As promised! Enjoy!
season’s end
Well, it’s officially the end of duck season! And what a fantastic one it was. (You can see the photos/ read all of the previous posts about this season’s hunts here!) Even though the final hunt was a slow one, we still had a fun filled weekend near Georgetown, SC spending time outdoors with good friends and enjoying good food. I made my duck bbq and it was a hit once again!
As for the ducks, we ended up with a few blue bills, some teal, ring necks, shovelers, wood ducks, and a ruddy duck. Unfortunately, no one was able to limit out, but we spent some great time together out in the pond. I was able to snap a few photos in the blind, and got some great shots of the post-hunt festivities. Stay tuned for a compilation of some of the videos I was able to shoot over the past month or so while hunting- a nice little video diary from the 2012-2013 duck season!
Enjoy!
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| Such a beautiful morning |
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| Prine wanted to make himself more camouflage… |
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| Enjoying a post-hunt cold beverage! |
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| Hunters |
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| Setting up for a tannerite explosion. |
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| Marmaduke thinks he is Snoopy, apparently. |
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| Bald Eagle |
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| Tired pups on the ride home |
The video is on its way!
24
Degrees, that is. Twenty-four chilly chilly chilly degrees Wednesday morning for our hunt. Brr! Quite a bit different than the t-shirt 65* weather from last week, and unfortunately, my shooting suffered along with my fingers and toes! I will be there first to admit, there are some hunts where I just can’t seem to get it together. I fancy myself at least a decent shot, rarely emptying my shell belt unless crippled ducks need to be shot on the water to keep from losing them. Wednesday? Woooo brother. I had quite a time getting my limit (which I finally did, around 9:30). The other 2 hunters in the blind with me seemed to have the same problem, so I am chalking it up to that 24* weather we were dealing with :). Each of us ended up with our limits, though- totaling 16 ring necks and 2 mallards.
Prine, on the other hand, was a champ. For an 8.5 month old puppy, he is already showing such promise, and he did not let the cold get to him. Always eager and excited, all it took was a little direction in the water and he would swim right to the duck, bringing it all the way back to the blind before dropping it. I can’t wait to see how far he will have come by next season!
We are all gearing up for the last weekend of duck season, so stay posted for more updates after the weekend, and a little surprise I have been working on for the past month or two. Can’t wait!
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| Such a good boy 🙂 |
one of a kind mornings
Happy #tbt, everyone! Today’s throwback thursday comes to you all the way from 2008. Do you ever have a morning when you are hunting, and you think, “Wow. This will never happen again. I am going to remember this forever,”..? This was one such morning. A one-of-a-kind morning. My dad and I were deer hunting (still hunting, that it) near Sandy Run, SC on a cool, crisp day. The fog had started to dissipate shortly after sunrise, and the sound of the woods waking up could be heard through what was left of it. All of a sudden, my dad nudged me. “Hollis! Look!” There was such excitement in his voice, I quickly turned around and tried to spot what he was looking at. That’s when I saw the coyote quietly sneaking through the brush, right on the edge of the little clearing where our stand was. “Can I shoot him?!” Shocking, right? Haha I tend to have a pretty itchy trigger finger. My dad gave the ok, I got my rifle up, and as soon as the coyote paused for a second, pulled the trigger. BOOM! And down he went. I don’t think he stood much chance against my .308. Woooo, and high fives all around. After about 5 minutes, the crows and other birds in the woods starting making such a ruckus over the coyote laying below them, it was becoming clear we needed to act fast. My dad quickly jumped down out of the stand, ran over to the coyote, and dragged it further into the woods and out of sight. Finally, the birds calmed down.
