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Dove hunt 25 years ago gave birth to annual gathering of friends
By Ed Zieralski, San Dieog Union Tribune
September 6, 2003
The 25th Annual Dove Hunt Silver Anniversary drew (from left) founder and organizer Byron Graves, John Collins, Jim Bartlett, Brian Collins, Bill Pitt, Jake Vaclavek, (and below) Joanne Vaclavek and Michelle Collins. ED ZIERALSKI / Union-Tribune
CALIPATRIA – Twenty-five years ago, Byron Graves proposed something fairly outlandish to his two friends, Dr. Bill Pitt and attorney John Collins.
"Let's go hunting," Graves said to two men who had never hunted or fired a shot at anything in their lives. Graves provided the guns and shells and gear.
And so off they went, a doctor, a lawyer and Graves, an insurance man who learned to hunt by his father's side, off to the dove opener, the annual ritual that officially starts the hunting season.
Their learning curve sharp, their lessons many, Pitt, now 61, a cardiologist from La Mesa, and Collins, 59, an attorney from El Cajon, and Graves, 60, hung together all these years. And in the process of it all, they've gathered family and friends to join them in America's oldest tradition, the hunt.
"We've hunted the opener in Mexico and all around Imperial Valley," said Graves, the group's self-appointed "arrangement chairman for life." Pitt is the chief medical officer, Collins the general counsel.
"We quit going to Mexico when they made it too expensive to go there," Graves said. "And lately we've hunted here on the Department of Fish and Game's fields. We've had the same suites every year at the Calipatria Inn ever since they opened it."
This year's opener was extra special. The three hunting buddies celebrated their 25th annual dove opener, the silver anniversary for a trio that joins family and friends and migrates here like the doves they shoot every opening day.
And each year, they honor someone with a treasured perpetual trophy for the "Most Memorable Shot."
Over the years, the "Most Memorable Shot" has been all sorts of things. Sometimes it truly is for a great shot, such as when Bill Pitt and John Collins combining to hit the same bird. Bill Pitt took it one year for being sick from some bad menudo. A Mexican general won it (in absentia) for not signing their hunting documents. Bill Pitt Jr. won it one year for having and reading what was believed to be the only copy of "Moby Dick" in El Centro. Jake and Joanne Vaclavek won it the year they were married because they still made the opener despite having to plan their wedding a couple of weeks later.
This year, Bill Pitt was in the running again for finally beating – twice – Graves and Collins in dominoes.
But it went to Joanne Vaclavek, her second award in six years of hunting with her husband and the group.
"She won the trophy for getting us our silver anniversary T-shirts and sparing no expense in getting them, including wrecking our Ford Expedition and ringing up a $6,000 repair bill," said her very understanding husband, Jake Vaclavek.
Vaclavek said he knew what he was getting into when he married Joanne, who is Bill Pitt's daughter.
"The fact that she could handle a shotgun sealed the deal for me when I proposed to her," said Vaclavek, who had been an avid and successful bird and big-game hunter before marrying into the Pitt family.
But all this tradition and fun for the group traces back to Graves, a man who cared enough about the sport he loves to share it with friends and make it an annual reunion in the desert.
"What he's done is spawned humility," said Collins, referring to the challenge of trying to shoot darting mourning and white-winged doves on opening day.
Jake Vaclavek spiced up this year's hunt by betting Graves $1 that he would have the group's first limit.
"A member of the next generation was feeling a little full of himself and challenged the old guys," Graves said. "It didn't work. I shot the first limit once again and took his dollar."
They not only had T-shirts commemorating the day, but this year they even had their own personal "business" cards, or "one-day cards," as Graves called them. The card identified them as part of the 25th Annual Dove Hunt Silver Anniversary, and it came complete with the phone number of the Calipatria Inn and the notation: "8/31-9/2 Annually until we die."
John Collins' son, Brian Collins, now of Laguna Hills, and his wife, Michelle, had a tough opening morning. They were looking for their first dove at 8 a.m. Brian said they missed on a low, slow-winging, chubby whitewing.
