When I shoot I never drink any type of alcohol. Was raised that the two never were to be done together. In fact I have excused a couple friends from hunting with me on my farm when they started imbibing. Simply explained due to liability they could no longer shoot. They took it well, a bit embarrassed I suspect. Guest follow rules or are no longer guest.
As to shooting songbirds Ed, they are really tasty birds, who can be a challenge to shoot after opening day. Giveme a plate full of bacon wrapped, grilled dove breast and I am a happy camper. Opening day of Dove season is our Glorious 12 equivalent. The start of another hopeful season of great days afield to build memories for a lifetime.
Well all my honey holes got planted with soy beans this year and no corn. So I will be looking for other spots to shoot. Good thing is I have two new Rizzini's to try out.
ky, agreed booze and firearms can be a dangerous combination...
an..."they are really tasty birds, who can be a challenge to shoot after opening day. Giveme a plate full of bacon wrapped, grilled dove breast and I am a happy camper. Opening day of Dove season is our Glorious 12 equivalent. The start of another hopeful season of great days afield to build memories for a lifetime."...well, when you put that way, it sounds pretty appealling...
however, we do not do that sorta thing up here in the northeast...never did, never will...different traditions an awl dat...plus, doves seem to roost and feed all around me...they are gentle little birds, that seem to harm no other creature... plus, in the evening, their melodic call, coo, coo, coo...sorta reminds me of my youth, when at sunset, one would hear..bob white...bob white...
john, will forgive you that one...respect you too much to make you an enemy here...
an yeah, in the summer time, when its hot up here (over 85 degrees), i do drink ah beer now an then...an as for bullshit, well i pontificate year round with gusto!
ed, you can ruin a thread faster than a tomcat pissing on a face mask.
I do not go to dove shoots to drink, or bullshit. I go to test my mettle against hard, fast flying doves. I had rather eat them than a good steak. I don't go where the drinking and shooting are mixed. And I don't tolerate idiots and fools well. So, how about taking YOUR stupid garbage somewhere else.
I'll miss the first week but hopefully Skeettx will leave me a few later on. Surely in the 7.6 million acres of the Texas Panhandle someone will forget a particular honey hole.....
I know this has been discussed before, but let’s hear about some good dove recipes. I’ve cooked some on a grill before, rare, and they were ok, but nothing great. Sure not as good as quail or ruffed grouse. How can I make them good to eat?
Fresh mushrooms Bell peppers Doves Salt Pepper Worcestershire sauce Wine
Sautee' the sliced 'shrooms and peppers (add onions if you care for them) in olive oil until done, then remove them temporarily. Simmer the salted and peppered doves in the remaining olive oil and veggie drippings until rare inside (they won't be totally browned outside). Add back the veggies, add some Worcestershire sauce to taste. I like a good bit. Add 1/2 cup of wine, cover, and simmer for about 5 more minutes. Serve over rice.
This is a recipe my wife came up with many years ago for her loving husband. She couldn't run me off, now.
One thing I've learned to do that makes grilled dove breasts better is to precook the bacon which you use to wrap the breasts, in the microwave, until half done, but still pliable. Then, wrap it on the breasts before grilling. This way the bacon can finish cooking completely on the doves without overcooking the breast meat. I also like to marinate the doves in a citrus salad dressing overnight, before grilling them. Hard to find it, but one company sells an orange based salad dressing that works well.
I've a close dove shooting buddy that cooks us a huge pot of doves in brown gravy once a year. He slow cooks them all afternoon in the gravy, then we have them for supper with grits, homemade biscuits and sides. Wonderful, but I have not a clue how to start cooking them that way.
As for gamebirds tasting like liver, author Stephen Bodio has this to say: “Also notice the color of the cut flesh. Like all good Woodcock (and snipe) cooks, he sort of passes them through a very hot oven. I get tired of hearing how dark- fleshed birds “taste like liver”- good LIVER doesn’t taste like liver when it is cooked rare, turned over quickly in hot bacon fat and butter. My disgusted French- born gourmand friend Guy de la Valdene, after he read an American recipe for woodcock that involved two cans of cream of mushroom soup and an hour and a half in the oven, wrote (in Making Game in 1990): “As this recipe negates the whole reason for killing the birds in the first place, why not take it a step further and poach the Woodcock overnight in equal parts of catsup, pabulum, and Pepto- Bismol.” Gil
... cream of mushroom soup...“As this recipe negates the whole reason for killing the birds in the first place..."
Absolutely correct. We have a weekly long running outdoors show here and the 'wild game cooking segment' used to feature a woman named Kathy who dumped canned mushroom slime on everything, no matter what it was, every week. Enough to gag a maggot.
I've had grilled marinated dove bacon wrapped with a slice of jalapeno. It's delicious.
I see no reason why they couldn't be pan fried in fresh corn oil after being dredged in Drake's Crispy Fry Mix and served with a dipping sauce of your choice. That's my favorite way to cook pheasants.
For a dove to be good to eat you have to like liver....or drinking beer.
