Cold & foggy in Davis, CA this morning.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

It looks like it might rain on Thursday too.

We need some rain to clean the Valley air and get the fish excited about Fall/Winter.

[Charlie Gonzales]

Yeah Bill we need some of that weather to get those northern birds down in our valley.

Got to hunt with my dad this past weekend @ graylodge for the opener. Of course I had great time just being with dad but the Shooting was great too. There were over 3200 ducks harvested on saturday, and the refuge is still packed with birds.

Its confusing to me how one of my favorite hobbies is so catch and release and the other is so final. I get very upset every time we lose a bird( it swims off or dives and you cant find it); it kills me to think about the waste. But every hunter has to deal with it and its just part of the game.

But anyways, now its time for some seared mallard breast with a mushroom ragu, soft pollenta and a muscellin salad with strawberries and balsamic reduction. oh and a nice hearty red wine.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Charlie,

I use to belong to a little duck club over by Woodland, CA with some high school/south Sac friends I hunted with. 1960s it was $175.00 each for a tank. We had 100 acres with 4 doubles we worked on our selves. The opener was always pretty wild with Mallards and then late season was really good.

My relatives, The Sopwiths, at Reigo and Powerline, had lots of land we could hunt for pheasants and ducks right out past the airport north of Sacramento too. Pheasant were so good 40 years ago that we did not need a dog.

My wife has relatives in South Dakota that have pheasants so think right now you don't need a dog to be successful.

My friend Jim Silva had a big ranch out of Ione we could hunt for quail back then too. You could not exaggerate that place. At beginning of the season we would break up a big covey of about 500 Valley Quail.

I did a lot of bird hunting till I got my own fly shop, 'The Fly Hutch' in Sacramento in 1975.

I use to take an indoor Faberware electric rotisserie and put two ducks on it. I put apple, oranges and onions inside the ducks. Then after they rotated for a while and the juices got running I would poke some holes in them and shake every seasoning I could find on them.

No one else liked ducks so I ate one hot and the other cold the next day.

When I am retired or semi-retire I will go back to bird hunting. I have guns and friend who hunt still.