And boy are my arms tired
I would call the bird hunt a success. Enough dove for a family meal. Sore shoulder and I know own far fewer shotgun shells than I owned yesterday morning. Birds are fast. For speed, I’ve almost decided a bird gun needs an EOTech. Almost. Took me a while to get into the groove. And I was not happy with my shooting.
September 6th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Guarantee you some of the birds weren’t too happy with your shooting either.
September 6th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Dove hunting and “happy with my shooting” are normally mutually exclusive concepts. Enough birds for a family meal makes this hunt a success. Well done. I usually consider doves a “freezer bird”… rarely get enough in one hunt for a good meal so you put today’s birds in the freezer and wait for the next hunt.
September 6th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Told ya so.
Did you average better than 3 or 4 per box?
September 6th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Definitely a slope. At first, nope. At the end, I got close. Overall, no.
September 6th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Dove hunting harder than you thought? I do recall that skeet and trap are not just for competition but to help keep skills up for actual bird hunting.
My father did a dove gunt and brought back some doves for a small meal. Had them lunch. The meat is small and had to remove the lead shot.
Did you use lead or steel?
September 6th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Enough dove for a family meal.
Liar! HSUS told me that no one eats dove. I know you’re lying about getting any meat off of them just like the 1.3 million Google hits for “dove recipe” are all false!
September 6th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Besides the fact that they’ve paced my truck at 35-45 mph without trying, they’ve got moves at the first sign of danger that would make Chuck Yeager proud. One bird for every 3-5 shots is considered remarkable, but 1 box = 1 bird is more the norm.
September 6th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
What was your shotgun?
September 6th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Doves will teach you a lot about yourself. 🙂
September 6th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
They are harder to hit then one thinks.
September 6th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
They are hard to hit. Back when I was shooting 100 or more rounds a week at competition skeet (avg 24 clay hits), I’d shoot eight to ten birds with a box of shells.
Not any more. The last time I went dove hunting, I went 0 for 25. Talk about embarrassing!
September 6th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I think one thing that the PETA types don’t appreciate is the connection to birds that comes with hunting them.
I guarantee that after a day afield you will look at not just doves, but all birds, with a new found respect and find yourself learning and observing more about their habits and habitats than you ever would had you not hunted them.
That, of course, leads to improvements in society that actually benefit the birds, as opposed to most of the worthless shit that 99.9% of environmentalist and animal rights types peddle.
September 6th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Our local (South Texas) birds here are dove (whitewing and Mexican) and quail (aka “Bobwhite”). Doves are the F-16 of the birds, very fast, fairly manuverable, and just high enough to be hard to reach. Quail are fast helicopters. They sit on the ground until you are almost on top of them, then they pop up about five feet and go like mad, changing direction about every two seconds until they have a tree or two between you and them, then they go back to ground.
Down here we hunt dove by waiting near water or by walking a tree line (usually a fence with trees growing along it). Quail is a long walk in a big field, or in light to moderate trees and brush. If your gun butt is in your shoulder and you are looking the right direction and you are thinking bird, you might get off a shot, two only from an auto loader or a double. Quail are most safely hunted alone. In a group, some idiot will forget and shoot to the side just as his gun is pointed at another hunter. Dove fly high enough that isn’t a problem.
Either one, yes, three or four to a box is normal, six to eight is good, and as many as ten is bragging rights, if the limit allows that many. Fine way to burn powder!
September 6th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
My wife’s brother was a mooch – and a dove misser. I would take a couple of boxes of shells, he’d borrow the first box, and then mooch everything that wasn’t in my gun. I got tired of that – and the local gun dealer gave me a bushel of early 12 ga hulls with a damp paper base wad.
I tried loading a few and they all fired. With a wonderful half to a full second hang fire. So I loaded a couple of hundred and gave them to Clip on the next dove shoot. I could see the gun barrel go up, and watch the dove leave the county before the recoil moved the barrel.
That was the last time the boy asked to borrow any of my shells. But he did about as well with those as he did with the store bought shells.
Stranger
September 8th, 2009 at 12:06 am
3 – 4 birds per box? I am not boasting, most of the guys I know and hunt with are getting about 7-10 per box. opening morning have a full bag in about 30 min…