Jim Casada Outdoors

September 2006 Newsletter

Jim Casada Web site: www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com
1250 Yorkdale Drive E-mail: jc@jimcasadaoutdoors.com
Rock Hill, SC 29730-7638
803-329-4354

The Enduring Delights of Dove Hunting

A longtime hunting buddy, Roy Turner, describes the opening day of dove season as “Christmas in September.” For those who enjoy challenging wingshooting, relish sporting camaraderie at its finest, and revel in action aplenty, Turner’s words are singularly apt ones. The anticipation is such that I have trouble sleeping the night before the season comes in, just as I had similar problems on Christmas Eve as a boy. And why not?

A “popcorn popper” style dove shoot, with birds constantly flying to provide non-stop action, certainly has a festive, holiday-like air to it. The first pull of the trigger at one of the grey-winged speedsters signals the start of a new season of hunting, and the smell of burnt gunpowder wafting across the sere fields of September is a heady aroma indeed. Yet the anticipation and shooting are only part of it, for the sport, at least in this part of the world, is one of timeless and deeply meaningful traditions.

For example, the Turner family hunt, one which I have been fortunate enough to participate in for the better part of a quarter century, has now been held annually for 52 years and now involves the fourth generation of the family. Personally, I cherish it so much that I have, at different times, rushed back from trips to Montana (trout), northern Quebec (caribou and ptarmigan), and Austria (chamois), just to be a part of the occasion.

An opening day dove shoot, particularly one of the sort the Turners host, is a true time of celebration. Sportsmen harken to the hunter’s horn and renew the annual rites of fall with joyous camaraderie, and the opener has a festive air about it reminiscent of family reunions or all-day singings with dinner on the grounds. Food, fellowship, and wholesome fun mean as much, if not more, than testing one’s shooting skills on speedsters darting through the hazy skies of a dog days afternoon.

The heart of the dove hunting tradition centers on celebratory opening day events. Fine shoots such as those annually held by the Turner family just don’t happen—they result from careful planning, plenty of preparation, and determination to perpetuate an important sporting legacy. The planning and preparation parts of the equation involve far more than issuing coveted invitations to the hunt and making all the arrangements for the feasts that either precede the hunt or mark its conclusion (or sometimes both). There are fields of millet, sunflowers, or other favored foods to be planted, cultivated, and cut at just the right time to get the birds flocking in; corn to be harvested knowing that the leftovers are magnets for doves; peanuts to be gathered and fields turned to leave plenty of goobers for the birds; perhaps a field filled with watermelons left from the July and August harvest to be bush-hogged in order to expose the seeds doves love; or plowed ground sown to winter wheat or other legitimate agricultural practices that provide the welcome side benefit of attracting birds.

My personal experiences with the Turners typify the dove hunting tradition at its finest not just here in South Carolina but anywhere the sport has lasting appeal. The patriarch of the clan, Gene Turner, has planting for doves down to a fine art, and he is a part of three generations of the family that now relish the annual event. For days and even weeks prior to opening day in early September the family gets phone calls asking questions such as: “Do you have any openings for hunters this year (the answer is invariably no)?” “Are you seeing many birds?” “Do you think that front heading this way will send them south?” “What will we be having for the hunt lunch?”

The latter question looms particularly large, for a vital part of any first-rate shoot involves fine fare. Hours before the hunters begin to gather, a whole hog will have been split and placed on a huge barbecue grill to cook slowly toward “pig pickin’” perfection. At the appropriate time a few hindquarters of venison, scores of pieces of chicken being slow cooked, and perhaps some other delicacies will find their place atop huge cookers as well. If everything goes as planned (and it always does on the Turner hunt I’m privileged to be a part of), all will reach savory, fall-off-the-bone perfection about the time hunters arrive for pre-hunt instructions along with the feast.

