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DOVE OPENER HIT & MISS
By: Ron Wilson
September 19, 2005.... The Dove opener this
year was ok except that I had to go to work at 9 a.m. My grandson Derick
had to go to school and my son Donald had a business to attend to after
the short morning hunt!
We hunted in the la Grange area over a good
field of Mullin Weeds or what I call dove weed. The plants were mature and
spitting out lots of little black seeds for the doves to feed on.
By 7:30 a.m. Donald had his limit and gave
his spot up to one of Modesto finest who had the misfortune to mix it up
with someone not so good that put him in a wheel chair.
I really enjoyed watching him knock down
doves and then watch his well trained lab retrieving them for him once
they hit the ground and then sit by his side waiting for his master to
repeat the scene again!.
Derick his friend Kyle and I nailed a few
and Cody Hagen downed his birds. Cody uses size 6 shot and while he is so
so at the close birds those out there 50 or 60 yards are pretty much dead
meat for him. He must of learned that type of shooting from his dad
Charlie.
8 a.m. and time to head back down the hill.
I would of made it to work on time except the train in Empire held me up
and caused me to arrive 15 minutes late. I had informed my boss that there
was a possibility that might happen so I had my bases covered there! Darn
train!
That afternoon we went back up to the field
and Donald was working his new Brittany Spaniel, Jewels, while Derick,
Kyle and I finished out our limits of birds.
I got a kick out of Donald at the end of
the evening when he said “my 2 month old pointer has went to a 2 month old
pouncer”! I got a kick out of her as she aggressively went for the doves
and then proudly displayed them in her mouth with head held high as she
pranced back to Donald with it!
I was busy training Peggy my new Brittany,
I left her mother Sierra home that afternoon as she had taught Peggy bad
habits about dropping the birds and then refusing to retrieve them to hand
for me on the morning hunt!
Peggy that afternoon worked much better
without her mother around and before sunset she was retrieving for me!
I talked with a lot of my friends some had
great success, food was the key while others said heck there is no doves
around. A big ranch below Angels Camp was one of those such places where
the birds just were not there. A friends ranch in Merced had plenty of
doves with his guests scoring easy limits on the opener!
But when I went there Sunday, never got
there until 9 a.m. there was not a bird in sight, in fact Norval Pimentel
and I walked over 200 acres and never saw a dove. |
