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I hunted with a guy last year on a different field that used a dove call. I am 51 and have been shooting the little gray rockets for over 40 years and candidly I scoffed at it. By the end of the afternoon I was a believer.

Fast forward to this year, I took my new dove call hunting yesterday. It was a resounding success. By using it every few minutes we had the birds tricking into the field 2 to 8 at a time rather than them staging around the field and flying into in a large drove that you shoot into and if they pass 3 guns you may kill 4 or 5 out of it.

I post all this to say, it added a new dimension to the hunt and was resoundingly impactful. You do not blow the call and zzzzzinnng they come to you on a string. Instead, you blow it and a few minutes later a couple birds will venture out of the surrounding woods and circle the field. It was a reliable enough pattern that it left me with very little doubt as to the effectiveness of the call.

Matt

I grew up in Denver, so I learned to hunt on doves. I never got too good on ‘em, but my brother…. One day he and I had walked different fields… Asked him “How’d you do?”

“Got seven.”

“DAMN! I don’t think I even heard 7 shots!”

“Well, I only used 5 shells.”

He shoots right-handed but is left-eye dominant. I think his custom-stocked shotgun has paid for itself 3 times over, one shell at a time. He was smart. Bit the bullet in his early 20s when he was guiding out of an Orvis shop and got the pro-deal.

I assume these doves with seasons are "Mourning Doves", or are there other species to hunt and eat? Speaking of eating, anybody have good recipes, that dish of PoudreCanyon's looks good...

What about the "White Wing Doves" Stevie Nicks sings about, don't think I've ever seen one of those neither...

Besides being a bit larger than mourning doves, and the obvious neck marking, in flight, they have a squared-off tail that's rounded when flared and has a broad white band.

Salt water overnight then Italian dressing is how I do filleted wild turkey breasts... Thanks again...

I think the national average is seven shells per bird bagged. Apparently a lot more people shoot like I do than like my brother does…..

I find it rather interesting that morning doves are holding their own in states where they get hunted, they are not booming in population where they are not hunted, and somehow the Eurasians are expanding their range. I suppose maybe there is an enormous ecological niche left wide open by the extinction of the passenger pigeon…. I’m not at all opposed to leaving them unprotected, but I wonder what native species they might compete with? Some days and introduced species (thinking pheasant, chukkar, etc.), which is fun to hunt and good to eat is maybe not all bad… beat the snot out of pigeons and starlings and house sparrows. But I guess I will leave carp out of the conversation for now, since they are more of an acquired taste for anglers and diners alike. Here in Connecticut, they are now regarded as a “trophy fish“ and there is a strict bag limit on them…. which is none too popular with people who used to like to go bow-fishing for them.

I would give a testicle to have good upland hunting back down here. I grew up quail hunting and it is not a great use of time without significant resources for management. We do not have the soil quality to support pheasants (apparently some mineral deficiencies in this area result in the eggs structural failure).

I knew Ringnecks were introduced, but did not know chukkars were, I thought they were native... Where are chukkars native lands?

In the Dove hunting section one of the techniques they discuss is calling.

An interesting observation on mourning doves:

Doves have been moving further and further north through the years.

I live in northern Quebec in a community located on the southernmost bay of the Arctic Ocean (James Bay).

Almost forty years ago I spotted two of them on an island at the mouth of a river that empties into the bay.

Back then that was unheard of, and according to the books at the time they were more than 800 miles from their maximum northeastern limit.

Many years later we would occasionally spot one, with those sighting becoming more frequent as time went by.

We feed birds year round and Doves started showing up at our feeders about 9 years ago. At first there were only one or two per year, but that number kept increasing, and in 2022 I had eight in my backyard at one time.

There is no dove season in Quebec.

A few years ago I was selling timber on the land around the Sanford Maine air port and had entry to drive around the back side of the run ways. I was coming out late one evening and came across a pickup truck with a guy in the back with a shotgun. They were trying to reduce the number of mourning doves. They asked if I had seen any as they weren't seeing any. I suggested they shut the flashing yellow light off and they should be able to drive right up to them. I had just flushed multiple birds just feet from my bumper driving out. In 3 days they had killed 400 birds. They were constantly harping on me to have the flashing light for safety. Something about not getting hit by a plane...... The next day you couldn't tell a dove was missing. It was the federal animal damage control trying to reduce plane strikes.

Now that's funny right there on two fronts blue spot... I was hard on birds with my BB gun when I was a kid too...8^) And same thing here in Ohio back in the day, doves were considered song birds and protected until I think a hunting group proposed adopting a dove season back in the 90's... I think it went up for vote a few times before it finally passed, then we had it for a year or two, then they abolished it, then it came back is how I remember it... It was a battle getting the season passed, but now we have a dove hunting season again...