TRADITIONAL "END OF THE SEASON" MEETING

On a nice and sunny February the 17th 2013, friends and clients gathered at the traditional meeting I always organize at the end of the hunting season.

Although it isn´t really over yet, I really think there´s no need to push the limits as in the last few years spring seems to come earlier than it always has, making animals act less elusive, not to say that some of them are in the beginning of the mating season or already pregnant. Now it´s time to go birdwatching, flora identifying, hiking or just enjoying a nice and quiet walk surrounded by nature.

But back to the meeting; I invited 20 good friends to enjoy the last day of wild boar hunting (Sus scrofa ).

Here´s what we usually do:

First I set every hunter in its place, where he has to stay quiet and avoid moving around (that way they make themselves quickly disguised amid the wild and obviously for safety reasons).

Then the hounds are released following a specific and strategic plan and the hunt begins.

Only wild boars and foxes ( Vulpes vulpes ) can be shot to, neither roe deer nor ibex for it is more management than hunting in this case; I´ll explain: Wild boar population needs to be controlled for there are no natural predators nowadays (or very few of them) and their breeding success is very high. Same happens to foxes. If they are not controlled or at least "bothered" in some ways, their influence in the environment could be really important as they prey on almost everything (specially boars). On the other hand, you cannot manage a roe deer population by hunting them without knowing if it´s a doe, a buck or a fallow, as they rush to where hunters are giving little time for the hunter to identify what type of animal is coming. That is not a problem with foxes and wild boars due to the big litters they have in contrast to the 1-2 babies deer or ibexes have per season.

But the best part comes after the hunt.

We set a nice fire to warm ourselves up and in that same fire I cook for my guests and we discuss the hunting (lots of lies, jokes and laughs) in the meantime.

This year I made a typical country dish: "rancho", which basically has to have rice, potato, vegetables and some meat on it. There´s plenty of ways of making it, as many as you can imagine. In this case the ingredients where: rice, garlic, onion, red pepper, green pepper, leek, tomato, turnip leaves, carrot, potato, veal, rabbit, chicken, pork, chorizo sausage, longaniza (a typical variety of spicy sausage from this region), black pepper, olive oil and chicken soup.

Heavy dish, hu?!

In the end, hugs, " 'til next season" goodbyes and the last jokes made this meeting one to remember.

Beautiful spring is coming...