How punt guns were used.

[bbailey7821]

Very cool and informative! I want one!

[Slowpoke]

When punts - 8 & 4 bores were used in a blind ... here's how the birds were brought to the blind:
* Drive a stake in the water at a distance. Salt the stake with corn
* When the birds started working the bait - move the stake a little closer
* Then a day or so before the shoot, move the stake within gunning range and bait the stake with a bag of corn
* The morning or evening of the shoot - the feeding frenzy is in place - the bore is aimed at the stake - BOOM and go pick them up!

That is how I was taught to hunt duck's on the Chesapeake bay in the Mid 1970's from off shore blinds, except we used regular shot guns. We would put the bait stake the legal distance from the blind, then when we wanted some ducks we would drop a buoy and pull the stake (Usually a Pine sapling) and stick it in the mud about 30 yrd,s from our blind and set out the decoys.

We would dump a 50 lb bag of corn twice a week into the prop wash while doing a circle around the bait stake.

All the small neighborhood mom and pop grocery stores sold whole corn for just this purpose.

In those days just about everybody that duck hunted the bay did it that way so you ended up for the most part eating corn fed duck. It was quite the experience for someone from the desert SW.

good luck

[BAGTIC]

My great grandfather hunted for the market until it was banned. I remember he used a 1 1/4 oz load but I don't recall shot size. From the catalog chart if could have been 5 or 6. I wonder why modern guns require so much longer cases and heavier charges of larger shot? Have the birds really evolved that much?

[Col4570]

Captain Peter Hawker used a Double Muzzle loading Punt gun.For one Barrel he went back in time and fitted a flintlock.The other barrel had a Percussion Lock.It was a single trigger gun with both the Percussion and Flintlock Hammers falling together.The slight delay he designed for the flintlock ignited fractionaly later than the percussion Lock.The boat tilted back on firing and the delayed shot hit the rising birds that had been missed when he killed those on the water.

[jumbeaux]

My great grandfather was a market hunter on the Missouri River in the late 1890's until his death...my dad remembered drifting into a mess of ducks and his grandfather setting the gun off...he said the smoke cloud was unbelievable...he recalled the load being a pound of black powder and handfuls of broken nails, tacks, small pieces of slag etc...he said there would be Mallards floating everywhere...I have a picture of him standing almost knee deep in Mallards holding either a 1893 or 1897 Winchester...great grandpa was a hog farmer, hunting guide, market hunter and gambler...he died over 20 years before I was born...

rick

[Dusty Ed]

Howdy Squeese
There are quite a few youngins in South Jersey that live to hunt the marshes for ducks and geese an two of them are my Grandsons.
They are Commercial fishermen, My oldest grandson Ryan is now 24 he just open a store on the Washington St. Maul called Galvanic.
really an interesting store.
You were speaking about the Barnegat Bay, My first cousin owns the Cassidy 's Viking Village Fish Market
Dusty Ed

[John Boy]

I get to bait ducks once a year in September LEGALLY with corn!
Each year, State Wildlife Divisions perform an early season banding survey for resident ducks in their State. I have been a volunteer for 10 years to run one or more banding sites with 'confusion' wire traps or doing a drop net rocket shoot. Here's a link you'll enjoy with pictures of some of my banding sights including pictures and a black powder rocket shoot ... http://njwa.org/smf/index.php?topic=1116.0
Be sure to read how a rocket net shoot is done!

September 2013, I found a 'honey hole' of local ducks in a lagoon that we trapped with confusion traps. On the 1st day of the close of the traps, we captured 64 mallards. Even while we were banding birds about 20 feet from the traps - 12 more 'rushed' to get their share of the remaining corn. In total for this site, we banded 114 mallards & black ducks with release of over 50 prior year banded birds and recaptures.

For you NJ waterfowlers - don't ask where because 'I've been sworn to secrecy' and don't even hunt it myself. In addition, there is a dynamite pintail banding site that even the NJ Senior Biologist won't tell me where it is in Cumberland County