If you remember the British cooking series, Two Fat Ladies, of PBS and BBC fame, you’ll immediately recognize Clarissa Dickson Wright as the taller of the two, not the proud chainsmoker who passed away from lung cancer in 1999.  Dickson Wright is the co-author of The Game Cookbook with Scottish farmer and outdoorsman, Johnny Scott.    

A gorgeously illustrated review copy sent to us by the publisher, The Game Cookbook takes standard table game and puts a variation on it that brings out the best qualities through innovative experimentation, with classic recipes and those that seem to have been magically created by neighbors on the other side of the authors’ hedge.    

Included are recipes that are very traditional in the UK and Europe. Others reach to the Middle East and South Asia, modified from recipes based in preparing more traditional farm-raised meats. Well-read and always willing to tell a story, Dickson Wright colors the recipes with asides of family histories and remembrances of foreign travel and meals had with friends.    

You’ll find that it’s very much a UK book with such references as “wapiti”, which those of us in the US and Canada recognize as elk: what they call elk in Europe and the UK, we call moose in North America.    

The artwork gracing the pages is a mix of old paintings, of hunting and fishing in North America and Europe, even movie stills (James Mason looks quite dashing with a side-by-side), and then photos of completed dishes just as beautiful as the sketches and historical art. Together they bring to the reader the old and new of game and fish cuisine, along with anecdotes that can prepare the neophyte hunter or angler for their first hunting or fishing experience.    

At the end of the book is a listing of hunting and fishing organizations in the UK and US, along with a collection of wildlife agencies in the United States. For those who might not be personally able to collect their own main component of a game or fish dish, a listing of game suppliers offering meat farm-raised animals (unlike in Europe, where wild game and fish are sold in many shops, the selling of true wild game in the US has been illegal for years) provides an option.    

One of the topics that I keyed in on, because it puts so much fear in the new game chef, is aging. In the US of late, as the tradition of hunting has skipped one, two or even three generations, the result of more Americans moving into urban areas in pursuit of employment, the art of aging has been forgotten. If you read some of the forums on the Internet, there’s such an intimidation toward aging and meat contamination that it can sometimes be humorous, sometimes sad…. What would people do if suddenly our refrigerators no longer worked and we were suddenly dumped into a kitchen life experience most families had up until the end of the early part of the last century?    

Aging was a heavily practiced technique for stretching the day’s take, improving flavor and tenderizing a tough old bird, or side of venison. It all has to do with air temperature and humidity: cool and moist tops the list, and extends the aging time. The author goes through the aging process for just about every meat type taken, from grouse, to pheasant to venison.    

There are also recipes for those that might not be specifically sought in the US and Canada, but are looked forward to in Europe and the UK, such as carp. There are recipes for grouse, pheasant, elk, moose, antelope, caribou, wild boar, partridge (chukar), quail, dove, American woodcock, snipe, hare (jackrabbit), cottontail, salmon trout, sea trout, zander (yellow perch), pike and of course goose.    

At the back just before the meat supplier’s list, is a collection of recipes for compotes, sauces and stocks bringing out the best flavors of the dish.    

When it came to testing a recipe, I decided it was time to use one of the many pheasants that Ziggy had pointed out for me last year—the dish quick to prepare and a rich, creamy mix of flavors!    

PHEASANT WITH NOODLES AND HORSERADISH CREAM

A bit sweet. A bit tangy. All delicious!

Ingredients:    

• 1/3 cup (3/4 stick) butter
• 4 pheasant breasts
• 4 shallots, chopped (if unavailable, use 4 tablespoons of chopped mild onions)
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tbsp bottled horseradish, or 1 tbsp strong fresh horseradish, grated.
• Juice of ½ lemon
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 1 packet black or green Italian noodles or make your own chestnut noodles (enough for 4 people)
• small bunch of parsley, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste

Steps:    

1. Heat the butter in a heavy frying pan for which you have lid
2. Sauté the pheasant breasts until they are sealed
3. Remove them and sauté the shallots and the garlic until the shallots are pale gold
4. Remove and discard the garlic clove
5. Stir the horseradish into the shallots
6. Add a tbsp, or so, of water and the lemon juice
7. Return the breasts to the pan, add the cream, and cover
8. Cook gently for 15-20 minutes, until the breasts are cooked
9. If the sauce is too wet, remove the breasts and zap up the heat to reduce
10. If it’s too dry, add a little more cream or some dry white white wine
11. Cook the noodles according the package instructions and drain
12. Serve the noodles with the pheasant
13. Sprinkle the chopped parsley on top.

RELATED LINKS:    

• Hank Shaw’s Retro-Fabulous Pheasant
• Hank’s Roast Pheasant with Prickly Pear Glaze
• Ultimate Pheasant Hunting’s List of Pheasant Recipes

In 1972, I arrived in Singapore to attend the Singapore American School and soon after was introduced to a documentary film, called Future Shock, based on a book by Alvin Toffler and narrated by Orson Welles which was taking the US by storm. As a child, it totally freaked me out….perhaps one of the reasons I avoided computers until I could avoid them no longer. At that time there was also a large movement to get back to basics.

