There's few things I like better right now than getting out in the field after Sunday's Masses and roving about with a shotgun in search of dove, or small game. Going solo is good, just you, the countryside, senses sharpened in search of game and the satisfaction of something for the pot if things go right. If they don't? An armed ramble about the fields and treelines is good too. But I prefer to go out with company, which lately means GWB and his bird dog in training, JEB.
We shot a couple of the feathered acrobats and missed far more, they'll fly again to fight another day, and most of our time was spent set-up in silence along the edge of a big field waiting for the dove to fly. I like that silence. After a while you start to hear the sounds of the country, insects, birds, livestock, far off dogs and... dove! Then it's up and at 'em with a vengeance.
But they're canny rocketeers. They'll swerve to miss the shot, take off at impossible angles like gravity defying UFOs and otherwise defy the shooter. One seemed to play dead yesterday, stumbling in mid arc, nosedive falling straight down towards the ground, then taking off like an insane experiment out of the Peenemunde proving grounds. Well flown.
Then it was back to the tailgate to clean the birds as the sun was setting and back to HQ to eat them.
Fried up the breasts with onion, garlic and chili sauce on a toasted bun with mayo -- sandwich style.
Tasty, followed up by a glass or two of the right stuff on the porch and the usual banter about Angelic alphabets, Benchmade v. Spyderco, the wickedness of Yoko Ono and the perversity of thinking that the more you're taxed the richer you'll be.
God bless,
LSP
