Hey from California Upland.
Two days. That’s the whole weather report. Somewhere in the Sacramento Valley there’s a cut safflower field that doesn’t know what’s coming Tuesday morning, and neither of us can fully concentrate on anything else. Matt’s truck is half-loaded for the Yolo Bypass side of the valley — that’s the plan, anyway, and if eight weeks of prep pieces have taught us anything, it’s that the plan survives until roughly 5:40 a.m. Peter is down to two plans and one dog: Alan’s crate is staged by the door either way, water jugs filled, and the cocker has reached the stage of pre-season where every pair of boots that moves gets supervised. We are not much better. The vests are loaded. The licenses are screenshotted. There is nothing left to prepare, which turns out to be its own strange feeling after a summer spent preparing in public.
From the field. This morning, one last planning piece slid in under the wire: Salton Sea Refuge Dove: Long-Distance Planning Notes — the honest homework on the state’s farthest-flung opener, written for the hunter eyeing the far south shore, the refuge-edge fields, and a very early alarm. We haven’t made that drive yet; the piece says so plainly, and says what we’d want to know before we do — which is exactly the kind of homework-first honesty this newsletter runs on. Read →
What we published this week:
→ Dove Tacos: A 30-Minute Recipe for Opener Night — our first Recipe post. Seared dove medallions, charred tortillas, cabbage, lime, thirty minutes, one burner. Put the ingredients in the cooler now and Tuesday night cooks itself. Read →
→ The Pre-Dawn Loadout Reel — the 4:30 a.m. truck ritual, scripted shot by shot for the camera, and the checklist logic hiding under every frame. Shoot your own version Tuesday and tag us. Read →
→ Heat, Shade, and Water Strategy: Don’t Cook Your Dog on Sept 1 — the protocol for the opener’s most important job: quitting while the dog is still okay. If you read one thing before Tuesday, read this one, then read it to your hunting partner. Read →
What we’re working on:
· Monday evening — the Opener Eve Note, a short one for the night before: the summer compressed into four hundred words and a send-off.
· Tuesday — the opener field report, live from the Sacramento Valley. The first field report of the 2026-27 season, written the day it happens — the whole point of a summer of planning pieces is that the reporting starts now.
· Wednesday — Field Notes from opening morning, still smelling of gun oil and cut safflower.
One more thing, said plainly because it’s the send where it matters most: it is going to be hot on Tuesday, the birds will still be flying when your dog shouldn’t be, and the best morning of the year is not worth a heat scare. Quit early, ice the birds, water the dog, and be the person telling the story at lunch instead of the one at the vet.
Sixty days of prep pieces come down to Tuesday at legal light — a field chosen on faith, a dog or an empty crate, and the first gray blur crossing too fast and too high. Hit reply and tell us where you’ll be — and Tuesday night, tell us how it went. We read every one, and the September Reader Mail is already listening.
Whatever field you chose, we hope it’s the right one — and if it isn’t, we hope the backup is twenty minutes away and full of birds. See you on the other side of Tuesday.
Out the door — actually out the door this time, — Matt & Peter
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