It revealed itself in the very large “Ecology” movement of the 1970s (remember the riff on the American flag, in green with the Greek letter ‘Theta’ where the stars and blue background would have been?), and publications like The Foxfire Books, a collection of stories detailing life in Southern Appalachia. I still have my father’s copies that he picked up on visits back to the States. It’s full of information on woodcraft and pre-supermarket self-reliance. They even showed how to properly scald a pig, which I used in this episode of Cork’s Outdoor TV on roasting a pig.

I’m reminded greatly of the back-to-basics movement of the 1970s, by these latest “slow food” and “green food” movements recorded by Michael Pollan and Paul Bertolli. What could be better than eating food that led to a slower and more relaxed society? But, so much information has been lost due to the increasing lack of family histories and traditions being handed down through live practice, i.e. on a farm or ranch. So many generations have moved off the land and into cities. Nowadays, most slow food information is that carried into the US by new immigrants from Asia and Latin America.

This is a pity as there was a lot of slow food information held in the family lines that came here from Northern Europe. In March of this year, I had the opportunity to complete a phone interview for Cork’s Outdoors Radio with one such food authority on her latest book on getting back to the basics (be sure to listen to the audio and watch the show below).

Darina Allen is noted as the “Julia Child of Ireland” and has been entertaining and educating on the subject of cooking in Ireland and the United Kingdom through her TV show and a collection of books. Her latest book, Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The Time Honored Ways are The Best – Over 700 Recipes Show You Why, is that treasure trove of not only Irish, British, and foods from other parts of the world, like Italian slow food recipes, but also articles and remedies for raising your own chickens for meat and eggs, how to properly butcher large farm animals like pigs, cattle and lambs.

It’s a gorgeous book, with photos that took all the seasons to create, evidenced by plants in bloom, and the foods in season. It’s all about being seasonal, Allen says, something clear in how she describes not only those foods that are collected on the farm, but also on a day’s walk in the woods gathering such morsels for the kitchen as nettles, mushrooms and a number of herbs, leafy greens, and berries.

Both land and water are covered, with foraging rewards, like limpets that are easily found in the Americas, and are cooked in a number of dishes that incorporate the bounty of the farm and field.

Though spending a lot of time reading through the scrumptious recipes that anyone would easily take a few years preparing all the scrumptious family meals using organic ingredients (either purchased or foraged): pies, breads, puddings, roasts and grilled fishes, I was keen on the game and fish sections.

Hare, venison, duck and goose are covered well, both as farm offerings and from the marsh, and of course the obligatory pheasant, but I’d done enough pheasant recipes lately, so I quickly focused on the basil cream rabbit recipe. It was the very cottontail taken with a .22 pellet rifle from Crosman. Who would have thought the hardest part for this recipe was to get the caul fat: Thank God for Dittmer’s in Mountain View, CA!

Watch the preparation and presentation on Cork’s Outdoors and return for the recipe below:

SADDLE OF RABBIT WITH CREAM, BASIL, AND CARAMELIZED SHALLOTS

 reprinted with permission from the publisher, KYLE BOOKS

SERVES 6

6 saddle of rabbit (use the legs for confit)

4oz pork caul fat

salt and freshly ground pepper

extra virgin olive oil

2⁄3 cup dry white wine

2⁄3 cup Chicken Stock

2⁄3 cup cream

2oz basil leaves

Caramelized Shallots (see below)

 Steps:

1. Trim the flap of each saddle, if necessary (use in stock or pâté).
2. Remove the membrane and sinews from the back of the saddles
3. with a small knife.
4. Wrap each saddle loosely in pork caul fat.
5. Season well with salt and freshly ground pepper.
6. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Place the rabbit pieces in a stainless steel or heavy roasting pan and roast for 8–12 minutes, depending on size.
7. Remove from the oven, cover, and allow to rest.
8. Degrease the pan if necessary, and put the wine to reduce in the roasting pan.
9. Reduce by half over medium heat, add the chicken stock, and continue to reduce.
10. Add the cream.
11. Bring to a boil, season with salt and freshly ground pepper, and add lots of snipped basil.
12. Serve the rabbit with the basil sauce, caramelized shallots, boiled new potatoes, and a good green salad.

CARAMELIZED SHALLOTS

1lb shallots, peeled

4 tablespoons butter

1⁄2 cup water

1–2 tablespoons sugar

salt and freshly ground pepper

 Steps:

1. Put all the ingredients in a small saucepan, and add the peeled shallots.
2. Cover and cook on a gentle heat for about 10–15 minutes or until the shallots are soft and juicy.
3. Remove the lid, increase the heat to medium, and cook, stirring occasionally.
4. Allow the juices to evaporate and caramelize. Be careful not to let them burn.

