a dedicated museum to house the material, and a ghost author to produce 'the book.'
Good Shooting
T.C.
The Green Isle
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Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 1,232 |
A close friend of mine is handing the gun in that video. Very interesting needless to say.
DLH
Out there at the crossroads molding the devil's bullets. - Tom Waits
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,050
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,050 |
Thanks for the interesting piece of information Lagopus, ...... did not know about the UBoat profile. Cannons over here too Joe! A famous (over here anyway) Wildfowler called Abel Chapman took his punt gun and outfit to hunt in Spain at the turn of the century (see his book Wild Spain) and they made him register it as a vessel of war which effectively made him part of the Spanish Navy. Punt gunning was not practiced during the war for the fear of being mistaken in profile for a U Boat.
Some years back I had the chance of a 1 1/2" breech loader but it meant a trip all the way to Inverness in Scotland so I passed on it. Something I have since regretted. Lagopus.....
Good Shooting
T.C.
The Green Isle
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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 |
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
Wonko you obviously know nothing about the sport of punting.
That's dedication and something to be admired, it's not slaughter and anybody who thinks so is an idiot.
Destry
Dr. Wonko you must be insane arguing with an idiot. 
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Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,050 |
Re Irish Tom:
The following is from a press release by British Association of Shooting and Conservation in 2001 when it was put on permanent display at the headquarters in Rossett.
"In the 1930s the gun was bought from a professional wildfowler in Ireland by Stanley Duncan, founder of BASC's predecessor WAGBI (The Wildfowlers' Association of Great Britain and Ireland). It was regularly used by by Stanley Duncan from 1936 until the second world war. After that it was acquired and used by actor James Robertson Justice during his many wildfowling exploits on the Wash. It even spent a night at the bottom of the river Welland, to be retrieved at low tide the next day. For a number of years the gun was lost, but is believed to have had a brief incarnation as a builder's scaffolding pole. Now of too large a bore to shoot waterfowl legally, it was rediscovered in an Inverness boatyard in 1981 and restored before being presented to BASC.
Keen southcoast wildfowler Lee Freeston has raised funds from fellow wildfowlers across the country to put Irish Tom on permanent display, with the final amount needed coming from the recent East Coast Wildfowlers' Conference. The conference also donated 100 to the Wildlife Habitat Trust, the conservation fund for sporting shooting in the U.K., which has so far made possible the investment of over 1m in land and habitat conservation.
Tony Laws, Director of Conservation at BASC said "We are delighted that the East Coast Wildfowling Conference has made these two important contributions. One will allow the final preservation of part of our sporting heritage, the second will contribute to the future of our sport and our countryside" "
Good Shooting
T.C.
The Green Isle
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Joined: Jan 2006
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Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 15,456 Likes: 86 |
Just because it was a sad part of our past doesn't make it sporting.
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Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 12,743
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 12,743 |
Those millions of birds decimate crops, not something I recall ducks being noted for Thats because we don't have ducks in that number anymore. Primary reason is loss of breeding grounds. I do recall reading about (Before my time) when the rice farmers of Arkansas were running Ads in the big Up-East newspapers begging duck hunters to come to Arkansas. They would house, feed & supply them with shells if they'd just come kill them pesky ducks. Seems they were devasting the rice crop. It was stated that much of the rice had alreaded been reaped & was in shocks awaiting threshing & the ducks would fly into the shocks until they knocked them to the ground where they could better get to the grain. The farmers didn't really care what kind of guns they shot as long as they killed a "Bunch of Ducks".
Miller/TN
I Didn't Say Everything I Said, Yogi Berra
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Posts: 7,703 Likes: 103
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 7,703 Likes: 103 |
I never heard any stories in Argentina about poisoning doves off the crops, but I heard plenty regarding the damage the ducks would do. I was told that the local farmers near Esquina would poison 10,000 ducks every night until they could get the crops out...Geo
All hearsay, but that's what I was told by the locals.
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