Originally Posted By: King Brown
Skill with a shotgun---"always shoot 'em on the wing"---is an affectation. Bringing meat home at another time was a necessity.

I lived in a fishing village of subsistence living. An orange in a stocking was a big treat at Christmas. Judging by today's values is wearisome.


I noticed King's post a few pages back, before this thread turned into a cat-callin' contest. I think I agree to some extent that wing shooting is an affection. It, in my mind, is the difference between an outdoorsman and a sportsman.

If I'm just after meat I know a better way to get it than wingshooting. Back in the day Stan's grandfather made his "big shoot", there were countrymen who needed and used the birds they killed. They were probably better outdoorsmen than we'll ever be.

To my mind the sportsman of that time and the sporting ethic of the time which we honor today (even if often in the breach) was a city thing. My grandfather lived through the same depression the countrymen did but he was a town living druggist and his personal bird hunting ethic was probably guided by the sporting literature of the day rather than the need to acquire supper...Geo