For more information on Darina Allen’s cooking school in Ireland, check out her school’s website: Ballymaloe Cookery School

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy Darina Allen’s interview on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

Rabbits reside in the past memories of many as their introduction to hunting. Rabbits remind me of the elation of returning to the US after spending a childhood in South Vietnam and Singapore—where the only ones with guns were government personnel and guerrillas, and most of the hunting happening was of the two-legged variety.  

With a 16 gauge Marlin pump handed down to me by my father, who had last used it before he went off to lay down telephone lines across Latin America in the late 1950s, I ventured forth to Arroyo Seco in Los Padres National Forest. As I wasn’t old enough to drive, it meant that it was a family affair and we didn’t get to the forest during the optimum morning times, and left before the best evening times to make it back to the Bay Area before dark.  

One day, though, I got lucky. Our dog, that must have been a mix between either a beagle or Spaniel and a terrier, who loved to dig and chase, suddenly got onto a small cottontail that bolted and I shot.  

I only hit it with a few pellets, and not knowing how to finish it off with my hands, I simply stepped back and aimed again. Problem was that I didn’t really understand chokes and how I had to walk much further, else turn that small brush cottontail into hamburger.  

The experience almost turned me off hunting all together—I still don’t like to hunt small game with a shotgun, but more for not having to pick shot out of my meal. But then the next year, I got a Marlin semi-automatic .22 rifle with a tubular magazine!  

Even with the issued open sights, I could drill a rabbit through the head, wasting none of what would become my favorite meal. No more stray pellets puncturing the stomach or gall bladder, tainting the sweet cottontail meat…like chicken but so much tastier. It’s no wonder that my natural progression in adulthood would be back to the rifle that I was a introduced to shooting with in the first place: a pellet gun.  

Without all that “bang” that comes with gunpowder, I’ve come to enjoy the silence of hunting with a bow that in the world of rifles is most imitated by an air rifle. It’s really fun shooting a pellet rifle for a number of reasons: the ammo’s cheaper, it’s quieter, there’s an unlimited amount of propellant (we breath it every second) and there’s no smoke preventing you from keeping an eye on the target.  

For this reason the airgun was used extensively during the 1600s and 1700s for  hunting. In war, Napoleon saw the major effect of the quiet airgun, un-affected by rain, against his troops, that he had a standing order that all enemy combatants captured with an airgun in possession be executed on the spot.  

My Wyoming huntin' buddies Gerald Gay (l) and James Rivera (c) and bison taken with a .61 cal air rifle

As a fanatic small-game hunter with a taste for large cottontails, I’ve learned the merits of putting a .22 caliber pellet rifle through it paces. While last year was my introduction to the break barrel offerings of Crosman, this year I plan to put their scoped Benjamin Marauder through a number of hunts!  

The Marauder, a rifle that uses an air reservoir much like ancient rifles, is similar to the AirArms rifle that airgun aficionado James Marchington uses on his own hunts for rabbits in his homeland of the UK, hunting in England and the Isle of Skye. A few months ago, I had the pleasure of watching his DVD release (I think I’m even the first one to get it in NTSC, instead of PAL).  

As Marchington stated in our interview that follows, technology has come a long way: how much easier it is to teach by producing a DVD as compared to publishing a book. And what an entertaining lesson it is in his production: Rabbits — Airgun Hunting With James Marchington!  

Through a number of nicely shot scenes, the viewer is taught how to choose an effective pellet rifle, and type of scope to mount. In the field, some of it shot on the beautiful and very rustic Scottish Isle of Skye, Marchington takes the audience through a number of sighting and shooting sessions.  

The topics also touch on clothing (which I especially enjoy because he’s not wearing camouflage, but a good hunting tartan) and go in-depth into the skills of stalking and using the terrain to get close to the rabbit. If there’s ever a DVD to get for a child to show them something they can easily go hunting for, which would teach them to hunt just about every other game, this is it!  

So much out there is directed toward the adult, and really doesn’t cover the hunting opportunity of rabbits in a way that I’m sure will appeal to the neophyte hunter, young or adult. Those rifles mentioned are definitely “adult” pellet rifles, and Marchington stresses the important of all types of good woodcraft and rifle stewardship.  

Marchington makes a great teacher and yet another reason I highly suggest getting a copy to watch with your son or daughter.  

As for the hunting in the field (it’s not all about picking equipment and talking about woodcraft), Marchington mounted a Guncam on the rifle so that the viewer can see exactly what the shooter is seeing as he shoots. Very impressives footage and shows how effectively a .22 pellet rifle can dispatch a large rabbit as quickly as a rifle shooting a .22 long rifle cartridge.  

To get your copy visit www.marchington.com  

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy James Marchington’s interview on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

 Topics:  

Track 1: James Marchingon talks about his entry in hunting in the Great Britain, and how much stalking rabbits is a great training aid for learning to hunt large game.  

Track 2: James Marchington touches on the topics of rabbit game species, air rifle options and new upcoming DVD productions for hunters.