But, the morning didn’t stop there. I know what you’re thinking- how could we possibly see anything else after a loud rifle shot, and enough bird noise to make someone think we were remaking an Alfred Hitchcock movie. We thought the same thing, but decided to wait it out, just in case. Who doesn’t love being in the woods in the morning, anyways, right? Well, what do you know? Our waiting paid off. About 30 minutes later, I notice some movement about 80 yards away through a little clearing. Out walks an 8 point buck. Oh my holy stars, I could not believe my luck. While his rack was a bit small, he was still had an 8 pt rack, outside the ears, and I could tell through my scope that he was an older deer, turning gray around his face and under his chin. (I am a full supporter of the let them go so they can grow mindset- you should be too!) Focus the cross hairs, click off the safety, and with one more BOOM for the morning, I had a buck on the ground as well! I still get “buck fever” with does, so I was definitely shaking from adrenaline with this guy. My dad was, too, with many a high-five and pat on the back, saying “Bear! Nice work! Oh man, what a morning!”
I couldn’t agree more. What. A. Morning. A one of a kind morning.
swans! don’t shoot!
As I mentioned at the end of yesterday’s post, we had another great hunt yesterday morning. While our harvest wasn’t as varied as it usually is (we ended up with mostly ring necks and a few mallards), we got to see some pretty incredible sights. We were covered up early on, unfortunately before legal hour, but it remained fairly steady throughout the morning with ring necks buzzing us like nobody’s business. Remember when I talked about the sound ring necks make? Get’s your adrenaline going before you even see the ducks! Anyways… Around 8:30, we could see 3 ducks working into the pond that didn’t look (or sound) like ring necks. Once they got about 80 yards out, I noticed the unmistakable shape and color of a bull redhead’s noggin. Two drakes and one hen. Oh man, how badly we wanted those ducks. Unfortunately, after a few minutes of trying to work them into our decoys, they got close enough to another blind for the hunters in it to shoot at them, and we were out of luck. Both drakes were knocked down, but then hen got away. Oh how I wish that could have been us! But congrats to the other hunters… I guess…
That wasn’t the last bit of excitement we had, however. Way off in the distance to our right, we noticed a huge flock of ridiculously large white birds. As first, we brushed it off as a flock of cranes, or maybe something else we regularly see around the Lowcountry. Dare I hope it is a flock of snow geese we can take a shot at…? But oh no. Once they got a little closer, we could tell our theories were quite wrong. The giant wing spans and huge black feel made the birds’ ID quite obvious- swans! That’s when we heard another hunter yell, “It’s swans!! Don’t shoot!” Don’t you worry, kind sir. I would prefer not to endure $1000s in fines, potential jail time, and loss of my hunting license. It was still really cool to see such a large group flying over, listening to them honk for several minutes since they were flying so slowly. I was even able to take some video of them flying. (Pardon the quality of the video, and some of the photos- they are just still shots from my video camera.) Enjoy!
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| Part of our harvest- 4 hunters limited out |
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| Dixie made some great retrieves |
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| Swans! |
movement
When in doubt, move on out! That was my motto for our hunt last week. After the first spot we went to proved to be a futile effort (a pond called the “secret hole”… apparently so secret, the ducks didn’t even know it was there), we decided to make a move around 8 am. We hadn’t pulled the trigger the whole time leading up to then, so we figured, what the heck! Our next stop proved to be a little more successful, scratching out a handful of ducks over the next hour or so. Then, it shut off again! What to do? Move on out, I say. Move on out. By the time we came out of our third blind, we were only 3 birds shy of a 3 person limit. Even though it can be frustrating having to move around so much, it is nice to change up the scenery, and it gives you a little more variety in terms of the types of shots you are able to take. All in all, another successful hunt!
We had another awesome hunt this morning, so stay tuned for more on that tomorrow! (Just as a teaser, I was able to get a video of 10-12 swans flying over us.. eek!)
must read monday
In light of the amazing feedback I got from last week’s recipe post (thank you!!), today’s must read monday isn’t really a novel so much as it is a cookbook filled with delicious recipes and instructions for cleaning fish and game. As much as I would like to think I come up with my recipes on the fly, I have to admit I get the inspiration from all over. That is where Afield: A Chef’s Guide to Cooking and Preparing Wild Game and Fish, by Jesse Griffiths, comes in. Along with dozens of amazing recipes that I am dying to try, there are also a medley of stories at the start of each section that highlight hunts of the chapters’ topic game/fish that keep the book anecdotal. If you’re wondering what to do with all that game in your freezer, or are looking for an excuse to go fishing and catch dinner, Afield is a great place to start!
