Dove Hunting

The Season

That little temperature change these last few nights and that breeze has made it clear that the summer is starting to cave in to the fall.  I’ll be looking in the next few nights for the bull bats to be flying to indicate that the dove season is about to begin soon.  They seem to know without fail better than any other indicator out there, weather or temperature or calendar, the bull bats seem to just know.  Dove season brings on a new zest of life that hardly anything else can match.  Something about those cool mornings and hot days and those little wing beats and tiny wing whistles as they maneuver in ways only doves can.  That back pedal and that drop in altitude and that distinct flap that only a dove has, that shape on the skyline that only a doves graceful form can create.  After having pursued them so hard for my younger years it always perks me up to hear any conversation about dove hunting regardless of what time of year it is.  As with most things I’ve invested my time and efforts into in my life I have obsessed over dove hunting and studied and researched it and read and watched whatever materials I could find on the subject.  Argentina is still my mecca. 

The Birds

There is something almost spiritual for me in this time of year.  If I had to choose any kind of hunting to give up, this would be one of my last two on the list.  The dove season here is long with its various splits and I have never been a one weekend warrior when it comes to doves.  I will pursue them from September on to the end of the last eligible time to hunt in January.  I’ve planted fields and mowed strategic areas out beneath likely flyways for them.  I’ve found them eating seeds from orchards and shot them over squash and tomato crops after the remains of the crop had been left to rot away to nothing but seed.  I’ve shot them from pastures and along creeks and near roads and utility lines they follow like paths we might walk.  I’ve bought decoys fixed and motion and experimented with countless shells and gauges of shotguns, and brands and styles of action.  I’ve gone through some wonderful bird dogs and had some phenomenal shoots that have rivaled anything seen on TV in some unlikely areas.  I have eaten doves in a variety of different ways, (not just wrapped in bacon and stuffed with jalapeno and cream cheese) and I’ve met a lot of folks over the years who shared my hunts both good and bad.  I’ve lost birds to hawks and falcons, and weeds and even hurricane flooding, and unfortunately, I’ve watched almost all my dove hunting venues grow up into housing developments and other modifications, but I long for my retirement when I can and plan to move somewhere there are still doves to be had on a regular basis. 

The Allure

I’ve always heard it said that the dove is a bird of peace, Noah sent out the dove from the ark to test the conditions of the flooding and it brought back the olive branch.  Doves are my favorite bird, and have been since I can remember.  I respect and revere them, I hunt them with a reverence and I do not take lightly their place in the world.  I often wish I had been alive to see the droves of passenger pigeons, and somewhere in the back of my mind hope that there will be an extreme population boom of doves or pigeons or something of the like in my lifetime due to changes in agriculture or some other phenomenon.  I also pray my children and grandchildren will have the opportunities that I have had to experience the doves in such a fashion. 

Genesis 8:8-12