Early birds

[tg]

Anyone have a chance to go after Doves, Quail or Grouse tomorrow? Oregons westside open for these birds Sept 1, I may take a stroll down some fencerows I haven't hunted for 20 years, I talked an old friend/landowner yesterday and he has seens some quail in the last few days.

 

[biliff]

Going to hold off a few days and let things settle down from all the Labor Day campers, 4 wheelers, etc.. will probably go up to the N.Fork Clackamas or Fish Creek drainages and see if the dog can find a grouse or two.

On a separate note, buddy of mine did a scouting trip out by Succor Creek. Not a chukar to be found this year.

 

[10 gauge]

After work tomorrow, I will take my 9 year old son out for doves. Our regs say that only youth can hunt after 12:00 noon on the first season of doves in AZ. Adults can only hunt from sun up till noon on the first part of dove season.
Less then 1/4 mile from my home is a nice water filled cattle tank pond with lots of mesquite trees. Last year we limited out in less then a half hour for a week straight, the birds were flying like crazy in that spot. And all around my property sounds like WWII on the opening week of dove season.

 

[roundball]

Anyone have a chance to go after Doves, Quail or Grouse tomorrow?

Yup...going to try my best to get a dove with the .62cal Flintlock smoothbore...got permission to hunt a new farm with 5 cornfields separated by small groves of trees with a livestock pond in the center of all 5 fields.

They cut the corn fields for silage week before last...and last Saturday when I checked there were 10-15 doves on a powerline that marches across a couple of the fields...checked yesterday at the same time and there must have been 100 so there should be plenty of birds.

Weather forcast is clear, hotter than I like but you can't have everything...got a place staked out at the end of a finger of trees & brush that juts 100yds out into one field where the powerlines are...it faces south so I'll be able to sit tucked back in from the edge a little and be in the shade all day, with full view in front of me left & right...planning to make a day of it.

Hope you get into some birds...

 

[tg]

Hey Roundball, sounds like a sweet setup, good luck to all you guys that make it out tomrrow.

 

[GreyWhiskers]

TG,
Dove opener is a big deal for me. I always make it out even if it's during the week. Gonna go to a big farm tomorrow morning that always has a big shoot and lunch afterwards. Will bring my 10ga MLoader and my kids can back me up with their CF guns. Gonna move to the foothills for the afternoon shoot where it can get purty fast and furious at dusk.

By all means take yer gun out tomorrow and have some fun. :thumbsup: GW

 

[bucktales]

Good Luck Guys!
We have a while to go here for upland. Doves not even on the "Menu" here as they're considered "songbirds". :youcrazy:

 

[tg]

Doves are not usually on my menu either even when I used to shoot a box of shells at them....

 

[paulvallandigham]

My friend had 5 different recipes for cooking dove breasts, every one delicious. My favorite was wrapping half a breast with a water chestnut, in a strip of bacon, and browning them lightly in hot oil, before baking them in milk in a covered pot for 45 minutes to an hour. They are held together with toothpicks, of course. They make a great hors' Deuvre.

 

[10 gauge]

A strip of bacon makes most food taste great. well except maybe icecream. :barf:

 

[Walks Alone]

With Mourning doves, Gambels quail and cottontails resident on my property year-round in strong numbers it's kind of hard to get excited about the openner for any of them.

Back when I lived in the frozen north the Sept 1st openner for doves was always looked forward to though. We had a month long season, which was kind of a joke because after 2-3 days of hunting pressure they all went south.

 

[tg]

Well the exercise was well needed and it was a nice morning for a long walk but I didnt see a single Dove or Quail, I jumped one Rooster that went out the far side of the fence row, but Pheasant season is a month and a half away...I took some time to fiddle with the digital camera abd tripod, so below is a pic of how it might have looked if there were some birds, kind of a it coulda looked like this if there woulda been some birds, that sounds familiar for some reason. next weekend I think I'll check out a nearby woodlot for Grey squirrels in addition to hunting for Quail and Doves.

 

[roundball]

About the same for me...left the house at 9:30am, was in my shady spot (thank god!) waiting for them long before noon...the same spot at the same time I had seen about 100 on the power lines Saturday morning...not a one this morning.
Worse, I never saw a bird at all until 4:30pm when a couple of 10 bird flocks entered the field a couple hundred yards away...I was alone so there was no one else to get them moving.

It was a long day but a good dry run for my planning and preparations...just no birds !!

 

[10 gauge]

At 5:30am it sounded like The "Battle Of The Bulge" around my property when I was leaving for work. Well I'm on my way home now to let my young boy do some blasting at these rats with wings.

 

[rabjr]

Man you guys are lucky, we havta wait till Noon time before we can shoot Doves.

 

[roundball]

Man you guys are lucky, we havta wait till Noon time before we can shoot Doves.

Noon here also...just the first day...in fact I always assumed that was universal being Federal and all but I guess not :shocked2:

But after the first day it's ALMOST regular type hunting hours every day thereafter...from 1/2 hour before sunrise but only until "sunset"...NOT 1/2 hour AFTER sunset like everything else.

These kind of nit-picking ridiculous little differences drive me crazy...and I can't fathom any logic or game management benefit to them. IMO they should make it easier for the hunters to remember and have all start & stop times the same...if that is somehow going to upset the apple cart in the world of doves then they can shorten the season by one day or something.

 

[rabjr]

Yeah ours is split in 3 segments, the first is Sept 20 to Oct 5 which is noon to sunset. The other two season dates it is sunrise to sunset.

 

[bingo1952]

I was invited by a friend to go to his farm today. I used the Pedersoli 10 ga with 1-1/8 oz of shot and 90 grains of powder. We had a decent shoot and I knock down 8, lost 2, and retrieved 6. There were 3 others hunting beside myself and all were using modern guns. I scored about as well as they did. I left all my birds with my host. Maybe I'll get a few to eat myself next weekend if Hannah doesn’t put the kibosh on things.

 

[jtmattison]

My friend had 5 different recipes for cooking dove breasts, every one delicious. My favorite was wrapping half a breast with a water chestnut, in a strip of bacon, and browning them lightly in hot oil, before baking them in milk in a covered pot for 45 minutes to an hour. They are held together with toothpicks, of course. They make a great hors' Deuvre.

A really tasty recipe for dove:

Marinate dove breasts in Italian salad dressing overnight.
Slice fresh jalapeno peppers about 1/8 inch thick.
Cut cheddar cheese into chunks.
Wrap one pepper slice and one chunk of cheese with dove breast and wrap that with bacon. Secure with toothpick.
Grill to medium/medium rare.

HD

 

[roundball]

Sounds like a great day...unless on a flyway to a roost, dove hunting is one of those rare forms of hunting where in addition to having the birds you need other people to help keep things moving to get the shots...creates good action