Shooting on Moor and Marsh - Punting, Or Wildfowl Shooting Afloat

Lie flat in a gunning punt on a winter estuary, ease the swivel gun towards a raft of fowl, and hold your nerve: Payne-Gallwey sets out how it is done.

Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey (1848-1916) was an English sportsman, engineer, and ballistics expert who wrote widely on shooting and on the machinery of sport, from The Book of Duck Decoys to The Crossbow. This text gathers his account of pursuing wildfowl afloat from Shooting: Moor and Marsh, the volume he wrote with Lord Walsingham for the Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes in 1886.

He gives the whole craft in detail: the build and handling of the punt, the working of the great swivel gun mounted in her bows, the reading of tide and light, and the long, cold approach on a sitting company of duck. He then opens his own logbook, with days from January 1880, 1881, and 1885 set down in his own words - the hits, the misses, and the soakings alike.

This edition features:

• Detailed instruction on handling a shooting punt and on loading, aiming, and firing a heavy swivel gun
• The author's own punting expeditions of January 1880, 1881, and 1885, set down as he recorded them
• Practical notes on tide, weather, and light, and on the slow approach towards a sitting company of fowl
• Drawn from the Badminton Library volume of 1886, one of the standard works of Victorian field sport
• Illustrated, and a rewarding read for wildfowlers, gun collectors, and readers of sporting history