In this book, you will find everything you will need to know about
hunting rail birds in the United States. The four huntable species
are: The Clapper rail (Rallus longirostris), King rail (Rallus
elegans), Virginia rail (Rallus limicola) and the smallest: the
Sora rail (Porzana carolina). September marks the opening of
railbird/marsh hen hunting season across America. Rail birds are
webless migratory wildfowl (marsh birds) that migrate in great
numbers throughout our flyways each fall from September - December.
Each state's Migratory Wildfowl Commission sets the limits and hunt
days each year, following the Federal Government's seventy days
allowed to hunt rail birds. The limits have consistently been quite
liberal, since the bag limits were first set by Federal game laws
in 1918, and even today, these are a liberal 25 Sora/Virginia rail
per person per day, and 15 Clapper/King rail, or in aggregate,
depending on your states specific DNR's rail bird hunting
regulations. If you are a keen waterfowler, you'll enjoy the Rail
Bird Hunter's Bible Everything you need to know about the history
and about hunting rail birds throughout the USA is in this book.
All waterfowl hunters will appreciate receiving a copy of the most
scholarly hunting book ever written on these rail bird species by
the author of "REDFISH ON A FLY" (2007). John J. Audubon called
rail bird shooting: "The sport of kings," as it was a shooting
sport primarily done in a traditional method of push poling a light
skiff through a flood tide in the Saltmarsh. That traditional
hunting method has not changed, since the days of 1831 when as a
young man he was invited to hunt rail birds, and observe wildfowl
in Charleston, South Carolina. At first he called the King Rails
the Freshwater Marsh Hen, because of its preference for freshwater
marshes. It is the largest of North American rails. It was in the
Charleston brackish salt marshes that Audubon saw a Carolinan being
poled in a skiff out rail bird hunting for Clapper rail. The man,
who had two muzzle-loaded, side-by-side shotguns, shot at and
killed four separate marsh hens as they flushed off around his
skiff Read about the history of the four huntable rail bird
species, where to find them, and how to hunt them. The author has
hunted rail birds for over forty seasons all over the nation, and
is the nation's top wildfowl historian, and researcher on hunting
rail birds in North America. You will read about ecology of the
species, environmental issues, nesting areas, banding programs, and
the great fall migration and the hunting season. Read interesting
and historical stories about some of the most famous rail bird
hunters, shotguns, guides, push poles, retrieving dogs, and rail
bird skiffs. See sixty hunting photos and illustrations from around
the nation's greatest rail bird flyways and hunting areas, and
hunting gear. Did you know that the Sora rail can fly at speed up
to 40 mph? However the Virginia, Clapper and King rails fly as fast
a quail. Rail birds are best hunted in the traditional manner,
which is in a marsh during very high tide (called a rail bird flood
tide), and the hunter shoots jumping rail birds from the front of
the skiff, while seated in a gunner's chair. The skiff also has a
guide or poler, who uses a push-pole from back of the boat to go
through a salt marsh or a flooding fresh water rice meadow. In the
Atlantic Flyway, rail birds numbering in the millions, migrate
throughout the coastal inshore waters, and historic staging, and
feeding grounds along the Atlantic and Mississippi Flyways each
fall, they are hunted from the months of SEPT-DEC according to the
state's DNR-Migratory Bird Committee, which sets the seasons each
year by August 1st. Everything you need to know about the education
of a rail bird hunter is found in this book, which is the first
book ever written on the history of rail bird hunting in America.
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