Being near the Gulf Coast I like reading about things like this the Gulf is about 70 miles down river from here.

There is a great deal of sporting literature for the period you mention here, Milton. On the earlier side is Carolina Sports by Land and Water, by William Elliott, which covers different types of hunting (but mostly big game). If you are really interested, let me know and I can work up a list for you. Be careful, though, collecting sporting literature is akin to collecting big bore guns -- addictive.:)

On the topic of Eakins; I taught 19th Century art history for many years, so I'm happy to see folks here show an interest in the works of, especially, American artists like Eakins. I'd recommend Winslow Homer to you. He is most certainly not a sporting artist per se, but his many paintings of hunting and fishing are incredible. BTW, he also was an "art correspondent" during the Civil War, and I would bet you would enjoy those works of his also.

I especially enjoy Homer’s paintings from when he spent time in Maine’s Great North Woods.





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Eakins . . . Homer . . . Frost . . . All some of my favorites.

Evidently the tradition of rail shooting from poled boats continues in tidal regions along the U. S. East coast, from Maine to Texas.

Here is an article "The Incredible, Edible Rail", by Stephen D. Carpenteri, from UPLAND ALMANAC, Spring 2020.


https://uplandalmanac.com/the-incredible-edible-rail[/url]

I have a few friends who do it around here.

I've got a lead on a late season shoot for king rails, I found the guy too late this year but I'm pushing to get on the books for next. Kings is my last rail, I've killed the other three legal species.

That would be much appreciated, would you happen to know if there are any books on the contrast between sports hunters and market hunters of the time? I have also been wondering are there any detailed books about Grover Cleveland and his passion for waterfowling? I am looking up Winslow Homer now, I particularly like this one.

Cleveland wrote a book on hunting (and it's pretty good, too!). I'm not sure what you mean by the "contrast between sports hunters and market hunters," but there were certainly conservation minded sporting authors and editors of sporting periodicals (Wilbur F. Parker, Sr. was a very early advocate for conservation who decried market gunning. You might be interested in my article on him that was in a recent Parker Pages.)

There is a more recent book, The Outlaw Gunner, that has accounts of market gunning, especially for waterfowl.

The line between sport hunter and market hunter is often blurry. As an example, Fred Kimble has sometimes been referred to as a market hunter. This really is not accurate. He and his group of hunting friends would often go off on 2 to 3 week expeditions and return to Peoria with a thousand or so birds. They would sell these to the local markets in order to defray the cost of the hunting trip. They hunted for "sport", not to make a living. But their kind of sport hunting was expensive.

By contrast I meant if there was ethics debates between the market hunters and sports hunters and if there are books on that specific subject. What is the name of Clevelands book?

Milton, Cleveland's book is called, Fishing and Shooting Sketches. As for books that debate market v. sport hunting, I can't say that I recall any. There are some good scholarly works on the evolution of sport hunting that give a good account of how we evolved (we hunters in America) from shooting for the market to having rules of conduct for hunting (like there are in other sports, thus the term "sport" hunting). One of the best books in my opinion on this is Hunting and the American Imagination by Daniel Herman. It's a pretty dense book, I believe his PhD dissertation, but it is very thorough and has complete annotations for its sources, including lots of primary ones. It would be a great way to track down more of the kinds of issues I think you are after.

The description for this print is mismatched; the title of the print is "Whistling for Plover" by Eakins. Notice the stick-up decoys; they are priceless today. Most were wood but several decoy makers offered sets of hollow, half-body tin decoys boxed in a wooden carrier. Complete sets command unbelievable prices at auction.

I don’t know if this stick-up decoy is old or new… my mother picked it up for me about 40 years ago.

Looks like W. Ray Freden…?
And either B3 or 133 or… 83… ?

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Did a bit of research on W. Ray Freden and learned he lived in Scituate Ma. and worked in furniture making. He first advertised his shore bird carvings in 1988 but had been carving for years before advertising.
I suspect the one my mother gave me was from before he began advertising them.
Here are a couple more of his carvings.

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