But for now I’ve got to get some sleep. Missouri Rifle opens in 8 hours or so.

Been killin’ doves about every other day. I’ve got some pictures and a discussion or two but it will have to wait. After cleaning a limit of doves tonight I had to pack up my gear to leave early in the morning for Wyoming. Check back in a couple of days for an update.

Dove hunting is like pass shooting ducks in that it requires almost no hunting skill except you must be able to shoot. For today’s purposes we are going to assume you can shoot. The only other thing is that you must be where there are doves. Around here that is simple, find food. Public hunting areas in the region plant sunflowers, wheat or both. A few weeks before the season they cut the sunflowers and burn the wheat. A week before the season both Kansas and Missouri post lists of places with planted fields. Then it’s up to you to find figure it out.

First, hit the road. I start around 4:00pm so that I’m not hitting the mid-day lull. At each spot I look for a few things. First, obviously, are doves. Let’s say you’re looking at a 20 acre field, half wheat, half sunflowers. You should get at least 200 doves out of that field and the trees around the edges. If you’re not seeing the birds, get back in your truck and move to the next spot. If you are seeing them, notice where the concentrations are. Notice which way they fly when you spook them, but more importantly, notice how they come back. Doves will have strong patterns. If most of them enter a field from the Southwest and land in the middle of the sunflowers, you don’t want to be in the Northeast looking at wheat. I like to notice gaps in tree lines, particularly if you have to stand on the edge. If there is a section where the tree line is thinner or shorter you will have better visibility. Make a mental note of how you will get there in the morning, and how obvious your idea might be. Around here some diehard will be there at 3:00am if there is a spot that is clearly better. Outsmart him, then outsleep him.

The only other thing is to try and get a feel for pressure. The closer to town, the closer to big public areas, history of success, etc… all influence how many people will show up. A friend and I scouted Wednesday and then compared notes. We saw similar numbers of birds at a place near my house and another South of town a bit. There were four trucks scouting the place by my house and no sign of life out south. Even more, the place to the south is hard to find and requires you to shoot steel (which is a pain in the ass). I went South and my friend went close to town. I got there about 20 minutes before shooting time and walked to where I wanted to be. He said people were already filling the place up at 5:30. I had a limit by 8:00 and he finally quit after killing 8. There were about the same number of birds at each place, but one had more than twice as many hunters, and the place closer to town tends to draw more of the Mossberg type mentioned above.

One final tip: Mark birds. There is no easier way to make friends in a tense public hunting situation than to help someone find their bird. When you see a bird go down in your general area, mark it. Help find it if you can. And unless your dog is dead broke, leave him at home. For most dogs a crazy public dove hunt is simply too much action. You don’t want to be the guy yelling as your dog takes off after every bird that falls.

Good luck. Here was tonight’s dinner:

In more than a month I’ve had 3 hens and 15 poults checking in regularly. I give them two cups of cracked corn each night after I feed the dogs.

So what about your front yard? Well my wife and I had been seeing a hen recently with 8-10 poults. Usually we saw them on the driveway, but upon closer inspection I discovered that they were also dusting in my jalapeno plants! So I went down to the creek and pulled the feeder I had up this spring (the one that gave me these shots) and moved it to my own front yard.

I didn’t see any turkeys for a few days but there was some suspicious sign. After a week I set up a camera to see what was coming by:

As you might imagine, it wasn’t taking long for the feeder to get cleaned out. Experience has taught me that once the deer find a turkey bucket you’re going to have a hard time in that spot. They learn that they can head-butt the bucket and then eat what falls out. A few of them will get in the pattern of hitting it at night and by morning the bucket is empty. Obviously the deer (and coons) had found me, so I tried to switch over to cracked corn hoping the deer would be less interested. Nope. In the past 2 weeks they’ve cleaned me out of 100 lbs of cracked corn. The turkeys were still coming in every day but I was going broke… So now for the past few days I’ve taken to throwing out about 4 cups of cracked corn each night when I feed the dogs. So far the deer seem to think picking through my yard for cracked corn is a waste of time… but we’ll see…

Anyone have any experience on this? Ideas?

I took a picture with the corner of my jogging stroller in it so you could see how close we got: