It's a real shame what happened to the pheasant population in the Grasslands and further south. My aunt and uncle used to drive to Mendota from Moorpark to hunt pheasants and had wonderful hunting there. No more and it's really no better in the north areas now. The area manager at Gray Lodge takes a little money that he gets from rice that's grown on the area and buys a few hundred birds to plant on his area and a couple to the North. From natural production to having to plant birds. What a fall.
Hello Doves
- Thread starter Beniciahd
- Start date
It is really sad. Some of the younger guys weren't around to see it. But I still have good memories of that time. Didn't matter where you went in the delta, you saw birds. Pheasants were everywhere. My best memory was this really good spot that had asparagus. The third week of the season, we happen to be there when the last couple rows of the asparagus was being cut. We must have seen 200 pheasants take off in front of that machine. It was quite the site. We used to hunt west of Madera and once saw hundreds of pheasants sitting in a young cotton field. We used to see them fly accross highway 99 in the morning. Now they have all basically disappeared. My brother knows a guy who is a fieldman for a rice cooperative. He travels the roads and fields north of Sacramento which was probably the best pheasant hunting in California. He hardly ever sees a wild pheasant anymore.
I should have capitalized Delta Island Pheasant Hunts. They were conducted primarily on Twitchell Island but I've also gone to hunts they had on Sherman Island when Twitchell had poor production. They were conducted on land that the Dept of Water Resources owned and through Bob Potter, a Deputy Director there, and fisheries guys from the Stockton fisheries office of DFG. originally being unpaid volunteers, had public access hunts there. It wasn't easy as the hunt area was in harvested corn at the time. Nothing beats running through corn stubble after a bird and getting a stalk in the clappers.
Corn's gone and so are the pheasant hunts. They grow rice there now and have late season waterfowl hunts only.
Corn's gone and so are the pheasant hunts. They grow rice there now and have late season waterfowl hunts only.
I am not familiar with that area. We hunted Roberts Island, Bacon Island, and McDonald Island. It's mostly private property. I think most of it is planted to corn but there are still no pheasants
. It used to be prime territory. One of the landowners told me they would limit almost every time they went out. He said you would be lucky to get a bird now and this conversation took place 15 years ago
quail hound
Moderator
I got out again today, just finished up my limit and I'm sitting on the tailgate listening to my dad and brother still blasting away. I shot my new gun considerably better today but still not great. Doves are still trickling in but I think I hear some juevos rancheros calling my name.:thumbsup:
Sound like u had another great hunt.I couldn't go. Had work to do. Now our well stopped working
pheasantaddict
New member
How do you guys cook up your dove?
Use the whole bird.
Pick them leaving as much skin as possible. Shoot doves off a Safflower field and they smell and taste just like Saffola margarine.
Save the hearts, livers and gizzards and make dirty rice with them for breakfast with a fried egg on top.
Marinate the whole bird in Teriyaki and BBQ the whole bird. I especially like the legs and thighs even though there isn't much on them. Beer, a bunch of BBQ'd doves and football. It's fall.
Pick them leaving as much skin as possible. Shoot doves off a Safflower field and they smell and taste just like Saffola margarine.
Save the hearts, livers and gizzards and make dirty rice with them for breakfast with a fried egg on top.
Marinate the whole bird in Teriyaki and BBQ the whole bird. I especially like the legs and thighs even though there isn't much on them. Beer, a bunch of BBQ'd doves and football. It's fall.
quail hound
Moderator
The go to is the dove breast, jalepeno, bacon appetizer but I also like to fry the breast (pounded thin and dredged in flower), make soup, and even chilli. My friend throws them in the carnitas pot whole and slow fries them, delicious! Tasty little birds.:cheers:
ditchparrot19
Member
My wife whipped up the seven I shot on the opener last night. They were done in the oven in a broth-type deal with carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, etc. It was her best effort to date on doves, for sure (although there had been plenty of good ones in the past).
ditchparrot19
Member
Where are you going, Cal? If you're headed up this way at all, I might join you and could even bring the pup along. I'm picking up my new (to me) Franchi Renaissance O/U at 3:07 p.m. on Monday (yes, I'll be standing right there at the store counter when that exact minute ticks over to close out my 10-day wait) and I'll be eager to get it into action.
ditchparrot19
Member
Nix that. I forgot that my kid's soccer game that was supposed to be played tomorrow evening will take place on Tuesday instead. I'm already going to miss two games on the Montana trip, so I really need to be there for all the others.