"It was flying slow enough that I could hear it laughing . . . looked like a C-130. We put five pounds of lead into the air on that one, and nothing," said Brian, who was at his 12th dove hunt with the group. It was his wife's second hunt, first as a shooter.
Byron Graves had his red badge of courage, a superficial cheek wound from a low-flying pellet from another gun.
"If someone in the group owns up to shooting me, they'll be in line for the Most Memorable Shot trophy," Graves said. "But so far, no one has stepped up and admitted it."
This year the group welcomed a new member, Jim Bartlett, a native of England and former RAF pilot. These days he's a jet pilot who flies celebrities and athletes such as Woody Allen, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw and Ernie Els around the world.
Bartlett heard tales of former hunts and listened intently as the group told a reporter more stories at a the DFG's Field 138 off Rutherford Road, south of Calipatria.
One year, the RV they rented conked out on them on the bridge crossing the Colorado River into Yuma. They used to stay in Yuma at the old Stardust and hunt Winterhaven.
"All eight of us were out there pushing it across the bridge," Graves said. "Then I remember the guy towing us fell asleep at the wheel and we were in the RV yelling and screaming at the guy to wake up. We were whitefaced, screaming at this guy as he started weaving all over I-8."
They've never really had to rough it by camping and sleeping under the stars and in the heat of the desert. When they hunted Mexico, they stayed at a four-star hotel.
Each year they have a tradition of eating steak the night before and lobster the night of the opener.
And on the way back to San Diego, they always stop at Camacho's Famous Mexican Eatery on the southwest side of El Centro. They have their traditional post-hunt brunch and award the Most Memorable Shot trophy.
Missing this year was Tim Collins, who lives in San Francisco, and Bill Pitt Jr., who lives in Seattle. Bill Jr.'s daughter started school Tuesday morning, so he couldn't make it. But it was Bill Jr., who one year put the entire opener into perspective and showed that he truly got what Byron Graves has tried to impart to the group all these years.
"It's not the destination, it's the journey," Bill Pitt Jr. said. "It's the process of what goes before pulling the trigger."
By Ed Zieralski, San Dieog Union Tribune
September 6, 2003
The 25th Annual Dove Hunt Silver Anniversary drew (from left) founder and organizer Byron Graves, John Collins, Jim Bartlett, Brian Collins, Bill Pitt, Jake Vaclavek, (and below) Joanne Vaclavek and Michelle Collins. ED ZIERALSKI / Union-Tribune
CALIPATRIA – Twenty-five years ago, Byron Graves proposed something fairly outlandish to his two friends, Dr. Bill Pitt and attorney John Collins.
"Let's go hunting," Graves said to two men who had never hunted or fired a shot at anything in their lives. Graves provided the guns and shells and gear.
And so off they went, a doctor, a lawyer and Graves, an insurance man who learned to hunt by his father's side, off to the dove opener, the annual ritual that officially starts the hunting season.
Their learning curve sharp, their lessons many, Pitt, now 61, a cardiologist from La Mesa, and Collins, 59, an attorney from El Cajon, and Graves, 60, hung together all these years. And in the process of it all, they've gathered family and friends to join them in America's oldest tradition, the hunt.
"We've hunted the opener in Mexico and all around Imperial Valley," said Graves, the group's self-appointed "arrangement chairman for life." Pitt is the chief medical officer, Collins the general counsel.
"We quit going to Mexico when they made it too expensive to go there," Graves said. "And lately we've hunted here on the Department of Fish and Game's fields. We've had the same suites every year at the Calipatria Inn ever since they opened it."
This year's opener was extra special. The three hunting buddies celebrated their 25th annual dove opener, the silver anniversary for a trio that joins family and friends and migrates here like the doves they shoot every opening day.
And each year, they honor someone with a treasured perpetual trophy for the "Most Memorable Shot."
