The Hog Blog

Well, I’ve been running with pre-written posts this week, partly because I’m still catching up on work after spending Monday down at Native Hunt’s Jolon Ranch, shooting doves and having a blast!  Hank Shaw, the HunterAnglerGardenerCook got his post online first, and spurred me to get off my butt and post up too.  (Thanks, Hank!  More on you in a moment.)

It’s been a while since I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy a real, opening day dove hunt in the grand tradition.  Back home, in NC, the opener was a big day accompanied by bbq (REAL barbecue… a whole hog cooked slow over coals for many hours, then mopped at the end with a tangy, vinegar-based sauce), lots of folks you haven’t seen in ages, and skies that are simply crowded with the little grey rockets… mourning doves. 

It’s a day of shaking the dust off the wingshooting skills that most of us, myself included, really haven’t kept sharp since the waterfowl season closed eight or nine months ago… and with that comes the laughter and good-hearted ridicule for easy misses, as well as the appreciation and congratulations for difficult hits.

Here in CA, while I’ve been fortunate enough to be invited a few times to a friend’s place for the opener, I haven’t experienced the big bash and excitement that can only be found when a big group gets together.  That all changed this past weekend as my friend and Native Hunt CEO, T. Michael Riddle invited a group of around 40-50 hunters to his place for a weekend of fun, food, and shooting.  I was invited to bring two guests, so I brought Kat and my friend Dave Allen (Coon Camp Springs). 

So I dusted off mine and Kat’s scatterguns, made sure I had plenty of ammo (two cases), and eagerly awaited the weekend.  I couldn’t head down until Sunday, but boy, we made tracks when Sunday morning arrived!  We had a whole day to bust clays, eat, drink, and get fired up for the Monday hunt!

On arrival, I knew we were in for a treat when Hank already had the kitchen going full bore (and full boar, as it turns out he and Holly were prepping her meat pig for the cooker).  I’d no more settled in with my first margarita than Hank was handing me fried cracklins from, of all things, my fallow deer! 

I doubt I can say enough good things about Hank’s abilities in the kitchen and at the grill, so if you want to know more you can go read his own take on the event at his blog.  He didn’t post up the entire menu, which was pretty phenomenal, but if you take a look at what he did write, you’ll get the idea.  The doves he cooked up were pretty danged awesome… and no mean feat considering the amount of food he was managing at the time! 

Hank worked so hard in the kitchen, in fact, that he didn’t even hunt!  Now that’s dedication!  Holly, the NorCal Cazadora was also there to chip in, working herself to a frazzle as well.  By Monday morning, neither of them was ready to roll out of bed for the hunting.  Well enough for her, though, because she got the opportunity to go out and harvest one of Michael’s rams for the bbq earlier in the weekend. 

What about the hunting?

It was hot, and yeah, that’s both figurative and literal.  Kat and I had barely pulled up to the barley field and I was already pulling my jacket off.  We got a slow start as I tried to avoid the crowds and head down to one of the other fields where no one was hunting.  There were tons of birds there, but without other hunters to move them around, they’d just go sit in the opposite end of the field from us where we couldn’t shoot.  I finally gave up, and we rolled back up to the main party and joined in the shooting. 

Showing up so late meant we had a pretty weak spot to hunt, and while we had lots of birds in range, we had to pass most of the shots due to low angles and other hunters.  It’s doubtful we would have hurt anyone at that range, but it’s kinda rude to shoot right at someone else regardless.  We didn’t need birds that bad, and we had all day anyway.

When the shooting was done, Kat and I both still had plenty of room left in our limits for an afternoon hunt.  That worked out fine, so we rolled back to camp for more of Hank’s hunting camp cuisine, including whole, grilled doves and South Carolina-style pork bbq (SC barbecue uses a mustard-based sauce… not as good as NC barbecue, but I’ll let him slide for that one).  After lunch a big part of the group began to drift off, back to their homes.  Those of us who hadn’t filled limits stayed on, though, eager for the heat of the day to dissipate and get the birds moving again for the evening shoot. 

One of the highlights of the day was the opportunity to work with Kat’s new lab pup, Cyrus.  It was his first hunt, and I brought my yellow lab, Lucky, along to kinda “mentor” him in the art of retrieving birds.  It did take a while for him to figure out what was going on, but by the end of the day he was starting to pick up birds for us.  A couple of trips to the pheasant fields later this fall should get him totally into the game. 

Anyway, the weekend ended with a cooler full of birds and a couple of tired, but satisfied hunters and some worn out dogs! 

What it didn’t end with, by the way, was some video.  I don’t know what happened, but most of the footage I shot over the weekend is corrupted, which really sucks because I didn’t take any still pictures.  Technology really sucks sometimes (he says as he writes on his blog). 

Meanwhile, time to turn the attention back to deer and hog hunting.  By the hunter’s calendar, dove season always kicks off the autumn hunting season, and this promises to be a pretty busy time for me.  Next week I’m off to NC to hunt the archery opener with my brother, Scott.  After that, if all goes well, there’ll be a deer and bear hunt in Northern CA.  I’ll have part of October to try to fill a couple of my own CA deer tags, before I’m off to Coon Camp Springs to scout for a week, then guide mule deer hunters for two weeks.  It’s that time of year!  I love it! 

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