Dove Report

R

roy reali

New member
Dove season opens today for most of us. I decided to start this thread for us to report on our successes and failures. I am going to hunt in a section of desert next to some agriculture. The birds seem to nest in the scrub there.

So, how was your first day in the field?

I'll post my results ASAP.
 
Yeah... Enjoy! I had a great hunt planned with friends until my base got tapped for hurricane relief. I've been launching/recovering aircraft and managing crews ever since. Now I must live vicariously through this from my ops center. Please share!!!
 
Doves in Southwest Missouri have a calendar

I have been watching dozens of doves every morning and evening for the past several weeks. Season opened this morning and did not see but one dove on a power line. I did see a doe with twin foans about 8 nice rabbits and a covey of quail.
 
My report copied from THR (just posted there a min ago)

We ended up getting a last minute invite to some private land in Lee County NC. Acres of standing sunflowers awaiting the birdies.

We got there about 12:30. It was my Father In Law, Me, and 4 other guys.

As soon as we got out of the truck and got guns loaded I had one rise right out of the sunflowers in front of me. Almost looked like a pheasant taking off. Straight up and then broke left. I swung through and fired. Head shot, helicoptered to the ground.

I thought "Oh boy we're gonna have a good day." We dispersed around the field. My FIL and I sat near the trucks for a bit to see where the flyways were. We had about 80 acres to just the six of us so there was plenty of space. We sat there for about an hour and a half just shooting the breeze and shooting (at) some doves.

After that first one I seemed to start having "issues". My swing through wasn't swinging right. I finally looked over at my FIL and said, "Hey, you take the lead out of my shells when I wasn't lookin?" He laughed, I said a few choice words when I missed and missed and missed again.

I put the 11-87 up and broke out the Remington 31. Talk about a difference in weight. The 31 weighs nothing compared to the 11-87. I had forgotten how light it is. I folded one bird with it and missed a few more. Finally decided that I wasn't in the mood to pound myself to death with the light weight pump gun with no recoil pad to speak of.

Went back to the 11-87.

By this point we decided to move upfield a bit. There was one corner that seemed to be getting a lot of traffic and no one was there. We spread about 100 yds apart to cover this corner. It was about 3:00. We had 6 doves between us at this point.

Well, about half an hour later I thought we'd stepped through a wormhole and ended up in Argentina on one of those guided dove shoots. The sky was dark with 'em. I couldn't keep my gun loaded. I missed three straight shots at one bird and then there were 20 overhead. I slammed one home in the chamber and fired taking one down with the two other shells between the fingers of my support hand. I fed two more singles in that way and took one more dove out of those two rounds before I could get my gun fully reloaded.

I've never seen so many doves in one place. EVER. And I've dove hunted every year for the last 20 years. I was still a little shaky in my shooting though. I was nailing the longish shots but missing some of the easy ones. :cuss: "Hey, you been at my shells again?"

Finally settled in after I figured out what's different. My swing through is definitely off and the reason seems to be my back surgery. I just don't have the ROM in my torso like I used to. I adjusted by getting more up on the balls of my feet and pivoting more from there. Then I started nailing them. By quarter to six I had limited out. So had my FIL. Two of the four other guys had too, with one of the others getting six birds and another 12.

The doves are dressed and in the fridge. I'll freeze them tomorrow. Probably cook them this weekend.

All in all it was a good day. Limited out, but it took me near four boxes of shells to get there........:banghead:
 
Dove huntin' around here was very thin for this year's opener. We've had quite a drought in the last month and as a result, could only find one cut cornfield to hunt and it was pretty packed with hunters.

At least we DID find a place and ended up with a less-than-stellar hunt, but it was far better than the first couple of hours we spent looking for a place to go. Hot, hot, hot. 96 degrees and very humid sitting out in the open field from 3-8pm.. but any day spent wasting shells and dusting the occaisional dove is a good one in my book. Ended up with 13 (2 shy of the limit) but had a good time as always.
 
If I could shoot I'd have limited out in the first hour where we were. I've never seen such activity in a field. It was the most fun hunt I've ever had.
 
I shot on the Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation outside of Blythe, California and Erhenburg, Arizona. They follow Az's regulations so we could only hunt til noon with a limit of ten. There were 3 of us and we got our 30th bird at 11:45AM. Usually, we have our limits by 8:00AM. Tough hunting yesterday...
 
I didn't care if I had a big day Monday or not since I setup the hunt for my son and another father/son pair.

Many, many birds.
Much shooting and some actual hitting :)
Sore necks/sholders, sunburns and a great time was had by all.

Best

S-
 
Im in central texas. A little north of Austin. The morning of opening day we tried to work some cut corn fields and had decent success, bagged about 5 per person. (12 limit here). That afternoon we posted up hoping they would be flying north out of austin and shot about 7 per gun. Went this morning as well and saw absolutely nothing. I had been hoping the hurricane to our east would flush em this way, but to no avail so far. We're going back out this afternoon and ill throw in an update. Good luck with everyone's season though. Stay safe.
 
Granger WMA, TX - any doves?

dadams868, you hunting Granger WMA (5 miles NW of Taylor, TX)?

I have had some good hunts there, in years past. Then, 2 years ago, the local farmers planted cotton, instead of headed feed grains, and the open fields on the WMA were not mowed, resulting in almost no doves anywhere around.

Do you have any info for conditions there, this year?

I live in east TX, so the hurricane has rained on us for 3 days, now. And, our high temp yesterday was only 78 (a record low high for this date), so no birds here.
 
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Pop and I hunted near Coleman Texas with some family friends and another group from East Texas.

We hunted opening day and the next. Great hunts both days.

First day we limited out about 6PM (got in the field about 4). Next day we were done shooting by about 5:30.

They have lucked out up there because there has been limited rainfall and the birds are moving well in the morning and evening.

We were hunting near plowed sunflower, millet, and doveweed fields surrounded by oak and mesquite trees.

Good times!
 
I hunted near Yuma, AZ for the opener... I limited out before 7 am...

Death,

Here's the loads I use: 12, 20, 28, .410 gauge in 7.5 or 8 shot.....

examples:
Federal Premium Game Shok Game Load H12175, 12 Gauge, 2 3/4", 1 oz, 1290 fps, #7 1/2 Lead Shot...
Federal Premium Game Shok Game Load H1238, 12 Gauge, 2 3/4", 1 oz, 1290 fps, #8 Lead Shot...
Both of these were around $7 a box...
 
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