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Stanley Duncan Wildfowler


moongeese
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Books , lack of space and that terror of old books , Foxing - the mold on the page type. I gave away most of my books and it was hard to find anybody who wanted them , kept some though .

The Web has its uses and what follows is one of them . Sometime back I started looking for Col Hawkers Books and RPG  and other fowlers books and found a few sites that had these books online and available to download . Long story short I now have close to 400 books on all shooting and fishing subjects from the 1800s , on my I pad , many have superb illustrations of our quarry , I love the old art works . So for those with little space or wanting a different read dive into the link below , all Free though for some books to read you will need to register . A few tips , on the bottom of the page you will find associated recommendations - also follow the publishers ,  co authors link to other relevant books . One last tip , a lot of those books had several editions which can vary a lot and also some have several scannings one of which might be a cleaner book to read .

So Stanley Duncans book The Complete Wildfowler  you will find here , Enjoy , hopefully it will shorten the winter for some ,

https://archive.org/search.php?query=PUNT GUNS&sin=TXT

 

    

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All my friends say this looks like something there grandad would have. I’m 28 years old! Made the bookshelf myself out of ash. Collection of shooting books mostly on fowling. My diary’s I’ve kept for over 12 years now and various magazines , articles etc on fowling in my local area.Theres still mad keen young Fowler’s out there who enjoy a read and some collectables to look at.. 

F98EAB94-92F3-4805-9ADD-D9E68A2B6590.jpeg

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I couldn't bear to sell my wild fowling books , bought my first one well over 50 years ago which were mainly local ones by Savory and Wentworth Day , then when I first got married my wife would buy me a dearer one for Christmas , these would be by another local author Arthur Patterson , some of them are now over 100 years old and at the time when bought they were quite expensive , I know the first one was £55 , my wife left ten pounds deposit and paid the rest when she picked it up , well that is what it say on the inside cover , like all books , some I struggled to get into them and others I couldn't put down , the one I am reading at the moment is Nights Out With An Old Gunner by C J Cornish , this was published in 1897 and to be honest , I have read better ones

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36 minutes ago, marsh man said:

I couldn't bear to sell my wild fowling books , bought my first one well over 50 years ago which were mainly local ones by Savory and Wentworth Day , then when I first got married my wife would buy me a dearer one for Christmas , these would be by another local author Arthur Patterson , some of them are now over 100 years old and at the time when bought they were quite expensive , I know the first one was £55 , my wife left ten pounds deposit and paid the rest when she picked it up , well that is what it say on the inside cover , like all books , some I struggled to get into them and others I couldn't put down , the one I am reading at the moment is Nights Out With An Old Gunner by C J Cornish , this was published in 1897 and to be honest , I have read better ones

Good evening MM.

I too have a copy of 'Nights out with an Old Gunner' by C.J.Cornish published in 1897 and noticed that it has presumably the owner's signature in it, which looks like 'P.G.Lyster January 1898'. Also it has been embossed with an address of 'Snowre Hall, Downham, Norfolk. Will have to do a bit of googling on the address and name. I have so far found reference to a 'Snore Hall' and a 'Snowre Hall', both with the same address. Perhaps a change of name over the years.

 I bought the book for £8 in a junk shop about 10 years ago.

Happy New Year,

OB

 

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On 02/01/2020 at 20:01, jonnybgood said:

All my friends say this looks like something there grandad would have. I’m 28 years old! Made the bookshelf myself out of ash. Collection of shooting books mostly on fowling. My diary’s I’ve kept for over 12 years now and various magazines , articles etc on fowling in my local area.Theres still mad keen young Fowler’s out there who enjoy a read and some collectables to look at.. 

F98EAB94-92F3-4805-9ADD-D9E68A2B6590.jpeg

Good Lad! Never worry what your mates or anyone else thinks for that matter!

Books can take you to magical places that some will never comprehend .Nice job on your bookcase also!

On 02/01/2020 at 09:33, moongeese said:

A good friend of mine, just sold his lifelong collection of wildfowling books, he said he was surprized he got £300 for them, but was not near what he had paid for them. Also being at an age of unloading , I put my books together in a large box, but have not been able to bring myself round to selling them yet. My friends son, also a wildfowler, had no interest in his dads books,  , and I also feel youngsters nowadays are not growing up reading books like we did, only playing on their electronic toys. 

All the things we took an interest in, WAGBI memorabilia, Wildfowling Club Badges, Old Loading Tools, Old shotgun cartridges etc are out of fashion with young people, I know my son has no interest in my stuff, only what they are worth !!!.

As I suspected. 

