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Book Review
SPENT SHELLS ALONG THE ATLANTIC
Tom Long’s new book offers a refreshing look at duck and goose hunting and how it all began in North America. For me, the book conjured thrills of modern hunting and memories of the good old days, a remarkable combination of hope and sweet nostalgia. I could not put it down.
Long possesses a unique combination of skills and knowledge. He is a professional writer and photographer with an undying interest in waterfowl hunting, history and raising his son to share an honest respect and love of the outdoors. In Spent Shells along the Atlantic, Long has drawn from field notes and many stories gathered over the years. He shows his incomparable experience in pursuit of ducks, geese, old decoys and colorful stories gleaned from market gunners to modern hunters who have shared his passion for the great American sport. Tom has hunted from one end of the continent to the other, as well as in several foreign countries, but his research gained from five decades of tramping up and down the Eastern Seaboard is evident in this outstanding book.
I particularly appreciated Long’s zeal for taking kids to the marsh. The book features a father introducing his son—and many other youngsters—to the “unique world viewed from a duck blind,” as the author puts it. The continuing saga of Tommy, now in college, adds a touching vein to nearly every chapter and brings back many pleasant memories shared with my own sons.
Spent Shells along the Atlantic chronicles an era with vignettes of history gathered by the author during decades of traveling up and down the Coast in
pursuit of waterfowl. It contains more than a few spectacular color photographs taken by the author and other photographers. It also carries snapshots of Long’s friends holding up ducks and geese and putting up wood duck nesting boxes. Then there are rare and precious black and white prints of old clubs, blinds and hunting stands dating back a hundred years or more. There are pictures of old and contemporary decoys. As a duck hunter, I enjoyed ever one of the 364 pictures in the book’s 240 pages.
According the publisher, editor, and fellow duck hunter, Roger Sparks, the book was not created to provide a detailed guide to hunting opportunities available today.
“It is more a comparison of modern hunting to that of the golden age of waterfowling a century ago. The book is filled with stories of today’s hunts along with tales from the old market-gunning days. It is intended to portray the varied history of waterfowling as it has been—a mix of old and new, truth and lore, surrounding a sport that thickens the blood to the exclusion of almost everything else. To the reader interested in the past or present, Spent Shells along the Atlantic offers a colorful look at a beloved part of our heritage—the North American waterfowl-hunting tradition.”
It has been years since I read a truly good waterfowl-hunting book. This one was worth the wait. –Tom Kollings
