Anyone dove hunting on Tuesday?

[mechanictim]

Took the day off from work and had a good shoot this morning. Hunted a cut oat field between a corn field and creek with an older stand of cottonwoods and ash along the bank, with a road on the other side of the creek. Had birds flying by as i walked in right at first light. Had a slow but steady number of singles and pairs till about 8:30 when a train came by on the tracks about a half mile away. Shooting really picked up then. Had an even dozen birds next to me by nine o'clock. thats when the flocks of ten to thirty doves started piling into the opposit end of the field from me. A few flew down my way and i had a limit at 9:30. It "only" took three boxes of shells.

When I was walking into the field there were about a half dozen deer feeding in the far end of the feild including a couple small bucks. Two of the bucks did get into a little horn to horn pushing match. Never seen bucks with velvet antlers acting like that. They were pushing each other for a couple of minutes not just touching horns for two seconds and backing off. Neither buck looked to be more than two and a half years old.

About a quarter to eight I had a flock of about twenty to thirty geese drop in to the far end of the field and start feeding. They stayed put even while I was shooting at doves. They finally left when I walked toward them to retrieve a dove.

It is mornings like this that so make me look forward to the hunting seasons. I didn't even have a single mosquito to swat at despite it being a little breezy for a therma cell to be effective. I wil probably try again on friday for doves and then going for geese on saturday.

[HunterLee]

44 for 3 of us today. Got a banded one too. To bad it was one that the kid we hunted with dad had banded about a month ago. Still pretty neat. We couldn't scratch the last one. Oh well off to bear hunt tonight.

[Jameson]

Ebes on your drive to the public hunting grounds do your self a favor and drive some gravel backroads. If you spot a freshly picked field buzzing with doves attempt to find the fields owner and ask permission to hunt the field. I would suggest using as much of that Texas accent as you got. Would bet that you would find a field to hunt before you got to the public hunting grounds.

Good Luck!

[CRAZYEYES]

Went out tonight near Maple lake just west of Saint Cloud. We ended up with 7 in the bag, one we could'nt find in tall grass and did a little missing as well. We had a little makeshift blind made with some downed pine trees and brush set up between a wheat field that was just plowed and a little slough. We had some decoys set on a fencerow and we got a couple in to them. About 5:30 or so when they really started moving some other guys came and sat on the other side of our decoys about 30 yards or so. They even saw us and waved but still sat down within shooting distance. I know if I see people hunting a chunk of land I respectfully keep my distance just out of common courtesy. My buddy was pretty ticked and wanted to confront them but what are you gonna do. Nice to get the gun back out and do some shooting today though.

[koonie]

I was out building some ground blinds for the archery opener on Sunday. I bumped a branch with my shoulder and a dove came flying out and it was acting as if it was injured. Looked up and saw a nest. I checked it out and it had two chicks in it. Seems way late in the season for doves to still be raising chicks.

Hopefully I'll get out Friday for some shooting.

[Neighbor_guy]

I got home from class tonight in time to sit on the porch for the last hour and a half of legal shooting. If you read my first post in this thread you know I was seeing 2-300 birds in an evening going to water on a neighbors pond. And his chuckle head kids shooting clay pigions in the same gap in the cotton woods the doves were using to get to the water. Including another "practice round" last night.

Long story longer, I get home from class, sitting on the porch with a barley pop, counting vehicals, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Nine more vehicals than normaly are there. Well I sit and watch the last of legal shooting and Ohh, look here comes a pair..... 23 shots!!!! These kids fired 23 shots at two doves, both of which came flying out of the hail of gunfire like fighter pilots through flack. When they were walking back to the house I hear one of the "guests" holler "I thought you said 200 birds a night, we only saw two!"

I had to laugh, some people just dont get it. Glad to hear you guys had good shoots. Mabe I will find a spot before it gets to chilly and the birds go south.

[mozy]

Couldn't get out this morning, but had a good night. Shot 10 in about two hours, lost two in thick corn/sunflowers. Felt good to be back out there.

[broken_line]

I got home from class tonight in time to sit on the porch for the last hour and a half of legal shooting. If you read my first post in this thread you know I was seeing 2-300 birds in an evening going to water on a neighbors pond. And his chuckle head kids shooting clay pigions in the same gap in the cotton woods the doves were using to get to the water. Including another "practice round" last night.

Long story longer, I get home from class, sitting on the porch with a barley pop, counting vehicals, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Nine more vehicals than normaly are there. Well I sit and watch the last of legal shooting and Ohh, look here comes a pair..... 23 shots!!!! These kids fired 23 shots at two doves, both of which came flying out of the hail of gunfire like fighter pilots through flack. When they were walking back to the house I hear one of the "guests" holler "I thought you said 200 birds a night, we only saw two!"

