Lessons on Winter Dove Hunting

Winter dove hunting is usually feast or famine. Places that you hunted in September that helped lots of birds may be mute. By December there is much less food available for the doves to feed. Most milo maize fields and corn fields have long been plowed under. But if you can find a field full of seeds, you may find doves in abundance.

Years ago I spotted a silo dug out of the rocks in a low cliff. It was full of winter feed for cattle. But nobody told the doves that it was for cattle. Doves poured in morning and evening to eat from such a windfall.

One icy December or January morning (it’s been so many years since that I can’t remember which month) Ron Carnes and I headed for Kyle to hunt the silo. On the way we saw a man lying on an icy sidewalk at the Kyle rest stop. We stopped to see what had happened. He was in great pain with a broken leg. We took him back to San Marcos to the hospital. Now we were late for our dove hunt. Are the birds still feeding?

As we removed our 12 gauge Remington 1100’s from the cases, doves were flying in by the hundreds. We made no attempts to hide. Just stood right in front of the silo and blazed away. We soon had both our limits. If we had brought enough shotgun shells and without regulation limits, we could have killed hundreds of birds. That is winter dove hunting at its best. Find the food and you may find the doves in big numbers.

On December 15, the opening day of the winter season, my neighbor, Tom Ray, and I drove to the lease just to check it out. What a surprise! Hundreds of doves were feeding in the fields of dried T-Weeds. We had a good time. Tom shot almost a full box of shells. Then the rainy weather moved in for several days.

Finally with clear skies I could hunt again. I went by myself. The doves were still there except in the greater numbers. But it was difficult for a person to hunt successfully. The birds kept moving from field to field after I would shoot. I moved four times but to no avail. All I was able to shoot was a few strays from the flocks. So a plan began to emerge in my hunting mind. Bring my two grandchildren, Demaris Darnell (22) and Timothy Darnell (27) with me so we could hunt in different areas to keep the birds moving.

They have both hunted ducks with their dad and me but doves, especially in a wind, are a different story. They are live brown bombshells.

I dropped the grandkids on a fence row and I drove to a tree in the middle of a field so that I could watch them. They had much to learn about dove hunting. Timothy knocked down a bird but didn't keep his eye on the spot where it hit the ground. He called and said “I can’t find my bird. Can you bring Annie (my retriever) to find it?”

“Did you get a good mark?”

“No, not too good,” he answered.

“Lesson number one. Never take your eye off the spot where the bird falls. Don’t try to load your gun or watch the other birds. Walk straight to that spot.” I said.

I was watching Damaris shoot at birds far out of shotgun range. I called her. “Have you hit any birds?”

“No. They are coming by me a hundred miles per hour heading over to your tree,” she complained.

“Come over here and sit with me,” I replied.

She sat down beside me and said, “I don’t know how big the birds are. They’re not like ducks.”

Quickly I taught her the right range to shoot. From then on I was hunting with Annie Oakley.

She hit one bird after another. We shot one together.

Three came down towards our tree and we both shot one. They other flew out of the back of the tree, and she smoked him. “I guess we could call that the “Tree of Death,” she said. She is a real hoot to hunt and fish with.

Timothy was blasting at birds out of range and not hitting many. I will let him sit with me next time and teach him how to judge the range for doves. They both want to hunt again soon.