There will be accompaniments aplenty to go with the pork and wild game. The bounty of late summer will be on display in a fashion reminiscent of show day at a county fair. Over the years I have seen, among other items, juicy red and yellow tomatoes; sliced cucumbers; all sorts of pickles including pickled peaches, watermelon rind pickles, okra pickles, and the like; fresh and preserved figs; the first scuppernongs of the season; squash; slaw; pasta salad; a chicken or wild turkey bog (for the uninitiated, a “bog” is a rice-poultry-sausage dish); cantaloupes picked fresh at dawn; and slices of sugary, sweet “cannonball” watermelon so cold that beads of water adorn the rind. Roy Turner’s wife, Kerry, makes a chicken bog so indescribably delicious that mere thoughts of it get my salivary glands in overdrive.

Nor should dessert be overlooked, for this is a time for belt-loosening and to pay tribute to the cooks who have labored for hours to please hunters’ palates. There might be lemon or chess pies; peach and apple cobblers; perhaps a churn or two of hand-cranked ice cream thick with wedges from just-picked Elberta peaches, one of my good wife’s specialties such as a chocolate trifle, Mississippi mud pie, or Texas cake; and possibly that most welcome and exquisite of seasonal Southern delicacies, a scuppernong pie. This year Mrs. Turner (the matriarch of the clan who is just enough older than me and such a genteel lady that I feel obliged to address her that way rather than by her first name) brought a scuppernong pie. I’d like to think she made it with me particularly in mind, and whether or not that was the case, old Greedy Gut Jim ended up with three hefty slices of this culinary wonder.

All of this feasting comes round about noon, and veterans of the dove day scene know that there will be a culinary replay, with some variations, come hunt’s end. Then it is time for a soothing potion of snakebite medicine if you are so inclined, lies and alibis, and another belt-loosening meal. As I told Roy this year, just prior to leaving, I simply don’t know how you can have much more fun (at least at my age).

The Heart of the Hunt

Matters connected with the hunt—renewal of old friendships and making of new ones, special attention devoted to boys and girls participating in their first dove shoot, the wonderful eating, placing one’s stool at the appropriate place and getting set up at your stand before lunch, and the hunt master’s speech on safety and obeying the regulations—are all important. Still, the undeniable essence of the hunt is the shooting. When doves abound there will be plenty of it. Statistics indicate that nationwide hunters take a dove for every five shots or so, and it’s no wonder the ammunition manufacturers love the sport.

Although hunting from dawn onward is allowed most places after opening week, many states limit shooting to the afternoons for the first week of the season. When the heat of dog days lays its heavy, humid hand on the land, doves have the good sense to do most of their feeding in the cool of late afternoon. Still, eager hunters, months removed from their last opportunity to hunt, filter into the field to take their allotted stands almost as soon as lunch is over. Sure, you sweat and swelter in withering heat while an overly heavy lunch settles and only the occasional single or pair floats by within range.

Then somewhere around 4:00 p.m., the skies fill with birds as if the avian floodgates had been opened. Doves are everywhere, and excited cries of “mark left,” “coming behind you,” “over the trees,” or “in the field” ring out. So does near non-stop shooting, shouts of triumph, plenty of good-natured ribbing when someone misses an easy floater, and occasional yells of pain when a careless soul blunders into a fire ant mound and finds that these tiny offspring of the devil can announce their resentment at being disturbed by biting in unison. A general aura of excitement and good will prevails. There are words of praise for retrievers (of both the youthful human and canine variety).

The glad madness continues for another hour or so, then slowly the better marksmen among the hunters filter from the field as they fill their limit or grow tired. Others continue banging away, and there are always a few miserable wing shots who fire three or four boxes of shells but have only five or six birds and a sore shoulder to show for it. As light eases toward night, hunters young and old call their dogs to heel, fold up their stools and blinds, case guns, gather shotshell hulls, and leave the field.

The hearty pre-hunt feast notwithstanding, a few hours of fast shooting in the late summer sun builds up appetites and a thirst to match. Hunters find welcome answers to both while resting comfortably beneath the shade trees where lunch was served a few hours earlier. There are leftovers aplenty for pork sandwiches. The remainders of the bog, made even more delicious through extra hours for the flavors to mix and marry, warm atop a grill in a capacious five-gallon pot. For all the appeal of this fine regional fare though, dove breasts often form the focal point of day’s end dining or, if not, promise fine fixin’s in the days to come.

