Dove Hunting
The Beginning
As quite a few have, I cut my wingshooting teeth on
doves. My first hunt was more exciting
than I’d ever experienced. My cousin and
a friend who had a driver’s license and I all went to a local corn field with a
power line running the length of the field almost directly through its
middle. The birds were really flooding
to the line to sit and watch for danger below before they trickled into the
field below to feed. My cousin and I sat
on the edge of the woodline while my friend sat in a thick patch of weeds
directly below a power pole. He quickly
began shooting the birds as they put down their landing gear and began to back
pedal, making for fairly easy shots. As
he shot, their companions quickly realized the safety of the line was not quite
what they had hoped and sped down the field past my cousin and me like lightning
in their attempt to flee the field. He
and I shot and shot, he crushed several birds and I just watched as they kept
going. After my first box of shells I
finally figured out the lead they needed and began to connect. Within less than an hour we had all collected
limits. 
The Infection
From that day forward I really couldn’t see any reason not
to dove hunt every single day. Unfortunately
there were quite a few limiting factors that prevented that from being a reality. The season wasn’t open every day, I had no
license to get to locations suitable for a dove shoot, and I was poor and
couldn’t afford the shells to maintain my new found habit. As time progressed that gave me a reason to
go to work and obtain a license and ask every local farmer and land owner I
knew for hunting permission. Before the
onslaught of relentless construction in the county I had nearly free reign of
the place for hunting. After school,
weekends and holidays were solely devoted to chasing doves as often as season
would allow. I learned new recipes to
cook and fought the elements through all the splits of the dove season. I was so eaten up by it that I lost interest
in most everything else. It was a
wonderful time and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
The Aftermath
Unfortunately after having lived that for years realities have
set in and that life has been a thing of the past for quite a few years
now. The homes that line the fields that
I once roamed and the nature of having a regular job and family have built
quite a wall around those prospects. I
work every day though knowing that I’m gaining on a time in my life when I can
move away to somewhere I can once again delve into that sort of life style on a
more limited basis. The memories keep me
pushing forward and the hopes of doves falling from the sky are all I need and
want to drive me on when my day has not gone to plan. I don’t know what people do who don’t enjoy
such endeavors in life. It seems to be
quite a boring way to not experience the outdoors and God’s natural world in
such fashion at least once in one’s life.
John 1:32