Over the years, the "Most Memorable Shot" has been all sorts of things. Sometimes it truly is for a great shot, such as when Bill Pitt and John Collins combining to hit the same bird. Bill Pitt took it one year for being sick from some bad menudo. A Mexican general won it (in absentia) for not signing their hunting documents. Bill Pitt Jr. won it one year for having and reading what was believed to be the only copy of "Moby Dick" in El Centro. Jake and Joanne Vaclavek won it the year they were married because they still made the opener despite having to plan their wedding a couple of weeks later.
This year, Bill Pitt was in the running again for finally beating – twice – Graves and Collins in dominoes.
But it went to Joanne Vaclavek, her second award in six years of hunting with her husband and the group.
"She won the trophy for getting us our silver anniversary T-shirts and sparing no expense in getting them, including wrecking our Ford Expedition and ringing up a $6,000 repair bill," said her very understanding husband, Jake Vaclavek.
Vaclavek said he knew what he was getting into when he married Joanne, who is Bill Pitt's daughter.
"The fact that she could handle a shotgun sealed the deal for me when I proposed to her," said Vaclavek, who had been an avid and successful bird and big-game hunter before marrying into the Pitt family.
But all this tradition and fun for the group traces back to Graves, a man who cared enough about the sport he loves to share it with friends and make it an annual reunion in the desert.
"What he's done is spawned humility," said Collins, referring to the challenge of trying to shoot darting mourning and white-winged doves on opening day.
Jake Vaclavek spiced up this year's hunt by betting Graves $1 that he would have the group's first limit.
"A member of the next generation was feeling a little full of himself and challenged the old guys," Graves said. "It didn't work. I shot the first limit once again and took his dollar."
They not only had T-shirts commemorating the day, but this year they even had their own personal "business" cards, or "one-day cards," as Graves called them. The card identified them as part of the 25th Annual Dove Hunt Silver Anniversary, and it came complete with the phone number of the Calipatria Inn and the notation: "8/31-9/2 Annually until we die."
John Collins' son, Brian Collins, now of Laguna Hills, and his wife, Michelle, had a tough opening morning. They were looking for their first dove at 8 a.m. Brian said they missed on a low, slow-winging, chubby whitewing.
"It was flying slow enough that I could hear it laughing . . . looked like a C-130. We put five pounds of lead into the air on that one, and nothing," said Brian, who was at his 12th dove hunt with the group. It was his wife's second hunt, first as a shooter.
Byron Graves had his red badge of courage, a superficial cheek wound from a low-flying pellet from another gun.
"If someone in the group owns up to shooting me, they'll be in line for the Most Memorable Shot trophy," Graves said. "But so far, no one has stepped up and admitted it."
This year the group welcomed a new member, Jim Bartlett, a native of England and former RAF pilot. These days he's a jet pilot who flies celebrities and athletes such as Woody Allen, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw and Ernie Els around the world.
Bartlett heard tales of former hunts and listened intently as the group told a reporter more stories at a the DFG's Field 138 off Rutherford Road, south of Calipatria.
One year, the RV they rented conked out on them on the bridge crossing the Colorado River into Yuma. They used to stay in Yuma at the old Stardust and hunt Winterhaven.
"All eight of us were out there pushing it across the bridge," Graves said. "Then I remember the guy towing us fell asleep at the wheel and we were in the RV yelling and screaming at the guy to wake up. We were whitefaced, screaming at this guy as he started weaving all over I-8."
They've never really had to rough it by camping and sleeping under the stars and in the heat of the desert. When they hunted Mexico, they stayed at a four-star hotel.
Each year they have a tradition of eating steak the night before and lobster the night of the opener.
And on the way back to San Diego, they always stop at Camacho's Famous Mexican Eatery on the southwest side of El Centro. They have their traditional post-hunt brunch and award the Most Memorable Shot trophy.
Missing this year was Tim Collins, who lives in San Francisco, and Bill Pitt Jr., who lives in Seattle. Bill Jr.'s daughter started school Tuesday morning, so he couldn't make it. But it was Bill Jr., who one year put the entire opener into perspective and showed that he truly got what Byron Graves has tried to impart to the group all these years.
"It's not the destination, it's the journey," Bill Pitt Jr. said. "It's the process of what goes before pulling the trigger."
