9/2/2019 The Two-Part Charles Brunetti Special

We arrived at Charles Brunetti’s home office, workshop, ranch, and general country boys’ paradise well before sunset. The not cool but not warm air buzzed with excitement from men aged 6 - 60. Some were in shorts, others in pants, and everyone smelled of mosquito spray.

Austin Holt, my new best Mississippi friend, had used his plus one for the best holiday of the year on me and my bird dog Dublin: Dove Season Opener.

Charles, Austin’s boss, called matters to order about 45 minutes before legal sunrise. He thanked everyone for coming out, acknowledging the many returning faces in the crowd. The requisite shooting safety discussion was followed by a hand drawn diagram of the field with assigned hunting locations.

We hopped in Austin’s side-by-side and made the quick drive out from the house. I was seated on the edge of the middle of the field, which ran along a creek and was bisected widthwise by a power line. To my back was corn which ran up to a tree line.

Austin was across the field from me with his back to the creek. He used this excellent vantage point to ensure as many people as possible shot birds, calling birds coming over others heads and right at them giving them time to locate and get a shot off.

The morning hunt was on shortly after legal shooting time, with folks in basically every station seeing action. My shooting was terrible, which was to be expected but the group came away with a good haul of dove and pigeons by the time the morning hunt wrapped up around 8:30.

We then headed back to the house to relax, get started on lunch and cool off. Charles cooked a fine meal of hot dogs and giant burgers with all the fixings. Some sat on the porch and watched football, others napped. The boys ran around drinking Gatorade, having air soft wars and fishing.

Around 4:00, we headed back out for the evening hunt. The hunt offered plenty more shooting and I managed to grab three or four more dove. By 6:00pm, the evening flight had wrapped up and so had the hunt. We went back to the shop to clean the remaining birds and thank Charles for the first class day of wing shooting. Our host mentioned that he would be out later in the season but had hoped we could come back out for another hunt if there were birds in the area. We shook hands and I drove home. It was a terribly fun time and I hope we get to do it again soon.