2 7/8's inch Ten Bore. Hands down a real fave for serious gents in the old pre-war marshes around the West End of Lake Erie.
All it needs is a Lee Hand set, and components. Even have an old article around on how to rollup 1 1/4oz clay loads.
NID's are a bit hulky in the action, but OK. Not too heavy in short chamber -- 8 1/2lbs?
A pre-13 graded Elsie in good wood is just classic. Watch the drop, tho.
But...the REAL jonboat guys, who verged on subsistence outlaw hunters, were Model 11 Rem or 97 Win or similar machine made shell shuckers. Price, expediency, what semi-poacher ever plugged a magazine anyway? :~`) I mention this segment of fowlers because old plank punt boats were cheap to nail up, and kinda neighborhood-owned, in a pinch.
However, you might strike the proper vein by looking for a good vintage hammer gun, which may have seemed old-fashioned for those smokeless, internal-hammer guys and of insuffiicent firepower for the meat guys.
Sorta think of it as the old family gun from better days; before the swamp timber was all cut, the shallow oil wells ran out, and the big house in town had to be sold when the clan moved back to the marshy farm. Classy gun in its day, well cared for and sound, but definitely smooth from use.
Lastly, you could take the BIG assumption, and get a nice smooth Purdey, sound, handed down and well kept by the family retainer. There are quite a few gents in the literature of the pre-war set that wer not rich, just owned ONE good gun and hunted it all, with that same piece. I remember reading of 50 mile and hour mallards riding a North'er, coming over a Dakota pond, to a father and son team who drove there from The Twin Cities. It was a purdey, that the father had.
If it's smooth and gray, with wood muted by the patina of hunting, that is where I would start.
Good Hunting in The Big Woods