Maybe TN Dove are just different. I have had Dove in ten or more states so far, not TN, but none of them tasted like liver. My favorite way is grilled wrapped in bacon, some with a pepper inserted under the bacon or as shish kabobs with sweet onion, mushroom and pepper in between breast. Years ago I picked six birds and wife lightly roasted them for company. She put a orange segment with a bit of oyster dressing in the body cavity to keep moist. Served over wild rice with oyster dressing as a side and a salad. Looked like mini roasted chickens. A lot of work but they were delicious. Friend strips the meat off the breast and cuts up into strips like mini chicken strips. Batters and quick fries them for maybe 30 seconds. Batter is crispy and the meat is still rare. They were very tasty. None of these tasted like liver or if your liver taste like them please tell me how you cook your live, I am doing it wrong.
For a dove to be good to eat you have to like liver....or drinking beer.
Neither, for me. I hate liver but love doves. They taste nothing alike, IMO. I once ate 17 doves at one sitting, with nothing to drink but water.
Reminds me of Paul Newman's boast in the classic movie "Cool Hand Luke": I can eat fifty eggs....Geo
Big difference. I didn't plan on eating any certain amount, or brag on doing it. I know better. Ate 14 grilled ones once. Woulda eaten a full limit but we ran out too soon.
Stan I planted three fields this year. We have had too much rain and one field is just a poor example of a Dove field with weeds in sunflowers and corn stunted by too much water. The second field looks decent, with wheat waiting for strip mowing, sunflowers bending over with enormous heads and corn head high, for cover. The best field has everything growing like crazy with corn almost nine feet high. Now if only birds are around we should be in business. My countdown is sooner as September 1 is our start. Wish you and everyone here has a safe and bountiful season.
We planted 3 fields in corn, sunflower, wheat & rice...almost didn't get anything in. Early season plantings had good rain, but we had to wait through a 2 month drought and got the sunflowers in 80 days before our opener Sept. 4th. Hope that our sunflowers are the 70 day variety... we have had decent rain since and are looking forward to a great season, well a better season than last year...setting a low bar with that! Last year suxed!!
BTW, early season I'll be shooting my Janssen & Son 20 ga. and later in the season A 2.5' 16 LC Smith field.
As long as we don't have a hurricane blow them out of here, we should a good opening. Dummy powerline is a quarter mile long and runs lengthways through a 30 acre field. Photo taken earlier this week. Gil
Hopefully they'll stick around. In our area with all of the agriculture, you can have a lot of birds one day on a corn field harvested in August, but when a neighbor pulls his peanuts, or who knows what in September, they're gone! Good luck!
The dove population in my area has been on the decline for many years due to the steady disappearance of row-crop farming. With the advent of legalized baiting (disc up 2-3 acres and layer it with wheat) around every bend in the road by the local good ol' boys who blast them morning and afternoon for the 3-day Labor Day weekend until the local thin population has been wiped out, It gets to be less each passing year.
I've tried to convince the Miss. Dept. of Wildlife to only allow afternoon-only hunts/shoots on opening weekend to extend the resource somewhat. They look at you like you've got two heads. JR
You ain't trying to weasel into Foxes spot are you George ?
Nah,jOe. Plenty of doves around my south GA area and I've been opening the dove season with the same guys for many years, some since we were in high school together about sixty years ago. Not near as many of us as there used to be but new generations make up the loss. I often hunt now with the kids of the kids who grew up around our home playing with my kids. I hope that my grandsons enjoy the same lifetime hunting camaraderie with my old friend's grandkids as my generation did with our old hunting buddies...Geo
You Dixie based gents might find it interesting to read, or re-read Nash Buckingham's "The Dove"-- he talks about baiting, arbitrary distances or zones and what a nightmare that fiasco was to enforce, 1/2 day seasons (also might work for waterfowling too) and other sage bits of wisdom from De Shootin'ist G'entman hisownself>> RWTF
Fox most all Southern dove hunters bait in one way or another.
Once I asked a Federal game warden if he could explain the difference between hunting a field expressly planted and manipulated to shoot dove on and hunting a field that the guy just threw out grain on....he really had no answer.
Maybe Stan can explain the difference between bait and bait.
Kinda like lipstick on a pig beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Fox along with baited fields some Southern "Sportsmsn" even go so far as to put up phoney power line wires so the doves will come in and lite....power wire shooting doved rates a little above ground swating quail
Only good thing that might have came from your trip is when you out shot Stanley and his famous Yiltz shootgun..
The dove population in my area has been on the decline for many years due to the steady disappearance of row-crop farming. With the advent of legalized baiting (disc up 2-3 acres and layer it with wheat) around every bend in the road by the local good ol' boys who blast them morning and afternoon for the 3-day Labor Day weekend until the local thin population has been wiped out, It gets to be less each passing year.
I've tried to convince the Miss. Dept. of Wildlife to only allow afternoon-only hunts/shoots on opening weekend to extend the resource somewhat. They look at you like you've got two heads. JR
John you need to read Meditations on Hunting and read the chapter explaining why hunting seasons always seem like they were better in the past....
In the Morning can't wait...... I am as anxious now as I was when I was allowed to go along as a 6 year old retriever. Got to start shooting "AT" them as a 7 year old...... the excitement never wanes, hope it never does.......The BEST part of the year starts Tomorrow
In the Morning can't wait...... I am as anxious now as I was when I was allowed to go along as a 6 year old retriever. Got to start shooting "AT" them as a 7 year old...... the excitement never wanes, hope it never does.......The BEST part of the year starts Tomorrow