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l uo t e s O With autumn, when the world is brown and the season hesitates between smoky Indian summer and leaden November, there comes to proper hunting men an urge to scuff their feet among the curling sweet fern and poke a load or two at pa'tridge. Gordon MacQuarrie, Stories of the Old Duck Hunters, 1967 Submitted by David R. Drinan Somers, Connecticut Reader Favorites The man was dead. He had been gored, trampled into the red sand, tossed like a bundle of rags, ripped again and again by black horns. He was bloodily, messily dead – destroyed by a bull buffalo in an utterly senseless attack. Warren Page, One Man's Wilderness, 1973 Submitted by Marvin Newman Cleveland, Tennessee The time must come to all of us who live long, when memory is more than prospect. An angler who has reached this stage and reviews the pleasure of life will be grateful and glad that he has been an angler, for he will look back upon days radiant with happiness, peaks and peaks of enjoyment that are not less bright because they are lit in memory by the light of a setting sun. Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Trout Fishing, 1899 Submitted by Daniel Block Dillon, Montana I shall now confess to you that none of those three trout had to be beheaded, or folded double, to fit their casket. What was big was not the trout, but the chance. What was full was not my creel, but my memory. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949 Submitted by Bob Martini Rhinelander, Wisconsin It seems to me that we have been losing, and are losing, a great deal of this simplicity of approach to man's natural instincts in a baffling world of nauseating cant and hypocrisy and contrived complications. We have had so much steam heat and air conditioning that we have forgotten wood fires and fresh air. Robert Ruark, "Papa Had No Use for Sham," Field & Stream, October, 1961 Submitted by Albert Mull Gray, Tennessee A pintail drake planes down from the clouds. Wings tautly stretched, he drops with the speed of a driven dart to poise for a single instant above my old decoys. His breast has the sheen of silver; there's the glint of gold on his russet head – and the green of his wing is an emerald that sparkles in the sun. Speed on. No gun blares out tonight to still your beating wings, for I must hold you in close memory and see you often by the light of winter fires. Roland Clark, A Gunner's Dawn, 1937 How many times in a man's life has he sat in a duck blind in a nor'easter or on the frozen ridge huddled to keep the rain from running down his neck and asked himself what in hell he's doing there? If he can't explain that question, how in the world can he ever expect to explain it to his wife? Lew Dietz, Touch of Wildness – A Main Woods Journal, 1957 Submitted by Roger A. Bradley East Petersburg, Pennsylvania Fishing in its purest form is a communion with nature – a desire to get closer to the water, woods and wildlife. Bird-watching and animal tracking become integral parts of an outing. And the fish you catch punctuate the story of your day. Jim Arnosky, Hook, Line & Seeker, 2005, Submitted by Ray Tuholsky Avon, Minnesota Send us your favorite quotes from sporting literature and receive one free gift subscription for every quote that is published. Include the author, title of book and date of publication. Send to: Quotes, Sporting Classics, PO Box 23707, Columbia, SC 29224 S P O R T I N G C 232 L A S S I C S