This one’s for Reader Old Texan and all you other pigeon-hunters:
Of course, it’s always a pleasure when watching a master go about his craft, and Jonny’s teacher Paul Payne is just that — he’s been doing it for forty-seven years. And of course, Jonny is an excellent student: despite being a pretty decent shot, he’s always open to learning something new.
It’s an hour out of your day — the shooting ends at about 38 minutes — but if you carry on watching to see the gear they use… whoa.
Whatever, you’ll feel as relaxed as I was at the end of it. Lovely stuff.
Yesterday was the opening day of Dove Season here in Texas, a ‘High Holy Day’ and always an excused absence from school. Lots of economic factors for small towns when dove hunters arrive to celebrate and shoot. Our little group is down to 15 guns this year from the usual mid 20 a bad Texas freeze follow by drought which made no bird hunting for us last year, The first skip year in 28 years.
This year we were back with our dove eve dinner at Perini’s Steakhouse in Buffalo Gap, Texas where we gathered for the dining part of our ‘ High Plains Shooting and Dining Society’ annual Dove shooting event at the opening season of dove shooting in Texas. After the dinner we met on the patio of the hotel where a few smoked cigars and the rest of them traded sips of fine whiskey they had brought to share. This is our 29th year and our group has no rules except, no wives, only sons and daughters because wives and couples change the dynamics.
My son who is in his 50’s joined us years ago and he comes down from Colorado and this year brought his ten year old daughter, she was pleased to meet up with the other woman in our group who is a lovely woman in her lat 20’s and she comes down from NYC most every year, except for her two years in London, she has been in publishing and she has been shooting with us since she was 14. We have a lot of sons who are not grown and are now part of the group but we really like the nice touches of our young women. My granddaughter really enjoyed the other fine woman person along on the trip. I have grown grandsons that have been doing this stuff for over twenty five years.
We have been using an excellent guide, Dusty Greaves for the last ten years and he was recommended to my after several bad guides by Ray Sasser, the deceased Outdoor writer of the Dallas Morning New, over ten years ago. Our guide called me last year and said he would not guide a group of hunters because there were not birds in his area due to a crazy Texas frees and then some drought and we needed to let the birds recover. That was a good call for us skipping last year because this year was a most decent year.
As usual, if I had shoot a few more rounds of skeet I would be back in the groove the way I was 20 years ago when I was on a weekly skeet team. This year I shoot two rounds of skeet and that was not enough to get in the groove. My son who shoots a lot, competiton three gun and steel challenge along with rounds of skeet limited out with a lot few shot than me. When he gets close to the limit he puts us his 12 ga O/U Beretta and gets out his old, almost 100 year old side by side shot gun and finishes the day out.
This year as always for the last 20 years I was shooting my 20 ga O/U and while my son limited out I shot 46 shots and came with 12 dove my son limited out with 15 dove, no idea how many times he shot. The great thing was the end of the day when my 10 year old granddaughter learned out to breast the doves out, she was really good at end after a bit learning curve.
Now I am home with a bit of Scotch writing thins silly stuff and thinking about tomorrow night dove that will be grilled with strips of fresh jalapeño peppers, cream cheese and then wrapped with bacon. Cooked on high heat fast in order to crisp the bacon and leave the dove a bit rare and that is kind of tricky but over cooked dove tastes kind of like Michelin tires, so there’s that.
In my younger days I have shot quail and pheasant over a fine dog and also done some the fun tower shoot on pheasant however I think the fun several day shoot we do for dove here in Texas is also nice way to enjoy shooting and spend a lot of money for a few ounces of bird. If you have never done it and have a chance to shoot dove over a decent field with a few fine friends I would recommend it.
OldTexan