I have no intention of selling my Wildfowling books and to be honest I wouldn't accept £300 for them.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 02/01/2020 at 09:33, moongeese said:

A good friend of mine, just sold his lifelong collection of wildfowling books, he said he was surprized he got £300 for them, but was not near what he had paid for them. Also being at an age of unloading , I put my books together in a large box, but have not been able to bring myself round to selling them yet. My friends son, also a wildfowler, had no interest in his dads books,  , and I also feel youngsters nowadays are not growing up reading books like we did, only playing on their electronic toys. 

All the things we took an interest in, WAGBI memorabilia, Wildfowling Club Badges, Old Loading Tools, Old shotgun cartridges etc are out of fashion with young people, I know my son has no interest in my stuff, only what they are worth !!!.

Bill same as you been collecting bits and bobs all my shooting life, and bought the first item over 4 decades ago. I Still have it including a lovely letter from you a few years back with pinks flighting on the page thanking me for I think a 4 bore shell ? All the big guns have gone but still got a fair collection of memorabilia / cartridges etc only recently moving it to a bigger room and I have started buying stuff again . My son who was a young wildfowler has no interest in it at all so it looks like when i hang my waders up and go it will all be sold or thrown into the skip !

Edited by Double four
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Bill I forgot I have been fortunate enough to have owned and used one of Stanley Duncan’s old guns, it was a William ford chamberless 10ga effectively an 8g it was engraved with pongo his dog and him punting on the Humber bit of a rubbish photo but the best I have on my phone


 

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Edited by Double four
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I love my books , and have book cases full of them , but agree , some I have read countless times others I struggle with. I bought A Wildfowler in Scotland recently and loved it as I know the firths and can relate to them , but then bought Hawkers Diaries and Instructions to Young sportsmen and found both the Diaries and Instructions disappointing and would happily swop or sell for other fowling books. 

 

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What are your favourite wildfowling books and why ? My favourite is BB 's Tides Ending as it's the first fowling book I read

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As a 14 year old schoolboy getting into wildfowling, the first wildfowling book I read was Hawkers Instructions To young Sportsmen, and this sparked a lifelong interest  in punt guns, and large bore shotguns  for me. I have his diary's and they are an interesting view of life, and wildfowling at that time, but they are not my favourite . The Wildfowler in Scotland I also like as I can relate the places visited. A great little book of its time was Goose Shooting by the Shooting Times Library , A. Cadman, if a beginner, there is a lot of good information in it. But in all honesty very difficult to pick the best book, a lot have different merits.

Edited by moongeese
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I think deep down we enjoy the fowling books that were local to where we were brought up and where many of us are still shooting , in my case it was books like , Norfolk Fowler , Wildfowlers and Poachers , Broadland Adventures and so on .

I read the old books and think as far as the fowling is concerned I was born a few years to late , and yet we have now got more geese coming down here than we did in the so called good ole days , same with duck , many years ago one of the regular reporters who was also a very good wildfowler wrote in his weekly article in the local paper, that after a spell of hard weather the estuary was full of duck and the most he had ever seen , he estimated at the time there were around 6 / 7000 assorted duck that had came to open water with the Broads frozen over , now that number would be a average year with many years reaching into double figures .

Maybe we look back to a time when the first ducks and geese meant a lot more to us then than they do now and by reading some of the old books we can still go back to the places where we first started, and when a duck or a goose was in the bag made you feel as if you had won a gold medal .

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Like greenshank 1 ''Tides Ending'' was the first Wildfowling book I read. It set me off on a journey with 'BB' and his works. I've read about 20 of his books.

Tides Ending was my favourite for awhile but I now prefer ''Manka the Sky Gipsy''  My Fowling books gave me a deep fascination about Norfolk/The Wash/Fens ect..!

I too found Hawkers diaries tough going but finished both of them. I've read around 80 books on Wildfowling and two that I keep going back to are Ian Niall' s ''A Fowlers World'' and John Humphreys ''Hunters Fen''.

I haven't bought a Wildfowling book in years but there are more I want to read at some stage.

Edited by SuperGoose75
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On 28/01/2020 at 09:01, moongeese said:

As a 14 year old schoolboy getting into wildfowling, the first wildfowling book I read was Hawkers Instructions To young Sportsmen, and this sparked a lifelong interest  in punt guns, and large bore shotguns  for me. I have his diary's and they are an interesting view of life, and wildfowling at that time, but they are not my favourite . The Wildfowler in Scotland I also like as I can relate the places visited. A great little book of its time was Goose Shooting by the Shooting Times Library , A. Cadman, if a beginner, there is a lot of good information in it. But in all honesty very difficult to pick the best book, a lot have different merits.

The Cadman books is, as you say, a great little book, as is the accompanying book in the same series, Duck Shooting by Colin Willock. Perhaps my favorite is 'Fowler's Moon' by NIgel Thornycroft.

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On 01/01/2020 at 23:09, SuperGoose75 said:

Not a lot of money you would think for such famous pieces of memorabilia!

