And that’s what brings us to John Dunaway. It just happens to work out in my favor that he’s interested in pretty much the same things I’m interested in: dove hunting, hospitality, good food, good drinks, and going over the top with all of it.

Exhibit A is Paloma Blanco. This yearly dove hunt, which John started almost a decade ago, is an invite-only affair that goes full speed on just about everything. They bring in brand sponsors, hire some mariachis, provide next-level food and cocktails, and are always looking for ways to make it better. After several years of wanting to take John up on his invite, my schedule finally allowed for a trip down south to the hallowed dove fields that host Paloma Blanco.

The hunt was everything I hoped it would be and more, which I felt warranted a follow-up conversation with Mr. Dunaway. In our interview, we talk about the humble beginnings of Paloma Blanco, the key to keeping the magic, and what he sees for its future.

Here’s ship captain, photographer, and Paloma Blanco maestro, John Dunaway.

Levi Goode: For the broader audience out there, can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

John Dunaway: Well, I guess you’re talking to me because I throw a little dove hunt in South Texas and people keep wanting to come to it. Outside of that, I’m a local guy. My dad’s from the area. I was born in Brazil, but I’ve been in Houston since I was about three years old. I grew up saltwater fishing, doing all of the inshore stuff. Then I got into waterfowl hunting when I was about 12. That’s actually where I got introduced to White Wing Fields, where we do the dove hunt. We were hanging out, living here, and hunting around South Padre Island all the time. Professionally, I’m a ship captain — a harbor pilot in Houston.

LG: You don’t meet too many ship captains these days.

JD: I love what I do. I get to be on the water and the schedule has afforded me the flexibility to do a lot of these other things in outdoor pursuits with my buddies and this hunt club that we have. I work two weeks on and two weeks off, so that allows me a lot of flexibility.

LG: Now, let’s get to the dove hunt. I’ve been eyeing this thing for years and I just haven’t had the chance to take you up on your invitation until this year. What was the catalyst for it?

JD: We have formally done it for eight years. Truly it just started as, “Hey, let’s go dove hunting.” It was never intended to be an organized event. I remember realizing when I was younger that the dove opener was a big deal for people. People had baby pools for their dog to stay cool because it’s so hot down there and there’s no water to be found. People had coolers and shade tents. I was like, what is this? There was something very different about it, and that always stuck in my mind. People had grills going and it was just this very laid-back, fun atmosphere.

When I was in college, I would fly down whenever I could and hunt the opener. After college, I read a Garden & Gun article about a dove hunt that some folks threw with this tablescape and elevated food. I vividly remember reading it and thinking, I know a place that has this atmosphere. So I grabbed some friends, packed some coolers, and decided to make a signature drink—the paloma. I cooked in the field so we could have something to eat in the afternoon. That was the real catalyst. We just wanted it to be more than a normal dove hunt, more than just being hot and drinking cold beers.

LG: I mean, we definitely did that, too.

JD: [Laughs] Good point. Nothing against that.

LG: So, it just ended up growing from there?

JD: Maybe three, four years later, I brought some buddies with me and we just did it a little bit bigger. That time, my wife came with my daughter, who was about eight months old. We put headphones on her and put her in a pack-and-play. We cooked all our meals on an Old Smokey, and had six people hunting. We kept hearing this mariachi music on the other side of this tree line, and I said to my friend, “Man, that must be the most badass speaker ever. It is ripping.” One of the guys ended up walking down the tree line, and said that these guys have an actual mariachi band standing with them. That’s when we decided we’re doing that next year.

Then we invited, I don’t know, maybe 15 guys who came the first year. We gave it a name and it was simply 15 people who I love hanging out with. Morgan Weber was in on it. Luckily, he decided to handle the cocktails. He brought the food component. We had a mariachi band. After that, my other friends began to take notice, and we’ve held the hunt every year since — other than Hurricane Harvey. We took a year off that year.

LG:  I should probably ask where the name came from at some point.

JD: I landed on the paloma, the drink, because the Garden & Gun article mentioned that the other group had something after another cocktail. I forgot what it was. I want to say they were in Georgia.

LG: I think they just drink moonshine and diesel.

JD:  [Laughs] Yeah, exactly. We thought about a bourbon drink, but it didn’t really fit the bill. It needed to be tequila. We wanted to grill on mesquite wood because we were in the Valley and it needed to be a tequila drink. Paloma is ‘dove’ in Spanish, so what’s more fitting than that?

LG:  Tequila. Mesquite. Spanish. Now, you’re speaking my language.

JD: Blanca is white, so like, we wanted to add that. The name actually isn’t grammatically correct. It should be Paloma Blanca because paloma is feminine, but it was an all-guys group so I decided to call it Paloma Blanco. I have a good friend from Colombia, and she said, “You can’t do that. That doesn’t work.” My only response was, “Well, tough shit. We just did.” [Laughs]

LG: So is that baked into your personality? To go all-out on something like this?