 Back when I was a 20-year-old combat photographer, still fresh to my freedom from a Vietnamese reeducation prison, recruited and being trained to be another Captain America in the US’s war against Communist Totalitarianism (you know that 80-year event we had before this present Islamist Totalitarian threat …that one that those under 20 say, “Huh, we were really at war with the Russians? It wasn’t really a Cold War?”), T. Michael Riddle was the lead guitarist for a band called Valhalla, being mentored by his friend Ronnie Montrose.

Montrose was watching the news on the Contras versus Sandinista war, that I was having a front seat to at the time, and the music and chorus came to him. He brought them to Valhalla. Valhalla added lyrics and they released Freedom Fighter in 1985, on the album Valhalla. Now a master guide and outfitter, Michael Riddle asked me if I wanted to try the pig hunting on the 27,000 acres of prime hunting land he has sole access to in Central California under Native Hunt.

Cork’s Outdoors TV was due for another episode, so I answered, “You betcha!”

Leaving at night, and arriving at his headquarters near Fort Hunter Liggett in the early morning darkness, we were greeted by a few of Riddle’s guides and three clients, a father and two sons from Aptos. While waiting for morning light in the office, we heard a bunch of pigs grunting outside and Riddle pointed them out. All about 70 to 120 pounds. Just a bit big for what we had planned, but when hunting light came, they’d be more than available to the father and sons group who tagged out early.

This was on the free-roam area of the Native Hunt headquarters ranch mind you. Riddle also has a collection of pure-strain wild boar he imported from Poland a few years back. He keeps them on 900 high-fenced acres, along with bison and fallow deer.

Now before you get in a tiff, and say, “High fence? And you’re likened to Aldo Leopold by the London Times, the same Aldo Leopold who was a major proponent of democratic free roam hunting opportunities—what?!”

…As I said, I’ll be writing about this in a future column about how the human population of the new millennium is nowhere as small as that of early 1900s, and so our wildlife management and improvement of hunting opportunities need adjustment…but suffice it to say, high-fence when done right (as it is at Native Hunt), 900 acres is just as demanding and fair chase as hunting non-fenced game.

Remember this isn’t Ohio or New York, where what they call mountains we in the West call road bumps and hills. Native Hunt’s acres of penned exotics game is as the crow flies is 900 acres. When you take into consideration the steepness of the mountains, it’s near 3,000 to 5,000 acres of terrain Michael Riddle has in his fenced area. That’s pretty challenging with a rifle and especially with a bow.

But, Riddle and I were after a feral hog in the 50-60lb range to produce an episode of Cork’s Outdoors TV, teaching you how to roast a wild boar the way they do in Indonesia, something they call Babi Guling, which just means “pig revolving”, i.e. pig revolving on a spit, in Malay and Indonesian.

Until then, Riddle would be taking a client on another property who wanted to hunt a wild boar with his traditional longbow. When we arrived at the other property with the client, not too attentive to sound control while grabbing his bow, the client spooked a herd of wild boar feeding in an open field of young barley only 60 yards away, 10 minutes before shooting light. I tagged along for a while, listening to a multitude of wild turkeys and coyotes calling to each other…

Each time we thought we’d get back on the pigs, they were yet another ridge away. The client, who’d never shot at anything other than target with longbow, did get his wild boar later that afternoon: a testament to the guiding patience and skill of Riddle’s lead guide, Sam. A perfect 50-pound roasting size, the client and I joked about trading another opportunity at a larger wild boar. I half-heartedly joked with him about it as there were a lot of wild pigs on the properties (by that afternoon I’d see at least 50 I could have taken with my rifle), but all were 20 to 100 pound more than what we wanted—50 pounds was just going to fit into the Caja China Riddle has at the Native Hunt Lodge.

After a tour of the animals that makes the Jolon Ranch such a nice little exotics safari right out from the lodge, we went to sleep and woke in the morning to venture through the fog outside of the bounded area and were immediately onto pigs within 50 yards of the high bison fence. We heard the grunt of a couple pigs, and from the sounds of movement coming from the brush right next to us; there must have been about 10 pigs in the herd.

As we had only two days before having to return to the Bay Area, I was going to take the shot, whichever was available…Yes, we got lucky in a number of ways, but I’d be cheating you out of the adventure, if I told you everything that happened, recorded in the latest episode of Cork’s Outdoors TV, the boar stalking set to Valhalla’s Freedom Fighter.

Click on the latest pig hunting episode screenshot photo link at the bottom and stay tuned for the Roasting Babi Guling cooking episode coming up…!

Shemagh’s That?

Not only an opportunity to check out Native Hunt’s offerings that would make any international outfitter proud, the trip was also done with the intention of trying out some equipment I’ve never used before: the Nightforce™ 3.5-15x56mm NXS, non-lead ETip ammunition from Winchester, and Blackhawk!®’s Thermo-Fur Jacket and Shemagh.