“Jesse Griffiths knows what’s important about food…that it’s fresh, local and allowed to speak for itself. He’s an old school chef with deep respect for the land, his farmers and purveyors and the food they produce and it shows through his cooking.”
crock pot duck sandwiches
At last! A duck recipe for my dear readers. As I am sure you can tell by all of my duck hunting posts, I have quite a few birds in my freezer and a handful of delicious recipes I have been dying to share. I have made several dishes this winter, but am naturally a bit scatterbrained so of course I forgot to take pictures or write down my directions. I promise I will be better about that in 2013!
Ducks can be a bit finicky to cook- if you don’t do it just right, you can wind up with a tough, rubbery, tasteless bird, and no one wants to eat that! While I do love a good seared duck breast, the crock pot is a great way to slow cook the meat until it is tender, without a lot of hands-on time in the kitchen. Between the bbq’d duck and the tangy horseradish sauce, this recipe was a real success. My guinea pig tasters all cleaned their plates, and I know you will too!
INGREDIENTS:
Duck BBQ:
4 duck breasts, fileted off the bone (yield 8 filets)
2 onions, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tsp butter
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 bottle of your favorite bbq sauce (I used a smokey-sweet version from Trader Joe’s)
1/2 cup of red wine
1/3 cup of water
Horseradish Sauce:
1-2 tbsp prepared horseradish (you can always add more if you like a little more kick)
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup mayonaise
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 Sourdough bread loaf, sliced
STEPS:
1. Start by getting your duck breasts off the bone. This is pretty easy to do, but even easier if you have bought them at the grocery store. Just kidding. I was using mallards and teal, but whatever you have will work since they will be cooked for a lllllong time. Real long. Like 10 hours. I also only ended up with 7 filets from the 4 birds, as my dad I made a direct hit on one and the second side was too shot up to use.
2. In the bottom of your crock pot, put a layer of the chopped onions down, along with the butter. Then layer the ducks on top of the onions, and sprinkle the garlic on top of the ducks. I had one red onion and one sweet onion on hand, so I used the red onion for the base layer.
3. Now is the time to douse those ducks with the liquids. Pour in the bbq sauce, red wine, Worcestershire, and water, making sure all of the duck is covered. Then give it a quick little stir.
4. Set the crock pot to low, put that lid on, and walk away! I got everything in the pot around 8:30 in the morning, and didn’t touch it again until 4:30 that afternoon. What a delightful sight to come home to. Am I right? Pardon the sauce up the sides… I had a little spillage when I was clumsily transporting everything. Oops…
5. Almost sandwich-making time! To make the horseradish sauce, just combine all of the ingredients with a fork until they are blended. You may need to mess around with the quantities to get the taste to your liking, but it should ultimately look like this:
I also grilled up that sweet onion I mentioned before, just to have a little something extra on top of the meat in the sandwiches. Cook them low and slow until they are super soft. I even added another dash of Worcestershire. Why? Because it was there, and I like it.
6. I used a sourdough loaf for the sandwich bread. It is nice and crusty on the outside, but soft and chewy on the inside- perfect for absorbing all the juices in the bbq! Once you have sliced your bread, drizzle it with a little bit of olive oil, and stick it under the broiler until it is toasted. Then slather it with the horseradish sauce- as much or as little as you like!
7. Now, at long last, pile that bread high with the duck bbq. I am telling you, don’t skimp! You will want to have a ton of it on there. Then add a few more onions for some extra flavor, top it with the second piece of bread, and take the biggest bite you can! Oh man, what a treat.
How good does that look?! I am telling you, you won’t soon forget how much you love this recipe. I know I will be making it again before too long! Let me know how you like it. Enjoy!