JD: My dad is a huge outdoorsman. He’s the one that got me into all the fishing and hunting and stuff. My mom is Brazilian and she loves hosting people, always has. It didn’t matter what it was, if there was an excuse, it was going to be an elaborate table spread with tons of food and drink and music. So I get that from her. Those two worlds meshed. It really started in college. I went to a military academy and we didn’t get a lot of freedom. There was a park nearby, and we started gathering one night a week to grill burgers. Then, I thought, let’s play softball. Then, we’ll have the big meal on a Saturday. So yeah, that’s just my nature.

LG: Obviously, that’s something I can relate to. What is it about dove hunting that lends itself to something like this? You don’t hear about people bringing in a mariachi band for whitetail hunts, although you know I’ve thought about it.

JD: Dove hunting is probably the only type of hunt you could get away with. It’s so much less serious. You don’t have to be quiet, you don’t have to stay hidden in a blind, and you can move about freely. And especially down there, the volume of doves is very different from what most people get to shoot in Texas. It’s not in Mexico, but it can be wild, I mean truly wild, at times. You can pick and choose your shots. Maybe I want to shoot for a little bit, maybe I don’t. It allows people to roam. They can get together, they can talk music. They can have a grill running right next to ‘em and have a mariachi band in the field and still be shooting birds.

LG: Looking back, how has the hunt evolved over the years? Obviously, it’s not just 15 guys hunting in a dove field anymore.

JD: It’s very different. That first year, I rented a duplex and we had a bunch of guys with not a whole lot of expendable income. Our thought was, how cheap can we do this? Everybody was very, very tight because we were all in one duplex. We all hung in the pool together, we all cooked all of our meals together, and we all went to the field together. That was awesome, but it’s still awesome.

As it’s grown, every year we seem to add something. It wasn’t exponential growth. We went from 15 to 20 to 25 and then we went to 30, and then we made a jump to 50 and then it was like 50 to 75. And then two years ago we hit the hundred and we’re like, “Oh shit, how did this happen?” It’s invite-only. It’s never been about making it as big as possible. The only reason that I’ve publicized it and really drew attention is because I had a lot of buddies who own brands and they’ve been coming since the early days. Turtlebox, Twisted X Brewing, Pac Mule, and quite a few others. All these people gave what they had and it helped keep our costs down. We’d be leaving on Sunday and I’d be sitting around with a pocketbook telling everyone it’s going to be $237.40. And that’s always been to cover costs. I never wanted to take any money out of it.

LG:  Sure, you don’t want to go broke.

JD: By year five, I remember I spent $35,000 and fronted the whole thing. On Sunday, I’m sending out an email like, “Hey guys, this is what your total is.” People were paying cash, Venmo, checks, and it was a mess. It was actually turning into work. That was when we made the transition and set up a website to collect the money. Things have evolved. Since it’s grown, the only reason we’ve publicized it at all was to give back to the brands who’ve given us so much. I hope their business does well and maybe if we shine a little bit of light, we’re doing good for them, and then in turn they help us out.

LG: How do you maintain the magic? Now that it’s become more of an official thing, how do you make sure that it’s what you want it to be?

JD: I would say that it’s all about the invites. The people who show up truly are what Paloma Blanco is. We keep adding all these antics and making it wilder and wilder. If people came for the wrong reasons, I think it would destroy the magic.

LG: You mentioned earlier that you started out with very humble beginnings. Is it rewarding to look at what it’s become, who’s still there, and how people have progressed through life?

JD: I was actually hanging out with one of the family members who owns the dove fields. She showed me a video of one of the early years when we were in that duplex. She said, “Wow, look at how small and uncomplicated it was. Do you miss that?”

I told her that there are parts of it that I do miss because I could hang out with a few people, instead of trying to visit with everybody. Now, I’m trying to visit with everybody. My attention’s all over creation. But I watch the people just grinning ear to ear the whole time, and it’s so much more fulfilling. And the partnerships and things that have come out of it. I just love watching that. Sure, I don’t get to sit with 20 guys anymore. Now there’s a hundred. But, I don't see anybody sitting in the corner by themselves, being left out. They just find somebody to talk to and all of a sudden there’s these relationships that build.

LG: Do you see yourself doing this down the road?

JD: I think so. It may not always look the same, but I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I would like to bring my kid now that I’ve had my fun. I tell guys all the time, eventually it’s going to burn out. Nothing stays the same forever. Eventually, people will say, “Look, I’ve been coming for 10 or 15 years and it’s been awesome, but I don’t have to go every year.” When it finally dwindles out and becomes embers, I always joke that it’ll be me and the same five guys with our five kids. We’ll be back to grilling on an Old Smokey and drinking a cold paloma by ourselves. You know what? It’ll still be what it is. It’s just a dove hunt.