Nightforce™ 3.5-15x56mm NXS

This is quickly turning into my favorite all around scope for long and close range. Were it that the reticle couldn’t be illuminated, I don’t think I’d be so excited about using the Nightforce Optics™ 3.5-15x56mm NXS with MilDot in scenarios other than which it was originally designed: military and law enforcement long-range tactical applications.

With high-quality glass and a large objective, the scope makes easy work of drawing down on a target in early twilight, and picking out targets in dense brush, lowlight conditions.

Because the posts of the reticle are outlines instead of the normal solid black ( I love this design for long-range shooting, because you can see what’s behind the post), it’s not as easy to discern the fine reticle lines from branches in tight brush. But, and this is a BIG but: when the reticle is illuminated with a simple pulling out of the parallax knob, the red-lit reticle really stands out from everything in a way that even a solid traditional 4-Plex type reticle can’t do.

In Hunting Babi Guling, you see how fast I’m shooting right after I notice a pig only 15 yards away, draw up, and get a clear picture of the boar in my sights, and take the shot, a milisecond after Valhalla says, “Roll the dice!”

Winchester ETip in 180 gr.  .300 Winchester Magnum

Ever since I shot my first California blacktail near Chester, California with a poly-tip pointed bullet out of my .280 Remington in the mid-1980s, when manufacturers first really started pushing the highly accurate, but just as unpredictable mushrooming qualities, I blew softball-sized chunks out of that small buck. Unlike some who think that a big hole means a quick kill, I prefer a bullet diameter-sized hole coming in, and silver dollar sized hole on the way out.

Anymore explosive energy of the bullet, and you’re finding too many bullet fragments sent through the meat that translate to bloodshot and unusable meat. With some bullets, the fragmentation can be horrendous.

As I’ve always stated, I’m not focused on trophy hunting. When it comes to making sure I’ve got full use of the meat from a dead animal, it starts with the shot: so that I’m not spending all day trying to correct by trimming away too much wasted meat. A good copper and lead bullet, with good mushrooming qualities and retaining 70 percent of the bullet weight is perfect for me.

Gladly surprised with this first time using an all-copper bullet and that also had a poly-tip (I’ve used the Barnes Bullets and found them to be more than adequate in accuracy and killing ability), I came upon the very dead-in-under-a-minute roasting boar. Instead of the mega-sized hole I remembered from my first poly-tip experience on the buck, there was a neat silver dollar hole in this pig’s chest.

Accuracy wasn’t a problem either, as I was still hitting the 12-inch gong at 175 yards that Riddle has mounted across the lake and halfway up the ridge at Native Hunt. I’m looking forward to putting these 180 gr. non-lead bullets [now required in Central California because of the Condor Area closure] through the paces at longer ranges on bigger pigs…and since I need to do a prosciutto preparation episode with a wild boar in the manner of Serrano ham, before it gets too hot in California, that should be pretty soon… 

Blackhawk!® Thermo-Fur Jacket

If you read my last column you saw me wearing this great jacket while holding a freshly culled cottontail rabbit. The Thermo-Fur Jacket that works more than efficiently as an insulative liner for a breathable shell-jacket, but can stand on it’s own in a medium breeze and no rain. When I was hunting the wild boar on the episode I was actually wearing it under the Cabela’s® GoreTex shell: it kept me toasty without overheating. I would have probably used it on it’s own, but I needed a jacket that would at once be quiet as the Cabela’s shell is (and so is the Thermo-Fur), and yet, I could be sure wouldn’t catch on hook-like brush as the Thermo-Fur would—didn’t want to shred something I just got.

Had I been hunting wild boar in the open barley fields, like in which those pigs we found on the longbower’s hunt, I would have easily just stayed with the Thermo-Fur: the jacket was that warm in the cold of morning, even with the hanging fog and moisture!

And it’s not just that jacket keep you warm, but that it really just keeps you comfortable. It’s weird to say, but it’s almost as though it has a variable magical thermometer control that doesn’t let you get to warm or cold…just comfy. Few man-made materials do this. This is why I more often enjoy wearing outerwear made from natural fibers than polyester, and have been a fan of Filson® and clothing for so many years for my hunting needs.

When it comes to Blackhawk!®, I’m learning as I use their equipment and clothing, that they seem to answer questions before they asked. A perfect example is the positioning and design of the pockets. Easily accessed and placed and oriented in an efficient manner, you’re not searching around for things when you need to keep your attention out in front of you, especially when you’re going into deep brush after potential danger—the zippers are also very quiet!

There was one thing that I was reminded about and that is the more you let moisture stick to your skin, no matter how insulative and wind-cutting your outergarment might, it’s all for naught if you the clothing against your skins doesn’t draw the moisture. I’d highly recommend using one of the many undergarments, T-shirts and crewnecks that Blackhawk!® has to do that job. I was wearing a cheap, red cotton longsleeve shirt and had it gotten colder, I’m sure I would have gone over the tipping point and been freezing: start right from inside to out!