Hunters clean the birds in an assembly line-like process, and often the breasts will immediately be wrapped in bacon, perhaps stuffed with a jalapeno or water chestnuts, and popped atop a grill. They disappear as quickly as they reach a perfect medium-rare turn, as do the dove heart hors d’oeuvres pierced with a toothpick and grilled for a minute or so.

As appetites find sumptuous satisfaction, the time for the telling of tales, part of the proper wrap-up to any big shoot, arrives. Old-timers will compare the just completed hunt, invariably finding it a bit lacking in some way, to those of years or even decades ago. There will be fond recollections of moving or hilarious moments from yesteryear—such as one year when a guy shed his pants in tremendous haste thanks to fire ants or when a poor “no shooting” soul fired 78 times with but a single dove to show for his efforts. Adolescents who have taken their first limit (as Roy Turner’s oldest boy, Joey, did this year) and younger hunters who have cleanly killed their first flying bird (as his youngest son, Michael did) come in for special praise, friendly pats on the back, and maybe a bit of gentle teasing. Those who pay special heed will notice gleams of pride in fathers’ eyes even as they readily excuse the bragging rights exercised by proud grandfathers. Soon the participants will disperse, but before doing so adults in the group raise a cheery glass of home-made scuppernong wine to salute renewal of one of America’s most enduring sporting traditions. It’s one I wouldn’t miss, and the memories sustain me long after the actual shooting has come and gone.

Doves on the Table

Doves make wonderful eating, although as is the case with so much game, proper dressing and cooking loom mighty large indeed. It’s hard to beat marinated breasts cooked atop a grill (if they aren’t pink in the middle you’ve cooked them too long), but dove pies, dove bogs, and a whole bunch of other dishes also deserver attention. Here are a few suggestions, all of which come from our two most recent cookbooks, Wild fare & Wise Words and Field to Feast: The Remington Cookbook.

CAROLINA DOVES

½ cup flour
Salt and pepper to taste
16 dove breasts
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 tablespoons canola oil

Place flour, salt and pepper in a brown paper bag. Shake doves in big to coat well. Heat butter and oil to medium hot and brown the birds quickly. Turn and brown on all sides. Add enough water to come halfway up on the doves. Cover the pan and simmer for 1-1 ½ hours or until doves are tender. Remove doves and thicken the gravy with a flour and water paste (2 tablespoons flour and 2 tablespoons water). Serve with rice, cathead biscuits, and greens. 4 servings.

DOVE BREAST APPETIZERS

Dove breasts
Italian salad dressing
Bacon slices, cut in half and precooked a bit in the microwave

Marinate dove breasts in your favorite oil and vinegar dressing (we like Paul Newman’s) for at least 4 hours. Wrap a strip of bacon around each dove breast and secure with a toothpick. Place on a hot grill and cook 8-10 minutes, turning often or until center is pink. Try these with various stuffings such as half a jalapeno pepper, onion slices, water chestnuts, or pepper cheese.

CREOLE DOVES

16-20 dove fillets (if you don’t know how to fillet dove breasts, you need to learn—it is quick and easy—I cover it in detail in one of our cookbooks, Wild Bounty)

½ to 1 stick butter
Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Creole Seasoning
Quickly sauté dove fillets in butter and sprinkle with Creole Seasoning as you cook the doves. Do not overcook. Doves are best if still pink inside. Serve immediately. These make great appetizers and are so darn easy to prepare.

DOVE BOG (OR PERLIEU)

2 limits (24) breasted doves
1 pound smoked sausage or encased venison sausage
1 large onion, diced
3 to 4 tablespoons butter
2 cups (1 pound) white rice
1 (8-ounce) can mushrooms
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the dove breasts in enough water to cover all 24 of them in a large pot until the meat separates easily from the bones. Remove the meat and keep it at hand. Remove bones and shot from the liquid. Reserve enough of the liquid to cook the rice. Cut the sausage into small pieces and cook briefly in the liquid until they begin to swell. If you used encased venison sausage, brown the entire sausage in the oven, then cut it into small pieces and add to the liquid. Sauté the onion in the butter in a skillet until tender. Add the rice, dove, onion, mushrooms, salt and pepper to the pot and bring the liquid back to a boil. Reduce heat and cook according to the rice package directions. Makes 6 hearty servings.

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