September 2, 2014
This post takes you on a dove hunt in the Imperial Valley, east county of San Diego, and shows you a delicious field-to-table recipe to make with your doves.
Driven by a desire to know more about where our food comes from – especially fish, meat + poultry – I explored the idea of modern-day hunting a few years ago via Georgia Pellegrini. If hunting seems too counter-culture for you, then in addition to Georgia’s perspective (which I share) I highly recommend Tovar Cerulli’s writings (and others) which have inspired me to try hunting our own meat on occasion. The food is fresh, it is sustainable, it gets us all outdoors where we can appreciate what a gift meat truly is, and it gives me a deeper understanding of the ingredients I’m working with in a particular dish.
Philosophy on the topic of hunting is vast, and luckily I really enjoy a good dialogue on the matter.
Labor Day was the Dove Season Opener in Imperial Valley this year, and after scouting good spots last fall plus not one but TWO failed hunting trips last year, I was about ready to throw in the dove-hunting towel. In the meantime I scouted my old spots and found some new ones, practiced shooting, and loaded up on ammo.
Monday morning we awoke at 4am to get out to Imperial County by sun-up. Imperial is known for being one of the best spots in the land to shoot dove, especially the Eurasian dove: a much larger species which is so prolific it is now “Eurasian season” year-round there with no bag limits.
After setting up at our spot and getting the kids comfortable, we were delighted to find that all that time spent at the range lately shooting skeet really paid off. Here’s a snippet of what the hunting looks like though when the sun is up and you’re casing the skies for the dove to come in close enough for a good shot. We don’t have a bird dog, but as you can see our kids happily serve as bird dogs whenever they like. Did I mention that it topped out at 106 degrees on this day?
Not all of the shots were perfect. There are harrowing moments while hunting. Read a fantastic article here on chef Andrew Zimmern’s website Go Fork Yourself and listen to the podcast featuring new dove hunter Molly Mogren, highlighting the angst such a hunt can invoke. Of course you are taking a life every time you eat fish, meat, or poultry, but a lot of people don’t view it that way because of how the killing occurs: Out of sight, out of mind. Speaking only for myself, I think I should have to face facts now and again. I’m happy to share my struggles here, but I did spare you the heaviest of our dramas simply because I was chasing birds down and even fishing one out of a canal rather than filming!
Afterward we went to county-famous Camacho’s which was slammed with dove hunters on the season opener. While waiting over an hour for our food, we swapped hunting stories with nearby tables and my eldest daughter drew an imaginary picture of herself dove hunting. When asked if she had any interest in hunting in the future she said that so far, she was on the fence. But she loves shooting.
Some of the smaller Mourning doves are best served by the breasting-out technique seen here. If you aren’t breasting them out, you can pluck and field-dress them as you would any other bird… but use tiny scissors around the vent!
The result is some amazing-looking meat, as fresh as you will ever find in any farmer’s market. ALL of our meat, save the one breast in the bottom left corner below with the obvious pellet hole, was free of any shooting damage. We used 7.5 shot in both our 20-gauge and 12-gauge shotguns and while it did seem on the small side, this benefit was real.