In the Thermo-Fur Jacket, roominess of the pockets goes all the way from the waist up near the shoulder-that almost makes your jacket a light field pack pocketed chest harness! For those of you who might be in harms way, you can appreciate those large pockets for tossing your spent magazines to reload later. For the hunter that forgets a packs, you might also appreciate those large front pockets for carring a couple tenderloins, or even a couple backstraps, back to camp when you get that pack.

I’m looking forward to writing the column planned for when I receive the other two layers of the Blackhawk!® Warrior Wear Jacket System, that should be coming in soon. If you remember an article written by my colleague Wayne Van Zwoll more than ten years ago, showing distaste for the prevalence in tactical and military type clothing in the hunting fields and mountains over the last 20 years, you’re sure to find my upcoming column interesting…

Cork Graham warm and toasty in BLACKHAWK! shemagh

Blackhawk!® Shemagh

I’ve always been a jungle boy. Raised in the tropics and at home in the jungle like many in Europe and America might be in a pine forest or mountain meadow, deserts just freak me out! So, though I’ve used the very efficient dark green and loam patterned see-through sniper’s veil that has served well as a hood, face camouflage material, headband and scarf, I’ve never really had the opportunity use the Middle Eastern desert Shemagh that so many special forces units are using these days.

When I tried it on our hunt for babi guling, first as a scarf to keep my neck warm and prevent early morning coughing from the cold that might signal my location to a boar, and then later when the wind picked up as a hood and head covering, I was totally amazed. Made from the simplest of materials, cotton, it did more to keep my head warm than a full jacket hood and a ball cap.

My understanding is that the weave of the Shemagh is loose enough to enable pliability, but tight enough to act as a phenomenal windbreaker and help in retaining body moisture, too.

I’m sure to have one in my kit for hunting, whether that’s for comfort, or for camo. One side has a predominance of black squares which works great early and late in the day for calling in coyotes, and the other side with the predominance of olive drab looks like it’ll do well during waterfowl season to cover my face, while enabling me to look up and watch the descent and flight pattern as they work the dekes, without flaring them with a big white face.

You will have to learn how to tie a Shemagh properly for use as snug camo, but I’ll do a snippet video to show how easy it is: Indonesian or Arab style.

Related Links and Articles:

1. Nightforce Optics

2. Blackhawk!®

3. Winchester

4. Native Hunt

5. Not Bored Chasing the Boars

6. Wild Hogs!

COMING UP

1. The River Cottage Meat Book by Michael Fearnley-Whittingstall [Book Review]

2. Surmounting the Cultural Conflict of Tactical Clothing and Equipment in the Outdoors

Cork Graham with a freshly taken Sylvilagus audubonii, using a .22 Crosman pellet gun

Whenever a rerun of Spy Game is broadcast, I always smile when I hear Brad Pitt’s answer to Robert Redford’s question about how he became a sniper: shooting team in the Boy Scouts. For me it was my Daisy BB gun and trips out to Lake Pond Oreille, every summer we visited my grandparents in Spokane, when my family home as the son of American expat businessman was Saigon and Singapore during the 1960s and 1970s. Trying to hit the metal band of a log piling reaching six feet above the surface of Pend Oreille, 70 yards offshore from the porch of our family friend’s cabin, was a lesson in trajectory and wind.

I shot every chance I got during those summers, because when we returned to Southeast Asia, I would have to leave my marksmanship to slingshots and low poundage field archery equipment. Firearms and even BB guns were illegal to possess in Southeast Asia.

Shoot enough years it’s hard not think fondly of those early days, out in a field plinking at tin cans and perhaps sniping a bird or rabbit for the family table. When an excuse to try out the new “adult” pellet guns came up—we’re now legally allowed to use pellet guns of at least .20 caliber to hunt wild turkey in California—I called up Crosman to try out one of their .22 line.

…Plus, I’ve received a number of cookbooks I have to review from American authors and those across the pond, like Darina Allen and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, two well-known and respected cooking writers in Ireland and England, who really know how to do wild game justice: a big fat cottontail would be a perfect entree!

What arrived in the mail was a .22 Cal. Remington(R) NPSS Digital Camo. Talk about accurate. With a rifled bull barrel and a large objective scope on top, and nearing 1,000 feet per second it looked like a sweet combination for small game and hitting a turkey in the head. What makes the drawback, though—like it can with any firearm—is the trigger.

I’m all about triggers as you may have guessed. A crisp trigger with a light poundage triggerpull (2-3 pounds), greatly assists a shooter in their keeping a tight group. What a trigger on a pellet gun that relies on a spring, just like a majority of triggers you find on crossbows (except the well-designed trigger from Excaliber Crossbows), has going against it is that it delivers that “Boing!” that does wonders in knocking off a marksman’s focus on the target.

As with a conventional bow, follow through is very important. That’s where a smooth trigger helps in keeping that target fixation: As if using a bow, you keep your bow focused on the target, and with a rifle you keep your crosshairs on the target for a few seconds after you shoot.

