The Joys of Hunting
Until you have courted bluebills in the snow, you have not tasted the purer delights of waterfowling.
GORDON MACQUARRIE
STORIES OF THE OLD DUCK HUNTERS & OTHER DRIVEL (1967)
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He expected the wolf to come his way any moment. He made thousands of different conjectures as to where and from what side the beast would come and how he would set upon it. Hope alternated with despair. Several times he addressed a prayer to God that the wolf should come his way.
LEO TOLSTOY
WAR AND PEACE (1869)
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Now it is pleasant to hunt something that you want very much over a long period of time, being outwitted, out-maneuvered, and failing at the end of each day, but having the hunt and knowing every time you are out that, sooner or later, your luck will change and that you will get the chance that you are seeking. But it is not pleasant to have a time limit by which you must get your kudu or perhaps never get it, nor even see one. It is not the way hunting should be.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA (1935)
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In the joy of hunting is intimately woven the love of the great outdoors. The beauty of woods, valleys, mountains, and skies feeds the soul of the sportsman where the quest of game only whets his appetite.
DR. SAXTON POPE
HUNTING WITH THE BOW AND ARROW (1923)
[THE BOOK IS DEDICATED TO “ROBIN HOOD, A SPIRIT THAT AT SOME TIME DWELLS IN THE HEART OF EVERY YOUTH”]
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At first glance the tree seemed alive with frantic squirrels. There appeared to be forty or fifty of them leaping and darting from branch to branch until the whole tree had become one green maelstrom of mad leaves.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
“THE BEAR” (1931)
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The most and best is known to the man who quits his bed before sunrise … who spends his days on the mountains and forests who bears the heat and cold and hunger and thirst for the love of nature … to visit the utmost refuges of beast and bird.
ALFRED PEASE
BOOK OF THE LION (1987)
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THEODORE ROOSEVELT, ON HOW HE FELT AFTER AN ELEVEN-HOUR JAGUAR HUNT IN THE JUNGLES OF BRAZIL (1914)
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Although you may be out for game, the killing of game should be only incidental, and you should be able calmly to enjoy the beautiful scenery, the ever-changing lights on the hills and forests and the game itself.
ELMER KEITH
BIG GAME HUNTING (1948)
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… the Old Duck Hunters are extremely partial to the bitter last days, those stormy days when the wild, free things of duck shooting are abroad in the very wind with the storm.
GORDON MACQUARRIE
STORIES OF THE OLD DUCK HUNTERS & OTHER DRIVEL (1967)
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He came to the stream, and paused for a moment at the bridge. He wanted to tell them he was happy, if they only knew how happy he was, but when he opened his eyes he could not see them anymore. Everything else was bright but the room was dark.
COREY FORD
THE ROAD TO TINKHAMTOWN (1970)
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I’m too intense about hunting. It’s not a hobby. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a passion. So, I think almost without exception, both the men and the women I’ve known over the years who I’ve gotten along with best were outdoors people.
CHUCK ADAMS
LIFE AT FULL DRAW (2002)
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The weather was already growing wintry and morning frosts congealed an earth saturated by autumn rains. The verdure had thickened and its bright green stood out sharply against the brownish strips of winter rye trodden down by the cattle, and against the pale-yellow stubble of the spring sowing and the reddish strips of buckwheat. The wooded ravines and the copses, which at the end of August had still been green islands amid black fields and stubble, had become golden and bright-red islands amid the green winter rye. The hares had already half changed their summer coats, the fox cubs were beginning to scatter, and the young wolves were bigger than dogs. It was the best time of the year for the chase.
LEO TOLSTOY
WAR AND PEACE (1869)
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