Throwback Thursday: how it all got started
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Hopping on the #tbt bandwagon, welcome to the first “Throwback Thursday” post! This is a new mini-series within the blog, just like Must-Read Mondays. With the start of the new year, I decided to do a post that focuses on exactly how I got my start in the outdoors, as some of you may be wondering exactly how I grew to love hunting and fishing in general. Being an only child, and a female, one would expect my childhood to be filled with Barbies, plastic sparkly high heels, and lots of time spent in my mother’s makeup drawer. Wrong! While I did have a small handful of Barbies, they were only purchased to “help run” the doll-sized stable with horses that I obsessed over for years. I mean, as a 6 year old, how could I possibly be expected to run the entire barn operation on my own, right?
My dad has been a member of countless gun, dove, duck, and deer clubs over the years, along with the places he has owned himself, and I was always ready to tag along. Whether he was actually going hunting, or just riding to one of the properties to do a little work, you better believe I was super excited to spend some time outdoors: riding around on the four-wheeler, exploring the fields and woods nearby, finding as many “treasures” as possible (think old birds’ nests or regular super cool rocks), and everything in between. Odd? Perhaps. I am not ashamed to admit, I still go “treasure” hunting, much to the amusement of my friends and family. Before we got Dixie almost 10 years ago, and before I thought it wasn’t cool to hang out with parents while I was in middle/high school, I loved nothing more than joining my dad on his dove hunts and playing the part of bird dog. No retriever? No problem! I was too little to shoot, so it was my mission on each hunt to search for and pick up every dove my dad knocked down. Wearing my little camouflage t-shirt and what I am certain was the coolest straight-leg jeans/ boots combo ever, I ran all over the dove field like I owned it. In the winter, I would bundle up and hop on the back of the four-wheeler for some off-road exploring. I thought it was so cool seeing does grazing in the fields or sneaking through the woods to bed down for the evening. It still gives me a rush, even after 20+ years, and I know it will be the same after another 20. I think I was only 7 or 8 when I first learned how to use a climber on the big pines right in our backyard at home.
Like I mentioned before, I definitely went through the typical teen phase of thinking parents were old fogies and I undoubtedly had much cooler things going on. Ha! Right… But I at last grew out of that phase and started actively hunting again at the beginning of college, adding in more and more fishing over the years, and I have never looked back. There have been countless hunts, fishing outings, and skeet shoots in these past 7 years, and I know there will be many more to come!
Keep checking back for many more Throwback Thursdays!
must read monday
Happy Monday, all! This week’s Must Read Monday is near and dear to my heart. It’s a book called Girl Hunter: Revolutionizing the Way We Eat, One Hunt at a Time, written by classically-trained chef Georgia Pellegrini. (Follow the link to see her own website!) This book was a gift from two sweet friends last Christmas, and I did not hesitate to start reading. With a name like “Girl Hunter,” it called right to me, since that’s exactly what I am! And, what do you know? The very first character we meet in the prologue is a farmer named George Hollis. Oh man! I was hooked. Pellegrini got a little bit later start at hunting, but boy did she make up for it. As a trained chef and food lover, working at farm-to-table restaurants in New York and France, she set out on a mission to learn more about exactly where the food she was cooking came from. Reading about her first hunt with Mr. Hollis, we discover that she had never even shot a gun at the onset of her journey. Through adventures both with veteran hunters and on her own over the next several years, she is able to describe herself as “an omnivore who has solved her dilemma,” recognizing the importance of knowing where your food really comes from. Each chapter tells a different story and offers an array of different recipes. I fully agree with her statement that “the pleasures of knowing what occurred on the journey from the field to the table are just as important, because the food tastes so much better that way…” (p.12). Preach!
“Girl Hunter is an evocative account of Pellegrini’s gun-to-table experiences…It’s an unlikely pairing of Nigella Lawson’s culinary skills and Hemingway’s grit.” – Macleans