Punt Gunners 'The Decline Of The Professionals'

The excellent flavour of the birds, the relatively large size of geese, and their abundance, ensured that they were a highly desirable quarry. As well as waiting in hides to shoot the wildfowl, wildfowlers pursed them using punts, which were specially constructed shallow bottomed narrow boats, armed with a massive smooth bore gun. Lying close to the waterline and camouflaged with grey paint, they were able to navigate over submerged mudflats where the birds tended to congregate.

The usual size for a single handed punt guns was 60-70 lb, 11/4 inch bore gun firing about 12 ounces of swan shot (equivalent to more than ten times that of the average 12 bore game cartridge). Large bore guns weighing between 130 and 150 lbs, with a barrel length of over eight feet, capable of delivering up to 32 ounces of shot in a single discharge, were used in some two man punts. Maneuvering the punts into range of the wildfowl in open water without startling them required meticulous control, a considerable degree of field craft and stealth, as well as a fair knowledge of water, weather and seamanship. It also required considerable physical strength, accurate judgement of the firing range, and the precise timing of the discharge.

By the late nineteenth century, it was possible to discern two distinct groups of wildfowlers who participated in punt gunning, who might loosely be defined as professionals and amateurs. Those who lived in coastal regions pursued the activity for a living, valuing the work for the independence it provided. Professional wildfowlers of this type, supplemented their income by a multitude of other activities, including catching and selling fish and eels, cockle gathering, rabbiting and collecting samphire for sale during the summer months.

In contrast amateur wildfowlers were outsiders, visiting the coast in order to engage in an activity that would test their field craft skills under very extreme conditions. In-between these two groups were a number of part-timers, who would shoot birds when favourable opportunities presented themselves, usually at the beginning of the season when the birds were plentiful and more likely to come within range.

Contemporary accounts implying that punt gunners were slaughtering large numbers of wildfowl were probably exaggerated, but not necessarily apocryphal. While large bags were occasionally achieved, these were very much the exception to the norm. On average punt gunners fired their guns once for every excursion, killing in the region of ten birds per shot. By the mid 1930s, widgeon sold for between 1s 3d and 1s 9d each, mallard for about 2s 6d a hundred or so birds, and geese secured the average gunner in a season more than four weeks wages for an agricultural worker. This was a rather precarious reward for the amount of effort involved, given the dangerous nature of navigating a shallow boat in bad weather on what were often dangerous fast flowing tides.

According to Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald in his book British game, by 1939 there were fewer than 100 punt gunners in England and Wales, and less than 20 in Scotland. Of these 120 punts, about 40 were used no more than twice in a season, while the number of active fisher fowlers, who were also punt gunners, was fewer than 50.  

Punt gunning has now been all but relegated to a footnote in the annals of wildfowling history, being replaced by inland wildfowling and coastal marsh shooting. Its progression is in stark contrast to most other sports, which have evolved from amateur to professional participation. Since the late nineteenth century, wildfowling has been transformed from an activity where participants, either as punt gunners or shore shooters, aimed to secure a livelihood, to a sport where they will pay for the mere privilege of being able to participate. Irrespective of these differences, present day wildfowlers like their professional ancestors remain united by the same consuming and all embracing passion to respond to the call of the wild. The words of one of the leading nineteenth century shooters,  Sir Ralph Payne-Gallway, still resonate today in that wildfowling is ‘a healthy and interesting pursuit and one in which little success gives much content; for the pleasures of fowling are to no degree relative to the numbers slain.’

Written by Prof. John Martin. Photos from Spalding Wildfowlers who, at the time of writing, have some availabilty to join their syndicate.