George Bird Evans - Shooting Quotes

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Each of us has that ember within him to create his own Camelot, to form his life by taste. Being different from the crowd, like quality, is not a vice. Tradition and standards shape shooting as surely as manners make the man.

George Bird Evans
To shoot a grouse exacts something from the thinking man. It requires principle, which like good manners is not old-fashioned and never has been. It is something in your heart and in your head. The perceptive gunner is immersed in the style and charm of his dog's work and in the shot, but with it all, he is one with what happens to the bird. His shooting is not vindictive, a getting-even because the grouse is so hard to hit. To regret a miss is normal animal response to temporary failure, not to be confused with sentient the bastard got away. Emotions are drawn to such thin threads they reach the breaking point, but when finely-honed tensions balance, shooting becomes a spiritual thing between you and the grouse.

George Bird Evans
Much of the pleasure of shooting is what accompanies it and sharing it all with a good friend.

George Bird Evans
In pursuing the wraith that was Paul Curtis, I more than ever was aware that what lives after a shooting man is what has been published of his writings. Memories of the man grow dim and not too rarely become confused […] almost but not quite capturing for me a presence that surfaced like a zither theme in a suspense movie.

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
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
If you can approach shooting as something to be enjoyed, not a frustrating obsession, it can enrich your life.

George Bird Evans