Did anyone shoot some dove this weekend?

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FL-NC

FL-NC

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It was opening weekend in NC and I missed it again cause I'm in a-stan, but I'll be back for deer. Curious if anyone did good on birds this weekend.
 
i always drive up to my old Aggie buddy's in Waco for the opener, have been doing that since we were freshmen working at the dining hall in 1971. We opened on Thursday. We usually shoot limits, but this year kinda stunk. Didn't get one bird opening morning and the afternoon was a rain out. Friday morning we shot 7, added ONE friday afternoon. :rolleyes: I hunted with him Saturday morning and we shot 20, so that one we had some decent action. At least the dog got a work out. She was beginning to think I'd lost my touch, but then, so was I . :D
 
I've been seeing a bunch of them on the farm all summer, waiting for the opener. Started seeing less and less the last few weeks and on Friday I went out and shot one (an ECD actually..) seems most have already migrated. :( Eurasian collared doves are fun to shoot though, and they'll stay around for me to hunt all year.
 
In NC season always opens labor day weekend, but its only good for about a week or so. Deer bow season opens the 2nd or 3rd week in Sep. anyway. In Fl we could have good dove shoots as late as Jan.
 
My brother and I visited a shoot at a nearby prison farm ... lots of feed on the ground from the corn picking and we had a fair amount of birds come in ... there just were not enough hunters in this field to keep the dove from landing and feeding ...

The field next door was over run with hunters ... and shot somewhat more .... but there was a field off the prison grounds(private shoot) I guess ... it sound like WWIII over there ... have no idea how many birds they got ... but they shot a truck load of shells

My shooting was ranked as "poor" and I got two doves out of 11 shells ... brother got 5 with a box of shells ... we were both shooting 20 ga 7/8 os target ammo #8 ... I normally shoot 1 oz of hard number #9 shot ... neither of us have shot in a while and it told on us ...

We are burning a "Texas" millet patch(5 acres) this week hoping to attract enough for a shoot this Sat.
 
On opening day I was down in Pueblo. I shot 3 morning dove and about 15 Eurasions. I went out the next day and shot 8 morning dove.
 
So much rain here recently (Deep East Texas) the birds are really scattered.

Not a lot of dove in this part of Texas anyway...but we have not had good shooting as of yet.
 
I wish NC would start in Aug when there's plenty of birds around. Its just too close to archery deer season and it peters out after a week anyway.
 
We got a few Monday morning. They flew well for about 15-20 minutes after sunrise and then petered out. Since there were only 5 of us in a fairly large field, it was hard to keep them moving. They just flew a few hundred yards past us and landed to feed.

The ones we got sure tasted good though. :D

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Unusual weather this year in western Okla, rain and 70 F, My buddy and I both limited the 1st day, had a limit between us the 2nd day and woke up to rain on the 3rd day and packed it back home.
 
I shot opening weekend with my brother and 4 close friends.

We were west of Mineral Wells TX and everyone had plenty of birds to shoot at. We shot over sunflower fields and it was as green as anyone could remember (a big deal for that area). It was a great weekend overall, even though I'm not a very good shot--need practice.

Looking forward to being back there soon.
 
This is how dove works in NC- you see them all over the place July and Aug. Season opens labor day weekend on Sat. You can't hunt in NC on Sun.at all- I guess they figure if we can't hunt we'll go to church. The following weekend deer archery season opens. Legally you can hunt dove until some time in Oct., but you rarely even see a dove after labor day.
 
You can't hunt in NC on Sun.at all- I guess they figure if we can't hunt we'll go to church.
Click to expand...

They've changed that within the last few years for deer and small game. You can hunt private lands with archery equipment on Sundays all season, and during firearms season you can hunt on private lands on Sundays before 9:30am and after 12:30pm with any legal firearm. The time restriction is kind of stupid to me but I guess it's a compromise for the Church. Also cant hunt within 500 yards of a place of worship, and a couple counties have further restrictions.

Doves are another story, as Migratory game birds are prohibited from being hunted on Sundays.
 
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Another thing I have never seen in hunting regs...

Hard to tell when they are flying if its a morning dove or a collared Eurasian.
 

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Opening day (Sept. 1st) started out slow with only 17 birds down. The afternoon was much better and I think the total was about 130 birds with about eight shooters. This past Saturday my son and grandson, son's BIL and his wife, shot 39 birds in a couple of hours in the evening.
 
Well, the south zone opens the 19th. Since I wasted 1500 bucks on a duck club last season and out of a dozen hunts, ended up with 5 birds total, $300 a bird, I'm going to make a few duck hunts back to my tried and true public area at the Guadalupe Delta WMA this season, better hunting and 48 bucks a year. :rolleyes: However, I ran across a dove only lease for the south zone season an hour from my house, well it starts an hour away. There's 14,000 acres of various fields leased on it. It's the "Blessing Hunting Club". They do high dollar waterfowl memberships, but the dove are only $200 a season, so I figured if the hunting ain't worth a toot, I'm only out 200 bucks. LOL Seriously, though, where a bunch of their properties are, I've had leases before and there's lots of birds in the area. I just wanna wing shoot and, heck, the wife doesn't like duck breast anyway and loves bacon wrapped grilled doves on kabobs.

Anyway, it'll keep me and Molly the wonder dog from being too bored. :D For the 200 bucks, I can even bring a guest after opening weekend. I'm looking forward to it. I'll split the doves with bow hunting in October, maybe bow hunt the morning, dove hunt the afternoon. I don't wanna have to blood trail in the dark, anyway.
 
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