Now, if you’ve tried the triggers on break-action, as Crosman calls, it “break-barrel”, pellet guns, you’ll notice that the trigger does have that sponginess that makes it hard to predict exactly when the gun is breaking. But, because of this, and also because of the lack of a significant recoil, pellet guns are a great training tool to improve you shooting skills.

Though many would think that improving shooting means learning how to deal with heavy recoil, it’s really about learning how to work a trigger, and in conjunction with breathing and beats of your heart. When you can overcome the uneven resistance of a break-barrel pellet gun trigger, you’ll have mastered the even squeeze necessary to hit a target with a fine-tuned firearm.

A great work on the act of integrated shooting (breathing, heart rate, trigger squeeze), is on page 180 of The Ultimate Sniper [Updated and Expanded], by a man I highly respect for his work, background, and teachings Major John L. Plaster—I’ll be conducting a Cork’s Outdoors Radio interview with him soon, so stay tuned!

Armed with that Crosman .22 Cal. Remington(r) NPSS Digital Camo, and having already been successful on wild boar earlier that day at Native Hunt, described in last week’s column, Michael Riddle and I put the pig in the roaster and jumped in my truck.

We drove over to another property that makes up 27,000 acres of prime land that Native Hunt has sole hunting rights to, and found the cottaintails that had teased me earlier while we waited for a  longbow hunter that was slated for hunting pigs that morning.

As usual, the cottontails didn’t show until the last hour of daylight, something that made the large objective scope a real asset. When I took my first shot, Riddle called out, “High!”

Adjusting, the next shot hit lower, but not enough. Peter Cottontail bounded off, sitting just short of a clump of weeds.

Lowering the reticle of the scope yet again, I took another shot at Sylvilagus audubonii, otherwise known as the desert cottontail rabbit, prevalent in Central California and much fatter and larger than the small bush cottontail I was accustomed to hunting in Mendocino National Forest as a teen. A .22 pellet hit Sylvi Auduboni in the head with the effect of a light switch being turned off.

Wide-eyed, I looked at Riddle. “Dang!”

These little pellet guns pack a punch. Only a 20 yard walk to where he lay, the cottontail rabbit was stoned cold dead, not even convulsing. Not wanting my Brittany Spaniel, Ziggy, getting interested in rabbits, I walked quickly past the backseat of my Dodge Ram Quad Cab (Ziggy staring at me, and the just-departed Sylvi in my hand, from the backseat), and put Sylvi in the back of the truck payload.

In an hour, Riddle and I would be back at the Native Hunt Lodge, checking the doneness of the pig in the Caja China, and skinning Sylvilagus auduboni deciding which review volume I’d be referring to in order to cook the prime pink cottontail meat and its heart, liver and large kidneys: The River Cottage Book, The River Cottage Meat Book, Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The Time-Honored Ways are the Best – Over 700 Recipes Show You Why, or maybe even Pot-Roasted Rabbit with Prunes and Pinot-Noir from Chef John Folse’s eloquently illustrated and easy to follow gamecook’s bible After the Hunt: Louisiana’s Authoritative Collection of Wild Game & Game Fish Cookery, with a Papapietro-Perry 2007 Peters Vineyard Pinot-Noir from the Russian River Valley.

COMING UP

1. On the Track of the Wily Wild Boar Babi Guling
2. The River Cottage Meat Book by Michael Fearnley-Whittingstall [Book Review]

Good game bird cooking all starts in the field, and carries through in the days before a bird is either cooked or put in the freezer for a later date. How long, was the question I put to my new hunting friend and writer, Hank Shaw of Hunter Angler Gardener Cook.

Hank Shaw and Cork Graham along with Ziggy after a successful pheasant opener.

 His suggestion was three to four days for a bird club pheasant, that’s basically a chicken that has been getting fast and sassy on a remote feeding system with poultry feed, as was available to us on our first hunt together at the Stockton Sportmen’s Club.

For a wild bird, Shaw’s suggestion was seven days. This is often the recommendation used in Europe, especially the UK. Whether you talk to culinary expert Hank Shaw, or one of those cooking writers we both admire, like British writer Clarissa Dickson Wright, you can’t go wrong with aging your bird–whether two days, three days or until the head separates from the body.

Yes, in traditional British bird aging, pheasants used to hang until it became so rotten it fell to the ground.

When I first moved from combat journalism to outdoor writing, as the outdoors columnist for the last large family-owned newspaper in the San Francisco Bay Area, The Times of San Mateo in 1994 (It was eaten up the ANG /Denver-based MediaNews Group conglomerate in 1997 [renamed The San Mateo Times], along with the Oakland Tribune, Alameda Star and a number of other Bay Area papers [you'll notice the columnists and writers are the same for all those papers]–All they wanted were the printers and real estate. Within a month, all journalists got their pink slips, if they weren’t already looking for more secure pastures…so much for honest local coverage; sadly, this is the way of The Press in the New Millenium: Thank God for the Internet!), I was invited to the Gabilan Valley Sportsmans Club to hunt pheasants for an article. My Chesapeake Bay retriever had his first chance at pheasants and we both had a phenomenal time.

