Thursday, February 9, 2012

Camraderie




It is pretty cold here in Philadelphia. We had a dusting of snow last night and it reminded me Winter is still here and Dove season does not start until September.

The Dove hunt at our Club kicks off the Season and is a great way to say farewell to Summer and look forward to Hunting and Fall. One of the features of our Club Dove hunt is the pre-hunt lunch. We light the grill and prepare burgers and dogs and sit around eating and catching up. Many of the guys have neither seen each other nor spoken since we hung up the waders in January. The sons have grown an inch or two and a new gun is perhaps displayed or a new hunting dog introduced. The meal is pedestrian but the time spent with fellow Sportsmen is not. We do not admit it but we missed each other.

I have shown recent pre-Dove lunches where we have roasted a pig and that meal is far from average. But the focus remains seeing the guys and picking up the friendships where they were left at the end of last Season. The members are CEOs and retired cops, Doctors and Restaurant owners, Middle Management guys,lawyers and everything in between. When we put on the camo clothing and take to the field none of that matters...we are friends, hunting buddys and Sportsmen.

5 comments:

Bear said...

Very good post... makes me long for an 85° fall afternoon, a sore shoulder and pockets full of dove breasts and spent yellow shotshells.

We used to have a group of family friends come up from Maryland to hunt with us on the dove opener. When PA passed the antler restrictions, they stopped coming up, which is something that I miss more and more as I get older.

The camaraderie of the dove field and the goose blind is something you don't get with any other kind of hunting, which is one of the reasons I enjoy it so much.

Alexandra Bee Blog said...

I LOVE this post--it is so true that your common interest can bring people together from all different walks of life!

Unknown said...

Always my favorite time of the year- Dove Season!

James said...

A long crossing shot remembered can get you through many cold winter evenings.

Eastern Shore Outdoors said...

Nice post..with the donning of the camo comes the shedding of the clothes that identify the wearer and his profession. The unified group goes forward with the purpose of camaraderie and a good safe hunt....Phil