I had to laugh, some people just dont get it. Glad to hear you guys had good shoots. Mabe I will find a spot before it gets to chilly and the birds go south.

ha bet you had a grin to be proud of?! well not that they ruined the spot bt got no doves..

[123fish]

Went out yesterday morning and shot 6. Only had one other chance so was pretty happy with the shooting accuracy end of it. Seemed to be less doves in the area than the previous few days but are probably bunched up somewhere in the area. Saved the honeyhole for Friday evening when the buds show up from the metro area and Nebraska. That will tell the story whether there are many doves around or not. Sounds like some of you guys really got into them so there's still hope for a big shoot.

[Jmnhunter]

I live in western carver county...which WMA would be good for doves within an hour of two west of Glencoe?

scout where the doves are!

[Powerstroke]

I spent a couple hours looking at WMA's today around glencoe and hutch with little luck.

All I brought home was a tired dog and two sleeping girls. We had a lot of fun, but only saw doves from the truck. My best spot we sat was a recently cut wheat field. I found a couple new shell husks so its been hunted already, but no doves in the area. My springer did get two pheasant flushes though!

[grousehunter]

Went out today for a little while. Ended up with three, but should have a had a lot more..definatly rusty on the shooting. Think I might pick up some decoys since the wheat field I was in had a lot of doves flying all over. Not bad for my first time ever dove hunting though. They are definatly really tasty little guys!

[CRAZYEYES]

I went up today to carlos avery to scout for a close to home bow-hunting place during the work week and thought I would check out what the managed dove field looks like. ITS CLOSED!. I talked to a guy at the ranger station and he said that the DNR put a pile of money into it for a couple years and they did surveys and found very few doves. Oh well, heading to a farm out near glenwood this weekend and there is supposed to be a lot of them out there.

[PKretsch20]

My group and another group in the same area have shot 460 doves in the last 3 mornings.

[tybo]

Those are some awesome numbers but it begs to ask - how big is your group at 15 birds/day? 30 in possession?

[broken_line]

thats at munumum 15.55 people..

[longbeard34]

Our group has consisted of about 20 different people. We obey limits and possesion limits.

[matthothand]

First dove hunt tonight. Ever. One in the hand and many still in the bush. Tough little birds. Hit a few but they just shook it off and flew off into the sunset like nothing happend. It was fun and I learned a lot. I'll definately be out more in the coming weeks.

[123fish]

We shot 55 Friday afternoon and evening. Definitely not as many around as there was a week before the season.

[almberg]

We had one of THE most memorable outings today! My neighbor and his three kids, as well as my son and I, had a great day of dove hunting. We put in two hours this morning and the last three hours of shooting time tonight. We ended up with 56 doves. The best part was the enthusiasm of the kids! It was pretty much nonstop shooting the entire time. I even got my first banded bird..... EVER! A beautiful sunrise and a beautiful sunset...with alot of good stuff in between, that's what today was.

[WildFan10]

Sounds like a great hunt! Whereabouts where you hunting? Public land?

[chocolab]

wow, congrats to all,

i went out the other day to a wma with my chocolate lab.

we saw bout 5 or 6 some outta range, we ended with two

in hand. i can't imagine getting in 200 or so shots, sounds like a lotta fun. anyone know of any wma's that might have some birds as i have no access to private land.

[Powerstroke]

I wish I knew where these places are cause I can't find them within 100 miles of the cities.

I spent another fruitless day in the field. Its hard to complain about not being at work but for all the gas and boot leather I've burned I've got nothing to show. I finally took a shot today. I bumped 3 doves on the edge of a tilled field, of course I missed. Saw 2 flocks of geese but they weren't interested in what I was selling. I might hang it up till bow season. I've got better things to spend my vacation time on.

[CRAZYEYES]

I spent the weekend with 3 other guys out near starbuck. We camped all weekend at Glacial state park. All I can say about the number of dove in that area is wow! We went through a lot of shells. We limited saturday and sunday and got a few monday morning too.The sun was awfully bright this weekend and if nothing else we got pretty burnt sitting out there all weekend. It was one of my first real dove hunts that I've seen anything like that and we did pretty well on both public and private land but the freshly ppicked wheatfield was insane. At any given time there were probobly up to 300 birds out in this field that was a 1/2 mile by 1/2 wide and they would just fly in circles around the field and back and forth from the nearb power lines. I wish we had a dog though because the only thing i dont like about Dove hunting is looking for downed birds in long grass. I always feel bad losing dead or wounded birds.

[Jameson]

The story of the day....it was slow so we split off to the three corners of the field. Flock of twenty plus doves flies over first shooters head, bam bam bam, no birds harmed. Same flock banks in front of second shooter, bam bam bam, no birds harmed. Same flock than tries to land on top of me bam bam bam one bird harmed. Flock flew away.

Three guys, 10 doves for the day.