Dove Hunters

Soggy Bottom Outdoors · Aug 26, 2016

Dove season opens Sept 1 in Ky. I plan to be in the field with family and friends. Any of you plan to hunt? Any family traditions associated with opening day? Positive posts only please.

AGRIMAN · Aug 26, 2016

Yeah, we will be ready. We will also have a hog in the smoker and a bushel of peanuts in the pot. We invite friends and family along with some of our clients and the bankers.

kthompson · Aug 26, 2016

My oldest son in law really enjoys dove hunting and tries to use our farm for that benefit. I plan to join them in this year for the first time I have hunted in about 40 years. Probably will be three generations. Makes me proud. Will say doves will be safe in my area! Not the best shot on the wing.

cqaigy2 · Aug 27, 2016

Some of my favorite birds. Don't hunt anymore, but have fond memories.

gsganzer · Aug 27, 2016

I just signed onto a dove lease for this season. It's 15 minutes from my house. It's all planted in sunflowers and the surrounding pastures are full of goat weed. It should be a great season and a great place to take a few of my customers hunting.

STx · Aug 27, 2016

AGRIMAN said:
Yeah, we will be ready. We will also have a hog in the smoker and a bushel of peanuts in the pot. We invite friends and family along with some of our clients and the bankers.

My granddad was born in Mississippi and loved boiled peanuts. He lived in Louisiana for most of his life and would find them there so I got hooked at an early age. In Texas, they're impossible to find. I can't even find raw peanuts to make my own, so I'm jealous of you guys.

I'm way down in the South Zone of Texas, between Corpus Christi and Laredo. We have a special white wing season 9/3 - 9/4 and 9/10 - 9/11, the general dove season opens 9/17. During the special season, we're allowed to hunt noon to sunset and can take 15 birds, only 2 of which may be mourning doves or white tip. If you're not real good at identifying white wing dove in flight, you get to make 2 mistakes and then it's best to put the gun away. I had 100's of birds coming in every day up until a couple of weeks ago when we got 10.75" of rain in 5 days, there's still birds around but, not near the numbers I had. I'll be out there shooting at them anyway, I'm terrible and pass shooting birds but, I love dove hunting because I get to make the gun go bang a lot so it works out. My millet took off after the rain but I don't think there will be any seeds on it until October. If it makes it that long and produces, it should pull some more birds in. For now, I've shredded most of the fields and will disc a few areas the middle of next week. Sometimes having that bare dirt helps pull more birds in.

Soggy Bottom Outdoors · Aug 27, 2016

Our first planting of sunflowers were wiped out by deer. We have a massive herd here and 2 out of five years they get them. The second planting was late with all the rain. We have mowed some and have lots of heads but they are still soft. So was the milo heads. The goldfinches and turkeys have found it. Several family and friends over, cookout beforehand, few cold beers after.

AGRIMAN · Aug 27, 2016

STx said:
My granddad was born in Mississippi and loved boiled peanuts. He lived in Louisiana for most of his life and would find them there so I got hooked at an early age. In Texas, they're impossible to find. I can't even find raw peanuts to make my own, so I'm jealous of you guys.

No peanuts! Man, life must be rough. Let me see if I can help you out. Below is a link to a local peanut farmer (family) who is marketing their own brand of peanuts. You can buy them green or already boiled and they will ship them anywhere within the continental US.

I have tried their boiled peanuts and they are really good, but I have my own recipe so I boil my own. And besize, boiling peanut is a social event and we do it often during the season. I buy all my green peanuts from them as it's just some much easier.

Hardy Farms Peanuts - The Finest Georgia Grown Peanuts Available

oosik · Aug 28, 2016

When I was younger, 60+ years ago, I hunted doves with my dad. I never got real good - kind of like trying to hit super-sonic jets. Now if I want a bird - its going to be one of our local turkeys. More "bang" for the buck.

Soggy Bottom Outdoors · Aug 28, 2016

They way we have our sunflowers/milo planted (rows not broadcast) we get considerable pass shooting as well as some jump shooting on birds that have landed in the field. Talk about a challenge. There are several folks around with sunflowers so we rarely hunt the same field two days in a row and seldom after six o'clock to let the birds come in and feed. By six o'clock everyone is ready for some western Ky BBQ.Do ya'll cook your dove breasts marinated in Italian dressing , wrapped in bacon on the grill? What's your "scattergun" of choice? I use a 12 gauge wingmaster, but sometimes I'll break out a old Stephens single shot 12 gauge that I started hunting with back in the 1970's.