Posted August 1, 2018 11:00 am by Comments

By Chris Eger

Snowden Slights was in his 80s when author Sidney Harold chronicled his style of hunting– and his giant punt gun. (Photos: Sidney Harold via the Smith-Yorkshire Museum/York Museums Trust through Wiki)
Described as “The Last of the Yorkshire Wildfowlers” in a 1912 biography published just before his death, Slights liked to pack a punt gun.
A well-known British commercial hunter from the Yorkshire area, Slights was the subject of a now-rare volume on pre-regulation waterfowl hunting that captured him at work late in his career. While we aren’t endorsing the style of market hunting portrayed in the work — a practice that nearly exhausted game stocks and resulted in today’s strict conservation efforts — Slights was preserved for posterity along with his punt gun.

Punt guns, typically large-bore black powder muzzleloaders, were used to harvest resting flocks of waterfowl in bulk. They got their name from the fact the professional hunters of the day pushed them out across the ponds and marsh on flat bottom “punt” boats, hand-paddled them slowly to their target, and set the whole affair off in a ball of smoke and flame.
A giant shotgun meant to smoke groups of game birds at a time, Slights reportedly once used his

Source: Guns.com

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