Burton Spiller Quotes

There should be a law against leaving a shotgun in its case all summer. The thing loses all sense of direction and has no more pointing instinct than a St. Bernard pup.

Any normal man who will shoot a weekly round at skeet during the summer can learn the fundamentals of wing shooting, and can acquire a skill sufficient to kill a fair percentage of his good shots at birds within the range to which he has become accustomed; but if he wishes to hold his own with a seasoned grouse hunter he must serve a long apprenticeship in the woods. He will find innumerable angles there that can never be duplicated on a skeet range.

Was it yesterday that Vaughn’s pointer went down the river and out over the bar into the storm tossed Atlantic after a broken winged shelldrake? I remember how we watched him from the shore until his head was but a mere speck in the distance, and then that, too, disappeared. Then, because the wind and tide set toward the east, we went a mile upriver to the bridge, crossed it and came back to the beach on the other side, hoping against hope that we might find his body. I remember how, as we stood gazing out over that welter of wind-driven water, Vaughn’s sudden, exultant shout rang out. “By God! There’s my dog!” And there he was, fighting his way in through the breakers, with the shelldrake, still alive, in his mouth. No, that was not yesterday, for I have not seen Vaughn for more than twenty-five years.

You could spend the whole hunting season, going up and down the state from the Canadian border to salt water, and you wouldn’t find a bird dog anywhere that could hold a candle to Jack, A big, bold dog, with stamina enough to go eight hours a day and seven days a week, yet wise enough to slow his pace without command and hunt to gun in thick cover. He had a chokebore nose that could wind a grouse at a hundred yards, and he had an uncanny way of going boldly in on them to the last tricky inch, and nailing them there with the accuracy of a magnetic compass.

Toby was there, in a tangle of birches and blackberry vines, locked up on a bird. Without too much confidence in myself, but with the clumsy weapon pushed out before me ready for instant action, I went in and paused close behind the dog. Instantly, some thirty feet ahead, a grouse hammered up toward the tops of the birches. New gun or old, I couldn’t miss a shot like that, and I tumbled the bird back to earth. Although I had shot almost directly over the dog’s back, he did not flinch or move a muscle. Then, as I looked at him, he swung his head an inch to the right and stood there without a quiver. “Another one?” I asked him, and a second bird flushed, beating sharply upward as the first one had done. Again I connected, and again the dog swung his nose another inch to the right. A third grouse came out, exactly like the others, and I tumbled that one back with the rest. Still, Toby had not moved an inch, but now he took two infinitely cautious steps and froze once more, this thing, I thought, might well become habit forming, and if it proved to be so, I was wish to become an addict. Then the fourth and last grouse came out to meet its fate.

If from that you infer that I believe real grouse dogs are almost as scarce as the proverbial hen’s teeth, you are correct in your supposition. My experiences have led me to believe that not more than one in twenty-five of the present-day crop would make the grade, even under the most favorable conditions. The majority of them would go part way, but the summit would still be uncrowded.

There may be worse vices than dog breeding, but I have never experimented with them. Moderate indulgence may not in itself be harmful, but sooner or later the time will come when moderation fails to provide a kick. One yearns for more dogs—and more and more and more, and unless he does something drastic about it his yearnings are going to be gratified. The ordinarily sane individual has no conception of the extent that dogs will multiply under favorable conditions, when nature is permitted to run its course. Rabbits are ultra-conservative by comparison.

That is the way I wish my dog to think of me: as a companion and pal, rather than as a terrible and uncertain-tempered god. When I whistle him in he must come promptly, not with his tail between his legs, and belly to earth, but joyously and eagerly, with his body doing an Oriental shimmy in sympathy with his vibrating tail. It required three months of daily endeavor to accomplish this, for he was a shy pup, but I made it a rule to play with him every day, boisterous and breath-taking romps which lasted for a half hour or more. But invariably, before the completion of these periods, we paused for a few minutes of schooling: never anything drastic, but such simple things as holding a ball in his mouth, or any other thing which suggested itself at the moment. The idea was not to teach him an assortment of tricks, but rather to let him learn that good times and obedience went hang in hand.

A good dog, and he must be a good one, is absolutely essential to the utmost enjoyment of grouse hunting. I do not mean that it is necessary to have a dog in order to kill grouse. There are other systems whereby they may be killed just as dead and in just as great numbers; but I repeat that a good dog is essential to the utmost enjoyment of the game.

Setters were my first love and pointers are my present amours, but my observation leads me to believe there is no marked difference between the good ones of either breed. Under present hunting conditions I would train my young dog to follow a trail until the bird was found and flushed. Just so long as he was following scent I would stay with him and give him my moral support, and we would find that bird if it took the rest of the day to do it. I would teach him by example that finding birds was his job and that I would stay with him from soup to nuts.

How they come trooping back, those memories, undimmed by the passage of time. Was it yesterday that little Gyp went off the high bank when the river was in flood, after a crippled grouse and, all unmindful to our cries to come back, swam out into the full force of the current? Then down through the white water he went, rolling over and over, now lost to view, now emerging for a moment and still fighting valiantly. Was it yesterday that I waded into the backwash at the foot of the rapids and gathered him in my arms, half drowned but with the bird still in his mouth. No, that was not yesterday, for faithful little Gyp has been sleeping on the sunny bank below the old willow these many, many years.