Which leads me to the question! Are there much interest in such things by the younger generation of Wildfowlers.

I have a fairly good library of Wildfowling books with some special copies that I paid enough for! But apart from their value and importance to me! Would anyone in this day an age be willing to pay for what they are really worth.

I'd be sceptical enough that they would hold much value.

I'm not so much the youngest generation of wildfowlers but for the 15 odd seasons from my early 20's I have been collecting fowling books - old originals, old reprints, modern and the like. I suspect the £100 odd that I paid for the Wildfowler in Scotland would be hard to sell at that price now. Still, it has been read several times over so at least the cost per read keeps coming down!

The only 'memorabilia' I have is a punt I bought from a chap on the Solway, along with his one and three quarter inch gun. The punt was built with oak frames and three quarter inch larch boards but is in the process of a very slow rebuild as the gunbeam was shot with rot and other bits of rot dotted around the structure. I could have reskinned in fibreglass but then it would not have been a proper punt made with solid timber. I think the OP may well have seen the gun when I took it to his house about five years ago. One day the punt will re-float and the big gun will roar across the mudflats! If anyone wants to join me in the rebuild, some trips afloat will be the reward!

 

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2 hours ago, snowgoose said:

I. One day the punt will re-float and the big gun will roar across the mudflats! If anyone wants to join me in the rebuild, some trips afloat will be the reward!

 

If you lived a bit closer to me Andrew I would have taken up your offer. Best you sell the outfit to me, and I will finish it. Lol

Hope you are well.

Bill

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On 04/02/2020 at 08:50, snowgoose said:

I'm not so much the youngest generation of wildfowlers but for the 15 odd seasons from my early 20's I have been collecting fowling books - old originals, old reprints, modern and the like. I suspect the £100 odd that I paid for the Wildfowler in Scotland would be hard to sell at that price now. Still, it has been read several times over so at least the cost per read keeps coming down!

The only 'memorabilia' I have is a punt I bought from a chap on the Solway, along with his one and three quarter inch gun. The punt was built with oak frames and three quarter inch larch boards but is in the process of a very slow rebuild as the gunbeam was shot with rot and other bits of rot dotted around the structure. I could have reskinned in fibreglass but then it would not have been a proper punt made with solid timber. I think the OP may well have seen the gun when I took it to his house about five years ago. One day the punt will re-float and the big gun will roar across the mudflats! If anyone wants to join me in the rebuild, some trips afloat will be the reward!

 

Yeah I was similar and paid around that mark for a few books.

I have some special copies of Fowling books with personal messages with sketches and tipped in art by renowned Wildfowling artists. I could never sell them. 

I hope to get back into reading and start adding to my collection again.

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On 04/02/2020 at 11:22, moongeese said:

If you lived a bit closer to me Andrew I would have taken up your offer. Best you sell the outfit to me, and I will finish it. Lol

Hope you are well.

Bill

Hi Bill, I'm very well thanks. I hope you are in fine fettle.

Half the problem is the distance. I have another very willing helper out towards Crieff, it's just a case of whether the punt will make the journey in its current state of disrepair. It's not very solid at the moment. Maybe an excessive amount of strops and wedging will get it there but it will be a precarious journey. If, no, when it is watertight again, I will certainly look you up for a trip or two afloat.

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On 04/02/2020 at 08:50, snowgoose said:

I'm not so much the youngest generation of wildfowlers but for the 15 odd seasons from my early 20's I have been collecting fowling books - old originals, old reprints, modern and the like. I suspect the £100 odd that I paid for the Wildfowler in Scotland would be hard to sell at that price now. Still, it has been read several times over so at least the cost per read keeps coming down!

The only 'memorabilia' I have is a punt I bought from a chap on the Solway, along with his one and three quarter inch gun. The punt was built with oak frames and three quarter inch larch boards but is in the process of a very slow rebuild as the gunbeam was shot with rot and other bits of rot dotted around the structure. I could have reskinned in fibreglass but then it would not have been a proper punt made with solid timber. I think the OP may well have seen the gun when I took it to his house about five years ago. One day the punt will re-float and the big gun will roar across the mudflats! If anyone wants to join me in the rebuild, some trips afloat will be the reward!

 

Good luck with the rebuild . That's a real bit of history you've got to restore. If you need any oak let me know as i could give you some for replacing the ribs / framing. I don't know much about boat building though.

I have an old clinker dingy, she takes loads of sanding and oiling but like you say I could of wrapped her in fibre glass but it ain't right. 

 

 

IMG_3883.JPG

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I had a boat like yours, I could find a black and white picture I still have of the boat,  We filled it with water for a few weeks, then a good coat of bitumen and then paint, and no problem. Regards Snowgoose, I have seen the gun, but not the punt. But everything can be repaired, or replaced,

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