Obey the line.

[rodeodance]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/13/AR2006021302163_pf.html


News of the Vice President's Misfire Hits A Fellow Bird Hunter Where It Hurts

By Stephen Hunter
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 14, 2006; C01

.......

But here's the important question: What can be learned from the incident? Like all gun accidents, the events of Saturday morning teach a lesson and in this case a serious one -- that even longtime, seasoned hunters can make a mistake if they forget the fundamentals.

The fundamental etiquette and safety device of bird hunting is: Obey the line.

The line is between you and the game ahead of you, and by you I mean everybody in your party. The line is invisible but should exist in the imagination as powerfully as the Great Wall of China. It is the simple geography of safety that determines that we are here and we only shoot there -- that is, ahead of us. It has certain mandates. One is that at any given moment, one should know where everybody in the hunting party is. You have to keep those images in mind as you move over the ground. It has to be second nature.

....
I speak of these matters as a man who has violated that principle himself and almost paid for it in grief and shame. Instead, and oh so luckily, I have only bad memories. It looks as though that'll be Cheney's fate as well....