Dove Season Opener - 01 SEP 2014

The wing season opened up here in Indiana, and most of the US, on Labor Day 2014 - Monday, September 01.  Not ones to miss out on such an opportunity, we made elk gravy and poured that over biscuits for breakfast at 0630.  About half of the overall crowd showed up to eat.  The rest of the gang made it by our designated shooting time of 0730.  We had fourteen people, but only 13 hunters.  We split up and headed afield to hunt the bird that more rounds are shot at than any other game.  Why?  Because (a) so many doves are harvested each year, and (b) it's about a 5:1 shot to kill ratio.  

We split up like this:  Kathy & Alex under the dead Tulip tree in the yard; Nick, Zach, and Eric were supposed to walk, but ended up RIGHT NEXT to Kathy & Alex; Randy and Jerry in Dad's yard; Dave & Aaron on the N of the woods; Chad, Ethan, and Jackson at the N corner of the pond; and Jon and I at the E end of the sunflowers.  

Mother Nature didn't want to cooperate much with us this year.  It's been really wet and kind of cool the last week.  A bunch of the doves migrated already.  Besides that, we were facing 30 mph wind gusts.  Any doves that came by downwind were traveling at Mach 7 and could not get killed.  It was also pretty overcast (noted in the pics below).

We shot until about 1100 and then cleaned 46 recovered birds.  In the meantime, Davey and I made: walleye, rabbit in gravy, venison brats & steaks, squirrel & beans, and fresh french fries for lunch.  We all ate like kings - except for Kathy, who ate like a queen.

Naps followed for most.  Some had to leave.  Hunting fired back up around 1600.  We bagged another 40 or so - still well below our daily bag limit of 15 birds per hunter, or 135 doves max.

Stories for the day:

Jon Myers, who has never hunted doves before, killed TWO with ONE shot.  This is a first for me.  Never seen it before.  Doubles, like 2 birds in 2 shots out of the same flock?  Sure.  Never two with ONE shot; and I've been hunting doves some 20 odd years.  It went down hill from there.  Jon missed later in the day and I backed him up, bagging the bird.  He claims to have missed on purpose.  Said he didn't want to hog them all for fear of not getting invited back.

Zach shot a low flier over the sunflowers in our direction.  One of the pellets hit Jon in the chest.  Stung a little and left a welt, but no blood drawn.  They got recalibrated.

Randy and Dad never fired a shot back at Margaritaville.  That used to be The Prime Spot for hunting.  Since the planting of the sunflowers, that has all changed.

Zach shot from the yard and dropped one at the pond.  Good?  Naw, lucky.

Ethan and Chad had doves trying to land on their heads.  It was easy to tell when they got one though, due to all the cheering.

Jackson had more fun shooting his bow than the rest of the crowd.

A single bird started at Chat & Ethan's spot, flew by Nick, Eric, and Zach, then Kathy and Alex, then by me and Jon, then over to Dave and Aaron - all of whom shot - and all of whom missed - before it flew S over the pond, laughing all the way.  Funny part was that Randy and Dad, listening to all the shots, called out this EXACT scenario from Margaritaville.  True.  This dang bird circled the sunflowers, providing us all with shots, and survived the gauntlet.  Dear Ripley's Believe It or Not...

At the end of the day, no one laughed or had any fun.  Pretty doubtful that we'll do this again next year.




Alex with his first kill of the 2014 season

Zach, Eric, and Nick taking up post due W of Kathy & Alex.
We called this Killer Row.


Nick and Eric due E of Kathy & Alex.
Note the low clouds.  What you can't see here is the 30 mph wind.


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