Anyone dove hunting?

Our season opened Sept. 4 and we’ve already had about five shoots so far. Opening day was good, but Labor Day was better. We’ve tried a couple morning hunts but the birds just wouldn’t come in in the numbers we wanted. Afternoons have been really good.
Got a call last night about a shoot for this morning. I wasn’t feeling the best and when I woke up I thought of skipping the shoot and even calling in to work. I decided the heck with it, I can lay in bed feeling miserable or be miserable watching the sunrise and possibly killing a few dove.
It started out like a typical early season morning shoot…very little activity. But, at about 0730 the floodgates opened and it turned out to be one of the finest shoots of the year so far. Got a newfound respect for GW. Was shooting the next tire down on the pivot from one and one of our regional biologists. The GW and I limited out about the same time and spent the rest of the hunt ragging the biologist who I already knew every time he missed, lol.
Out of 8 hunters, 5 of us limited and the others were fairly close when the landowner called the hunt. Got a couple more shoots this weekend seeing how this rain should halt peanut harvesting. Corn, sunflowers, and millet fields all burned is the ticket right now.

Side note…some farmer apparently had a mishap and dumped about 1000# of grain sorghum on the side of the road. Me being the thoughtful person I am, filled up 10 empty 50# corn bags I had and 4 5gal buckets. Someone else apparently had more useful equipment, because when I went back today a tracked vehicle had been there with a scoop.

Michigan does not have a dove season.

Neither does New Jersey.

I went to 2 shoots so far. Opening day was good but I was on the wrong side of the field. The following day I got my limit on an afternoon shoot. Haven’t been able to find any birds since then. Hope to get on a few more good shoots before season goes out.

Our opening day was September 4
We had a decent hunt
Brought home 48

48? . . . what is your Daily limit and Possession limit?

I’ve been out a few times, still to many crops on for a good hunt though. Still fun to get out.

You asked the wrong question. The correct one would be out of many people. That way it could look like you want to know how each person did instead of look like the Game warden. Limits are 15 in every state I know of.

nah,use to hunt them yrs ago and steam over butter basting now n then. No desire to hunt birds anymore. Goes with age im told.

I’ve found the older I get the more I’ll choose bird hunting over deer hunting. Georgia is blessed with a long bird season. We have a month and a half early season then a week around Thanksgiving then it opens back up around the middle of Dec until the end of January.

I love dove hunting but don't have a place where they are flying. I was going to plant an acre or 2 of sunflowers and try that out this year but time got away from me. There is a public ground I was told about that has good fields but their planting did not come up this year.

Whoever told you that is out this morning sitting in your blind

Dove hunting is one of my favorite things because of the comradery. We had a big fish fry opening day for lunch, it was a good time. Between opening day and labor day we took close to 500 doves

Went with the boys once to see how my middle son was coming along with his dog. Had a great hunt but was more impressed with what he has done with the dog. He really has her tooled up. She has so much energy I was doubtful he’d be able to control her since he’s never finished a dog out by himself. Very proud of him!

I haven’t seen dove this thick since I was a kid. Groups of 10-30 one right after the other

Considered song birds in CT, no season.

Good,they can have it! and take all my blindless with it.

My son went out last week in Ohio and killed a Banded dove!

Did it show where the bird had been banded?

Yea sir!! Our upcoming Saturday afternoon hunt will be preceded by a BBQ lunch. Always fun talking before the hunts then the ribbing after the hunts. My youngest said he loves “burd” hunting because he doesn’t have to be still or quiet, lol!

I enjoy dove hunting myself. I normally have a much better season that I currently am, but time has been lacking. I normally have a couple good hunts in the public plots, but on a 14k acre wildlife area, I believe there was maybe one 2ac sunflower plot that made anything....and it got hammered. We normally have multiple guys keeping an eye out for private fields to hunt, but this year has been a struggle. Seems like everyone in our group has been busy and the bird numbers so far have been low. We found a field sunday evening while scouting that was loaded and when we returned Monday evening, we saw maybe 12. It was such a bummer. Here today, Gone tomorrow...........

No season in NY either...

No birds in my area to hunt. Have driven a couple hundred miles since season opened scouting places I normally hunt and haven't seen more than 10 birds in a 30 mile circle. This is by far the worst year I've ever seen in the last 33 I have hunted. I've made the effort to sit 1 time. Had 1 bird come by, fired one shot, collected him and didn't see another bird the rest of the day.

Two shoots this year. I haven't really worked at it all that much this year.

Do you know of any good pay shoots coming up ? I’d like to find another good shoot or two before season goes out. Thanks

Don’t know of any pay shoots. We just get in good with farmers and supply the sunflower seeds then borrow their tractors and mow the corn after harvest and put a break around the cut area and burn it off. We’ve got 4 fields we’ve done this year and they’re all producing good numbers of birds. Now once the peanuts are harvested theee fields will be as vacant as a church on Monday morning. Shoot’em while you gottem.

Sons dove was banded in Nashville ohio

Had another good shoot this afternoon over a burned millet field, but man alive it was HUMID. The wind layed down shortly after getting on the field and I immediately started dripping, lol. Didn’t seem to bother the birds though. This will probably be it for the early season unless we get enough rain to keep the peanuts from being harvested. Once that happens, it’s game over for the corn and millet.

I heard that millet is cheaper and easier to grow. Thought about putting in an acre or two because the public sunflower fields have been pretty slow. Got a few birds and enjoyed some poppers and hour ago. Been shooting like trash tho.

Yeah, brown top is fairly cheap. We planted it and fertilized once. Mother Nature handled the rest. Once it headed out and started to turn brown we sprayed it, let it die, cut and burned in sections, and hunted. We’d already shot this field Labor Day, but finished cutting and burning everything last week for this hunt.
Good news is a lot of this millet will come back up and probably have time to head out again for a late season shoot. Plus it’s food for deer and quail.

Went back to a field we hunted one morning a couple of weeks ago…another awesome shoot. Hoping they hold off on the peanuts so we can get one last shoot in before the early season goes out! 4 of us limited out from 3:30 to 4:15, lol. We quit and watched the birds keep pouring in. Sunflowers left standing are the ticket!!!

Went out for the last time today due to rotator cuff surgery tomorrow. Been out 6-7 or times averaged 15-20 birds between me and my son. We like to find sweet corn patches that have been mowed down and use a few decoys which helps a lot. We also find test plots for seed corn as they get picked early. The best place to hunt early is wheat fields that dont get double cropped we walk them up and they are usually loaded. Birds were really flying good this morning.

I am so disappointed that we blew the chance when voted on. I would love to hunt doves!