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listen to her when she is in the punt (punt gunning pretend)............as she tells of these gunners how they shoot flocks of snipe...............these people really need to do their homework before opening their mouths............

Did they not shoot snipe from punts then? Fascinating program, a proper versatile boat.

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Did they not shoot snipe from punts then? Fascinating program, a proper versatile boat.

No is your short answer , all forms of wading birds when they were legal quarry were shot by pushing on to a flock , or shoulder gunning in the concealed punt at Curlew and Whimbel , but I had never shot a Snipe out of a punt or anyone else who I knew come to that , in the early days it was done to make a living and to feed the family as there were very few hand outs and certainly no food banks to go to each week , also no one would waste a cartridge on a Snipe with very little meat to gain of it .

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No is your short answer , all forms of wading birds when they were legal quarry were shot by pushing on to a flock , or shoulder gunning in the concealed punt at Curlew and Whimbel , but I had never shot a Snipe out of a punt or anyone else who I knew come to that , in the early days it was done to make a living and to feed the family as there were very few hand outs and certainly no food banks to go to each week , also no one would waste a cartridge on a Snipe with very little meat to gain of it .

Could it have been happening in 1774?

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Could it have been happening in 1774?

Snipe were / are mainly walked up, and in some places I believe down Devon or Cornwall they do try and drive them towards a group of guns , although the Snipe I have put up tend to go in any direction and don't have any set pattern .

 

I cant vouch for 1774 and unless you haven't got any access on foot over a flooded area I really cant see any point in trying to shoot Snipe out of a gun punt , driven Coot yes , but that's another story .

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I cant vouch for 1774 and unless you haven't got any access on foot over a flooded area I really cant see any point in trying to shoot Snipe out of a gun punt

So looking like it did happen as the women said quoting from a book then.....

these people really need to do their homework before opening their mouths............

Yes- you do 😂

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I have deleted this so can not be sure of the exact words. However it is very easy to say something a little incorrect when on camera - maybe the chaps had said to her (say) that Dunlin were "like Snipe". Orford's "Voyage around the Fens" has many references to catching and eating fish but not as I recall anything about puntgunning, and I have just had a quick look through to check.

 

At least we were spared the stuff about hundreds of birds being killed, and punting was fairly described in a historical context. The researcher for this programme was trying to contact people with punts all over East Anglia back in the spring and there was considerable concern about what nonsense they might come up with.

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An interesting read - with a lot about punt gunning (and other forms of shooting and fishing) is 'The Diary of Colonel Peter Hawker'. For those who don't know, Peter Hawker lived from 1786 to 1853 and kept a diary most of his adult life. This has been edited (I understand to remove family matters) and was originally published circa 1900 and has been in print on and off since (in both 1 and 2 volume editions). He was a big supporter and friend of Joseph Manton (the gunmaker to whom most of the 'major names' were apprenticed) and who could be regarded as one of the main figures in gunmaking history. Repro copies are widely available

Edited by JohnfromUK
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The 2 volume edition was edited by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey and published in 1893 and paints a strange picture of a solitary supershot which didn't really fit with his life as known from other sources. Eric Parker traced the original diary text (edited to remove family matters) and published the 1 volume version in 1931. RPG had removed most references to Hawker's companions, servants, and even his wife who would shoot and fish with him, so that a day's bag is attributed to Hawker alone. The latter version depicts a sociable man, still full of energy and enthusiasm, but not at all as RPG had shown him. It is hard to understand Payne-Gallwey's motives.

 

Mudpatten on here knows a lot more, especially about the odd side of Payne-Gallwey, and there is a chap down in the West Country who has been researching Hawker and his times for years - perhaps he will publish one day.

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listen to her when she is in the punt (punt gunning pretend)............as she tells of these gunners how they shoot flocks of snipe...............these people really need to do their homework before opening their mouths............

I picked up on that one ditchman, dont they speak a load of tosh. Why dont they do there research before they put thier foot down thier throat.

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Flocks of small waders were shot with a punt gun in the Victorian period which included starlings in the reed beds then the Victorian punt gunner it was a living with any surplus was sold at market and punt guns were tools of the trade

Feltwad

 

A stand of Fowlers

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I might well had been lucky enough , or unlucky depending on how you look at to witness one of the last punt gun shots fired on our estuary before punt gun shooting was banned in around 1968.

 

I wont go into all the details leading up to the shot , but the old boy at the time was the only active punt gunner left , the shot he took was at a huge flock of mixed wading birds that were resting on the only patch of dry land left on the estuary , he had been punt gunning since the1930s and knew nearly all there was to know about the game , at first when I saw him on this particular day I couldn't work out why he went the long way round to get a shot rather than to cut across in a straight line , then it dawned on me he wanted to take the shot lengthways of the flock to do the most damage instead of just putting a shot through them sideways .

 

Anyhow the shot was taken and from our punt me and my mate watched him pull his boat up onto the mud bank and start filling his sack up with the spoils , we carried on our way and left him to it , on the way back we rowed across to the rond to see if we could find the odd one that he couldn't , well to cut a long story short , we found a half bucket full of different waders and how many ole George found this is something we will never find out , but I wouldn't had been surprised if it was around three figures ,

 

Nowadays there would be members on here saying if he wasn't sure what he was firing at then he shouldn't have fired and so on , these people were hard and stubborn and didn't like anyone else telling them what to do and what not to do and just got on with what they were good at , now the ole gunners, along with Feltwads lovely collection of fowling pieces will never be fired again in anger , R I P George

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 22/10/2017 at 14:54, Pushandpull said:

there is a chap down in the West Country who has been researching Hawker and his times for years - perhaps he will publish one day.

There is certainly a plan to! I know he found a lot of I tersti g material more recently but still needs to put it together.

there will be another interesting book coming out at some point in the not too distant future about a well know double gun too!

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