“As long as there is such a thing as a wild goose, I leave them the meaning of freedom. As long as there is such a thing as a cock pheasant, I leave them the meaning of beauty. As long as there is such a thing as a hunting dog, I leave them the meaning of loyalty. As long as there is such a thing as a man’s own gun and a place to walk free with it, I leave them the feeling of responsibility. This is part of what I believe I have given them when I have given them their first gun”.

-Gene Hill, from A Hunter’s Fireside Book, 1972

“There’s no such thing as too many paintings and prints. Or bronzes of Labradors and pointers and Brittanies and setters. Or glasses with pintails and canvasbacks and salmon and trout flies. Or pictures of you and Charlie with Old Duke and a limit of bobwhites, or a pair of muleys, or a half dozen Canadas, or about a yard of rainbows. Or old decoys and duck calls. There are never too many memories of days past or too many dreams of good times to come”.

Gene Hill, from A Listening Walk, 1995

“The man who said ‘The only experience a man can’t recover from is hanging,’ is wrong. He never tried to raise three Labrador puppies”.

Gene Hill, from Raising Puppies, Part II, in A Hunter’s Fireside Book, 1972

Posted by Michael Patrick McCarty