NUMMIES

This probably isn't the right place for this, however, if you hadn't noticed, I have a hard time following the rules.    As a back story to my post above, wrote this the other day. 

I feel like a crack addict about now.

Sept 1 has pretty much been a family Holliday since I was young. Yes, I know it is a real holliday. But, to a lot of folks, Sept. 1st is the opening of the hunting (dove) season. I have always been extremely lucky about where I have been able to go for opening of dove season.

I'm 37, and I have not been out in a field at 5:30 AM one time in the last 29 years. And every year I went out it really wasn't ever in doubt we would limit, most years we limited within an hour.

First, it was a family friend, our dentist. His parents had a ranch out in Patterson. Great open field next to the San Joaquin River.

After that it was a ranch outside of Livingston, the ranch Pete Vella managed. If you were within 100 yards of Sal's tree (a huge old oak) you were guaranteed to limit within about 15 minutes.

And finally for about the last 15 years at the Faith Ranch on the 132, east of Modesto/west of the 5. Well, I wouldn't even call that hunting. It was just shooting. I mean we would let plenty birds pass by without shooting and wait for the perfect shot, or the plumpest birds.

And if a guaranteed limit wasn't good enough, at Livingston and Faith Ranch, the kicker was that we were hunting with the Gallo family. So, after the brief *hunt*, we would clean our birds and then retire to another local (the river cottage, etc.) where we would have lunch. Lunch was always an open fire where we would grill game that everyone brought (duck, geese, dove, quail, boar, venison) and there were cases of the finest single vineyard wines Gallo produced, most of which were so limited they never made it to market.

Now, my father, my in, is vacationing in Italy and Spain and will not be back for opening of dove season.

And like the swallows returning to Capistrano, I see doves everywhere I look as September 1st beckons. I find myself nervous and anxious. Everything I have grown up with is telling me, get ready. There is a smell in the air in late August when the doves are a flitter. I watch them, track their movement, my wife gives me looks as if to say wtf are you doing. I can't help it.

So, as Sept. 1st slowly draws nearer, I will notice the ever increasing dove population a flight in the sky and recall how incredibly lucky I have been to be able to participate in the opening day festivities that were provided me.

Thanks pops.

Now hurry home and let's work on a spot for opening of quail season.