Well dp, that was one of the fastest hunting collaborations I can recall. Went from I can go to I can't in exactly 5 minutes.:10sign:
Too bad because I would love to see both the gun and the gun dog. It's going to be brutally hot and I don't know if I can carry enough water to keep Morgan out that long. There won't be any birds but I'll take some paper and try to at least pattern #7 steel to try and find a choke that works.
I checked the DFW site and a number of wildlife areas are closed till further notice due to no water. LDC is one of them and when I was there on the opener there was absolutely no water anywhere. All have reduced capacity including the big ones like Gray Lodge and Sacramento. No rain this year, no hunting on the wildlife areas.
Too bad because I would love to see both the gun and the gun dog. It's going to be brutally hot and I don't know if I can carry enough water to keep Morgan out that long. There won't be any birds but I'll take some paper and try to at least pattern #7 steel to try and find a choke that works.
I checked the DFW site and a number of wildlife areas are closed till further notice due to no water. LDC is one of them and when I was there on the opener there was absolutely no water anywhere. All have reduced capacity including the big ones like Gray Lodge and Sacramento. No rain this year, no hunting on the wildlife areas.
quail hound
Moderator
A new gun and a new dog!? Your wife doesn't have any sisters does she?:cheers:
Nice gun btw, have fun with it.
quail hound
Moderator
Cal, I saw a press release last week with the amount of water each refuge up there were getting. It ranged from 40-70% if I recall correctly, I'll try to find it.
quail hound
Moderator
Well it was just for the Sac complex I geuss, I'll be on the lookout for info on the others.
"As of June, 2015, the Sacramento, Delevan, and Colusa NWRs will receive 75% of their 2015-2016 allocated water. In accordance with the Complex's Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) and other management documents (see below), the refuge managers and biologists continue to strategize for the optimal use of water to continue to meet the refuges' conservation goals. The staff is being flexible with water usage so water conserved early in the season can be used later in the season to support migratory bird populations and meet management objectives to the extent possible. State and federal land managers are working strategically together on a landscape-wide level in their water management."
Sutter to receive 43%.
"As of June, 2015, the Sacramento, Delevan, and Colusa NWRs will receive 75% of their 2015-2016 allocated water. In accordance with the Complex's Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) and other management documents (see below), the refuge managers and biologists continue to strategize for the optimal use of water to continue to meet the refuges' conservation goals. The staff is being flexible with water usage so water conserved early in the season can be used later in the season to support migratory bird populations and meet management objectives to the extent possible. State and federal land managers are working strategically together on a landscape-wide level in their water management."
Sutter to receive 43%.
Here's the link to the DFW area status page. It's giving fair warning to the duck hunters who are putting in for season draws or opening day. I'd expect more to close between now and the duck opener. It will take a lot of rain to get enough water to these areas and allow a normal quota. The reservations will eat up the area capacity and the sweat line won't get in.
https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=57660&inline
https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=57660&inline
Morgan and I went dove hunting on the last day yesterday and saw an amazing number of birds. More than 100 but only two stupid ones. I got one of those so Morgan got to retrieve something. I gave it to a kid who had two.
I picked up about 30 empty shotgun shells from the a.holes hunting opening day and left another 100 that I was too p.o.'d to pick up by that time. People are pigs. I'll continue to pick them up over the season and should have it policed up but...pick up empty shells. A warden told me one time they could write a ticket for littering, if they wanted to, that was more expensive than shooting a cormorant for example.
I picked up about 30 empty shotgun shells from the a.holes hunting opening day and left another 100 that I was too p.o.'d to pick up by that time. People are pigs. I'll continue to pick them up over the season and should have it policed up but...pick up empty shells. A warden told me one time they could write a ticket for littering, if they wanted to, that was more expensive than shooting a cormorant for example.