Not at all Kraft. I see your point. I'm from this school, as Gene Hill once remarked about his friend Jim Rikhoff, back in the day when Jim worked for Winchester - They were at some fanc cocktail party in New York City, when their hostess asked Jimmie Boy why he had to kill animals- Jim, perhaps a tad to windward on the Scotch, replied-"Oh, I dunno Lady, guess I just like to hear bullets smacking some solid flesh every now and then"!!
In LimeyLand and in Europe, game is a cash crop, from what I hear, and the invited "guns" take home brace of birds, the rest and cleaned and sold on the open market for food. Over here, on the game clubs on which I have shot birds, your limit is based on your checkbook and how much recoil your shoulder will accept in a day. The game preserves are regulated by the State DNR, and no native bird stocks are affected. For me, the same $'s that takes me to MT or SD almost every other Fall- can be spent on shells, birds, side bets, meals right here in MI-
I shoot birds because I love the art of wingshooting and I love to see feathers fly and birds drop dead out of the air. I do NOT get the same pleasure from shooting clay saucers. As the late Nash Buckingham (my gunning hero) wrote in "The Dove"-- "You've had about all the thrills shotgunning offers when you crumple a high overhead dove in a wind"!! Yessiree--
The late Robert C. Ruark summed it up best-- "After all is said and done, the sound of a shotgun tends to cheer one up a great deal" I'll drink to that (after the guns are cleaned and cased and secured however)--
So, would I kill 1000 dove a day in South America if I had the chance, no matter who is "footing the bill"? At near 70, probably not- I would rather kill cleanly 100 doves or pigeons in a high wind with 200 shells from one of my "pet" 12 bores, than kill 1000 of the same with "sugar shots by a baited field or watering hole. Age is the "Achilles Heel" of the devout wingshooter!!
Last edited by Run With The Fox; 08/11/09 10:13 PM.