As we were leaving, the owner recommended that we hang our birds. The suggestion was to hang them by the long tail feathers. Depending on how many days and the temperature, the pheasant would fall, indicating that it was ready to pluck and cook or put in the freezer.

TO GUT OR NOT

Personally, I prefer to eviscerate all my game and fish within moments of the kill. It cools the game quickly, which in the Sunshine Land of California is a priority, and more importantly removes all the body fluids that begin seeping into the cavity.

Microscopically, body organs are actually very porous. It’s almost like a sieve. When the body is alive, those organ membranes are vibrant, contracting and expanding to hold or release fluids, as the body needs. When the body dies and the autonomic nervous system no longer controls those actions and fluids that taint meat like urine, stomach acid and bile, those fluids begin a slow release.

It’s the immediate killing, bleeding and gutting of the trout, that I’ve caught or taught others to catch and prepare for the table, that draws the compliments for their taste.

On the other hand, pheasants, along with waterfowl, can often be improved by leaving the innards in during the aging process. You simply hang them whole up in a cool, airy place. This is Hank Shaw’s preferred method.

Personally, I like to keep the innards and use them for a number of table offerings: gravy bits, pate, to name just a few. So, leaving my pheasants, ducks and waterfowl whole is not an option.

The problem is that birds can dry out in the process of them hanging with an empty body cavity. Shaw offered a remedy: stuff a paper towel in place of the organs. It worked fine.

So what’s my method for aging pheasants and ducks and geese for that matter? Simply pluck some feathers around the vent. With the bird on its back, make a small slit above the vent, parallel to the outstretched wings. Just under the point of the breast bone is perfect.

Reach in with two to three fingers and draw out the intestines, gizzard, heart, coagulated blood, etc. Wash off the heart, liver and gizzard.

The gizzard is my favorite for gravy, also quick grilling. After washing it off, slit it down the middle and remove the tough inner skin that is all calloused by months or years of grinding gravel to digest grain. Trim all that might be green from the gizzard fluids. Wash it again after you’ve removed all suggested: inner skins, gravel and grain.

Pay special attention to the gall bladder attached to the liver. It’s dark in color. The dark black or green comes from the bile inside. If that touches any meat or the livers, it’s ruined. Cut it away while making sure to not contaminate your fingers. With heart, trimed liver and gizzard, washed, put them in a Ziploc bag to place on ice. They’ll go in the freezer for another day.

Wash out the inside of the bird and wipe it out a couple times with paper towel. Then, place one or two paper towels in the empty cavity, doing your best to keep any outside materials like dirt, dust or feathers coming in along with the stuffed paper towels.

Shaw has created a nice regulated aging box out of his wine refrigerator. I like to just hang my birds by their feet from a nail in one of the rafters in the cool open area of my garage. Depending on the air temperature, I’ll hang my birds between one to three days.

Pheasants hanging in the garage.

I prefer my birds lightly aged as I’m doing it more for the tenderizing of the meat and helping the birds best retain its moisture while cooking, which I add to with a one day stay in a brining solution once I’m preparing to cook it.

I’ll check the birds everyday to make they’ve not gone over the edge. It’s really just a process of checking the smell. There’s the birdy smell that the pheasant has when it’s freshly killed. Once the bird begins a slight ripening, I’ll immediately pluck the bird, wash it off and then stick it in the refrigerator for at least one or two days. In a Ziploc they’ll last for up to 7 months with no problem.

If you want to keep them for up to a year and a half, sink them in water in a Ziploc and the ice will keep them from getting freezer burn and drying out, just like a wooly mammoth.

…Hank Shaw has been commissioned to write a book–so stay tuned!

Happy New Year!

Ziggy and me in El Dorado NF

My girlfriend keeps calling the California Valley Quail the Shinto priest and it’s starting to stick: those single head feathers do make them look like a Japanese priest. I’ve been chomping at the bit to hunt quail with my new, young Brittany. But, last weekend the quail season hadn’t opened in the area I wanted to scout out.

Instead, we went hunted last weekend for Mountain quail after reading an article in Western Outdoor News (WON), and of course the areas mentioned in the articles were hammered. Sadly, it was evident not just in the scarcity of birds [got only one opportunity--at the end of the long walk, of course] but in the number of spend shotgun cartridges littering the mountain roads in El Dorado NF.

This week I’m headed to another place, BLM property, for the general opener of California valley quail. I’ll be headed for the Sierras again, the lower Sierras this time. Going to be interesting to hunt public land during an opener like quail, especially after learning the Clear Creek Management Area near Hollister has been closed. That was one large piece of property full of quail, turky and pigs. Won’t be opened until next fall.

Well, I guess I should get some sleep, but I’m revved to take Ziggy for his second quail hunt. I’ll be hunting with, Nick Nigelbaum, 26, one of the co-founders of the The Bull Moose Hunting Society. Will report next week!