Hurricane winds
My opening day (afternoon) was quite a treat. Winds were high, which makes for some very interesting shooting. Definitely not a day for the 28 gauge, who was left in the truck for this hunt.
We got a report Sunday evening from our farmer friend who said that dove were boiling out of one of his corn fields while they were cutting it. Just the kind of report we needed to hear. Hunting in Humphreys country, which is just above an imaginary line defining setting the boundary of central MS kept us out of most of the rain from Hurricane Gustav, but it didn't put us far enough away to be out of the high wind. I'm sure I've hunted on windier days, but yesterday was a screaming east wind for sure, and the dove were flying crazy and very difficult to connect with.
Every dove I shot that was flying with the wind (managed to hit very few of these) fell to the earth about 100 yards away. The best bet was to try to shoot the ones that were flying into the wind, which offered little resistance to the shot.
Our hunt began at around 1 pm, and it was a steady barrage of shooting for the next three hours. There were around 30 shooters spread out over 300-400 acres where the dove seemed to be congregating. It was a mad house with dove flying everywhere. Combined with the excitement of the opening day, I'll admit that I was having a difficult time making the connection. I've always felt under gunned on windy days. With reports of the hurricane all week long, the wind was surely on my mind and had psychologically taken it's toll on my shooting.
Frustrated with my less than stellar shooting, I had to change my plan of attack. Under these conditions, dove hunting by yourself can be very good walking them up out of the stubble. On high wind days, I've learned that dove will hold very tight in stubble. Corn/Milo stubble is tall enough to hide my approach, and on the windy days, they just don't hear you coming. On a normal day, while walking through the same field, dove will get up at least 100 yards our in front of you. There's no way you can walk up on one. On windy days, they'll not flush until you're within 20-25 yards of them. Walking into the wind, will almost always put a bird struggling to get out and away from you. I don't think I've ever had one come out and zing over my head with the wind. They always flush into the wind and it is some kind of fun shooting and such a different change of pace from a typical MS dove hunt. It was not long into the hunt, before I stuck out on my own path away from the other hunters. If I were going to save face and come away from this hunt with a limit of birds too, I was going to have to find some closer, slower moving shots.
Mississippi doesn't really have much remnants of wild bird quail hunting anymore, and I've never been on a wild bird quail hunt. In fact, I've never shot a quail. Reading stories about upland bird shooting, I know I would love it, but we're just not blessed with access to this type of wingshooting in my area. We are blessed with an abundance of dove, and being on the southern end of the migration, we are blessed with good dove shooting opportunity during the entire 70 day season. If given a windy day with some good stubble, this is as close to upland bird shooting as I have been able to imagine. I managed to shoot half of my 15 bird limit yesterday walking most of them up in the corn stubble. My Labrador has no pointing instinct whatsoever, so there is no warning when a bird is going to flush. You've got to keep your eyes peeled, or you might miss it. What she lacks in pointing skills, she makes up for in retrieving. While making a retrieve on a windy day, she's bound to give rise to more birds which just don't spook easily. It's upland bird hunting, Mississippi style, or at the very least, it's my version of upland bird hunting.
Happy days are here again.