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SPOTTY DOVE OPENER

By: Ron Wilson

September 5, 2009.... Sorry about the late Dove opener report but as any hunter knows after the opening day of hunting the birds usual get thinned out unless you are in the right flyway.

The Dove season opener was great again this year for me and my family group, but a lot of guys in the area that I hunt were struggling to bag a few birds. I always look forward to September 1st as it means I can pick up my shotgun and from then on until the end of January its usually a rifle or shotgun day for me since retiring.

I have been very fortunate to have an open invitation to hunt doves on private land for some time now. Bob Woods my neighbor had introduced me to his brother-in-law Terry Robinson several years ago and Terry has access to lots of private property that he has given me permission to hunt on.

Opening morning I loaded up Peggy Sue my Brittany and went to Waterford to pick up my son Donald and grandson Derick along with his friend Tyler Dorsett and it was off to the private property to meet Terry.

Well we got there a couple minutes late as Terry was leading his group down the road to the back of the ranch.

My son Donald and I had scouted a little bit of the ranch and had found a honey hole the previous day where a few doves were. We got to the spot well before shoot time and started to set up the spread. I prefer hunting over decoys as it can lead up to a vast variety of shooting angles at Doves as they react to the decoys where without them you are just pass shooting as they fly by.

In our spread we had a road with fences on both sides of it. We had 8 decoys on one fence with a mojo teal in the center and 4 dove decoys spaced on the other and then me and my son spaced ourselves to each end. I sent the boys down to some compost piles I had seen the birds sitting on the day before.

Shoot time came and my son soon took off down the road on a walk looking for a better flyway. The birds seemed to be a little late at coming off the roost as they never showed up until just a little before 7 a.m. No big bunches like there should have been but one’s and two’s with the largest flock I saw of 4 birds.

I was downing a bird here and there but the boys who had not listened, can you imagine that, had moved to the top of the hillside and were shooting down as the birds came into the piles of debris down below. I had a chuckle out of that. I had to holler at them to get down a little as their silhouette was flaring the birds away from them.

Lots of shooting to start and then things slowed down and the boys got ants in there pants and took off on a walk to see what they could jump. This was great for me as I got a few more birds to add to the pile as they jumped them and they came my way.

Shrek my sons Crocker-Brittany cross and my Brittany Peggy Sue did a great job of retrieving the doves we shot. The other two dogs we had along were worthless and the only thing they were good for was lap dogs. The dogs were of good breeding it was lack of training by the owners.

I can see that a boy that likes to hunt should get a dog when he is around 10 years old so that the dog can be trained before his interest changes to other game.

At 10 a.m. we got together and did a bird count. 36 birds Derick said we can go over there and finish off our limits and I said well lets go see Terry and the rest of the guys for a cold one  and see how they did.

Well the other hunters had not faired so well. One had nine and another said he should have had his limit easy but 2 boxes of shells were burned but very little hitting. The usual chit-chat of  great hunting and tales of  boisterous  killing  were nonexistent. We had a good visit with everyone and then called it a day and got out of the 100 degree heat.

The next day I took Mark Seaters of Stockton out for a morning hunt. We set up on a different part of the ranch. I put 4 dove decoys up on a pile of brush along with the mojo teal and nothing even flew by. Mark knocked down a couple a hundred yards from me in the pasture and needed a dog. I took Peggy Sue and she picked them up for him.

I had set up in the wrong spot I thought as we killed a couple more birds there and then I looked back at my spread and there were 4 birds sitting on a telephone wire just below it.

I went back to my spot and Mark went to a waterhole my son had found and we started getting some action. A bird here and there no fast action but enough to keep your interest.

By 10 a.m. we picked up the spread and we went back to the truck to get water and do a bird count. I had lost 4 but ended with my 10 and Mark had 9. That was good enough for me for the day so I told Mark lets go see what the rest of the group did. When we got to where everyone had camped there was not a single camper or vehicle there. Oh well it was another great couple days of dove hunting for me as I put 20 birds in the freezer for dove dumplings later this winter.

There are lots of ways to fix them. They are small but tasty. Another recipe is to take a half a breast, half of jalapeno pepper and roll them both up in a slice of bacon then grill it.

The problem with the early season dove hunting is that most of the birds are local young ones with small breasts. The next part of the dove season opener in November will be better. The birds will be larger as they mature along with birds that are migrating in flocks heading south and there breasts will then be plumper. They can be an extra bonus hunt for you when the water fowling gets slow.