Hunters and Hunters: after seventy hunting licenses Bruno has "perhaps" decided to permanently put down his rifle.
On the pages of the Messaggero Veneto you can read the story of Bruno, an 89-year-old hunter who tells his passion for hunting who will never die but who, after seventy hunting licenses, will be forced to testify. It was 1934 when Bruno, for the first time, fired a shotgun first in the courtyard of the house and then at the sparrows flying in the sky of the Pagnacco countryside. He was eight years old, but he was old enough to understand that hunting would be the great passion of a lifetime. Even today Bruno, a retired former railway worker, still does not know whether to enjoy the next hunting season or to put down his rifle for good. "Hunting for me is a great passion and a reason for living - says the elderly hunter - but in recent years I am no longer able to move as I used to and in the exits I am accompanied by my nephew Giuseppe, who helps me in the descents and in the most strenuous climbs ".
A long "career", that of Bruno, which began in April 1944 when he obtained his first booklet for hunting. At the time, says Bruno, hunting was free, "you could move to various locations in Friuli, while since 1965 there is the obligation to remain in the municipal reserves". Fifty years ago, the fauna was richer, “In the evening, when I was walking, I even crossed thirty hares in the middle of the countryside, now if you are lucky, you can see one throughout the season ”. During the Christmas period Cesene and Sasselli moved and to find them they traveled by bicycle for several kilometers with the calls loaded on their backs. Bruno will embody the first hare in 1943 and “has never been - he confesses - a skilled“ sniper ”on the fly; I defended myself well with the slingshot though, so much so that one day I managed to hit one Woodcock".
Behind the passion for hunting, however, there is a great love for animals: Bruno's house is covered with paintings, books and images of birds and dogs; there are cats, birds, and there is Asia, a five-year-old English setter with a white and orange coat who accompanies him during the jokes, "She's good, but I'm old, I can't convey the necessary enthusiasm to her anymore". The first love was the birds. His true love, however, was the dogs. "I have had several hunting breeds - he observes -, from the Italian short-haired hound to pointing dogs, and apart from two pointers and an Irish setter, all the others were English setters”, Almost all females.
“They are more docile, obedient and affectionate”, Bruno has raised eight litters, has taught his dogs and also those of his friends to bring back on command. Finally he concludes, “the greatest satisfaction is to see the dog return home with the pheasant in his mouth, not so much for the hunting trophy, rather for his good work”. The funniest thing is that no one in Bruno's home eats game.
(February 2, 2015)
Source: IlMessaggeroVeneto - Udine