George Bird Evans - Gun Quotes

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A gun, no matter how rare, a dog, no matter how brilliant, cannot mean fulfillment without keenness in the man. It takes the sportsman's edge honed fine, an eye, a sense of what is good, the ear for what is right – the heart. There is something about the wilderness, something in the blood that draws nourishment from the game.

George Bird Evans
I have not written this book as something that is over. When you have lived like that, it will be present always, like the gun I shot and the dogs and those grouse living in the subcellars of my brain.

George Bird Evans
If I could shoot a game bird and still not hurt it, the way I can take a trout on a fly and release it, I doubt if I would kill another one. This is a strange statement coming from a man whose life is dedicated to shooting and gun dogs. For me, there is almost no moment more sublime than when I pull the trigger and see a grouse fall. Yet, as the bird is retrieved I feel a sense of remorse for taking a courageous life. About the time I passed fifty I noticed this conflict becoming more pronounced...

George Bird Evans
My gun diary indicates how many grouse were moved each day these dogs hunted, each productive point they made. For me, this is what gunning for grouse is about, not dead birds to tally up – to gun for grouse with a dog, not just over him, and once that has been savored, anything less seems watered down.

George Bird Evans
Grouse shooting is what it is for you, not for someone in some fabulous faraway place. Grouse gunning can be either a game of numbers or identification with a live bird somewhere ahead. It can be a mindless urge to wipe out a string of birds, or it can be the instant when one bird and the dog and the gun exist in unity.

George Bird Evans
Quality grouse shooting cannot be evaluated by numbers any more than diamonds can be measured by the pound. It is not a process but a reflection – a reflection in the gunner from the dog he shoots over and the gun he carries, and above all a feedback from the grouse. When these things happen well, looking back at end of day is to be as content as it is given a man to feel. It has been my past, it is my life and my hereafter, like these mountains endless in their splendor.

George Bird Evans