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Punt guns


Manish
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18 hours ago, Dogs said:

Hi anyone know the " record "  for birds taken with a punt gun ?  In a single shot ? And where ?

There is a recorded record of a big shot at Brent geese by an armada of punters in the Blackwater Estuary on the Essex coast. IIRC, it's mentioned in one of James Wentworth Day's books, 600 odd geese seems to jump into my mind.

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20 hours ago, Big Mat said:

You've more chance of getting my Labrador to paint the Mona Lisa than get that info out of punt gunners!

Never a truer word spoken , Punt gunners and pigeon shooters are worlds apart and as different from chalk and cheese when it comes to telling about bags , where pigeon shooters ( some , not all ) glorify in displaying a large bag by posing with the bag laid out in front , punt gunners and even general wild fowlers like to keep there bigger bags ( and some smaller ones ) to themselves  .

In reality , punt gunners bags are a lot less than people believe , like pigeon shooting and wild fowling the more you do the more chance in dropping on the odd good bag , but if they are like me you will get a lot of mediocre bags to every odd good one .

As for numbers , I could have well witness the last punt gun shot before it was stopped on our estuary in 1968 , some of the waders were on the list then and this shot was fired at a huge bunch that were resting on the highest bit of salting that was surrounded by water , after the shot was fired the gunner took a sack and put the dead and dying into it , me and my mate went on the saltings after he left and managed to fill a pail up with mainly Knot and a few Shanks , we never did find out what X picked up but at a guess , including what we picked  it could have been close to three figures.

Remember , this was in the 60s , well over 50 years ago , before the ban on lead and when some of the waders were on the list , all this is now in the history books and that's where it will stay, never again to be repeated .

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I`m not entirely sure that talking about numbers on an open forum, taken entirely out of context, is a good idea in todays climate of hatred and misrepresentation towards shooting.

I can tell you that the average shot with a punt gun kills about 8 birds and you`d be lucky to fire two shots in ten outings.

There is a popular misconception that the punter kills a huge number with each shot. It simply isn`t true in this day and age. Some of the things worth bearing in mind when reflecting upon some of the shots of yesteryear might be:

That the birds to which some of the large bags are accredited are now protected.

That guns with a now illegal bore size were in common use. Peter Scott, for example,founder of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust used a two inch gun as did many others.

The weather played a large part in most of the historical accounts of punting and it was generally reckoned that a week of arctic frost was required to "tame" the fowl before any account could be taken. Such weather today would automatically result in a suspension of shooting.

There are many other reasons why modern bags are much reduced but it should be bourne in mind that todays punt gunners partake of it simply to keep an ancient tradition requiring huge skill, alive. It isn`t about killing large numbers of birds.

I know some of the numbers of birds killed in the past but they bear no relation to a sport that is still practiced and I hope you`ll forgive me if I, and others, keep them to ourselves.

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Not long after watching the last of the Chris Green dvds I got at Christmas.

Interesting to see he has added another barrel to his Puntgun outfit in the form of a 12bore barrel separate to his (Triple Thunder) gun. The idea is to fire this first to make the birds jump before he fires the triple barrel when the birds are in the air.

I believe the old gunners used to hit the punt a loud whack to make the birds jump before pulling the lanyard.

What are the Puntgunners thoughts on the system Chris Green has employed?

Liking the big Single 8 he has aquired also.

 

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puntgunners are remarkedly coy about their bags, 

Only once I have been present on an estuary when a puntgunner took a shot, the result was 60+ teal I understand.  He was certainly cripple stopping for some time aftrewards. 

 

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21 minutes ago, scolopax said:

puntgunners are remarkedly coy about their bags, one could say somewhat embarrassed.

 

Only once I have been present on an estuary when a puntgunner took a shot, the result was 60+ teal I understand.  He was certainly cripple stopping for some time aftrewards. 

You only need to see some of the few photos or even videos out there to see that there are still big shots taken, both at ducks and geese.

I don’t think there coy or embarrassed 

more sensible 

as there’s a lot that are jealous of there skills and patience 

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25 minutes ago, scolopax said:

puntgunners are remarkedly coy about their bags, one could say somewhat embarrassed.

 

Only once I have been present on an estuary when a puntgunner took a shot, the result was 60+ teal I understand.  He was certainly cripple stopping for some time aftrewards. 

You only need to see some of the few photos or even videos out there to see that there are still big shots taken, both at ducks and geese.

I certainly wouldn’t say embarrassed, simply sensible! Game shooting, pigeon shooting and now ‘trophy hunters’ have put themselves in the firing line for pictures of their “bags”. Why on earth would we want to invite criticism, whether a big or small shot!

I’d also be interested to see any photos and especially videos of shots that you have found ‘out there’, particularly ones taken recently that show big shots are still taken!

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12 minutes ago, Pushandpull said:

I am not really sure why so many shooters (of all sorts) take "pictures of dead things". i understand even less why they feel the need to show their photos to the online world.

It's the modern method of sitting by the camp fire swapping yarns.

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