Well, my Labor Day plans for dove hunting came to a screeching halt because of some unanticipated misfortune.  I was a little worried that 2008 might come and go without getting in a good dove shoot, but hey…worse things have happened, right?  But, I have to thank ‘Green Thumb’ (a faithful Outdoor Smorgasbord supporter) for offering his dove fields up this morning for myself and buddy Andrew to hunt.  He was gracious enough to let us bang away at the mourning doves hitting his cut corn fields.

I have to say that we both set personal daily records thanks to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission increase of the dove bag limit to 15 birds apiece.  We arrived at what I thought would be a plenty early time (7:00 a.m.), but 75-100 doves were already sitting on the powerlines ready start eating at the ag buffet.  We hustled out, got some shells in the gun, and started making utter fools of ourselves.  So many doves were flying around, I was just flustered as I tried to jam shells in my gun as fast as I could, put the gun back up to my shoulder, and keep shooting.

Fortunately, the doves slowed down a little bit, Andrew and I were able to get our bearings, and start knocking down some doves.  We sat about 125 yards apart from each other and wore them out.  By 9:00 a.m., we were walking back to the truck with 2 limits of doves.  Another first for me was finding every single dove that we shot.  We didn’t have a single cripple, for which I was thankful and all dove breasts were sufficiently intact to warrant a trip to the freezer.

Despite the lackluster shooting at the beginning, we managed to shoot our 30 doves with about 4 boxes of #8’s.  Not horrible shooting for dove field standards - especially at doves that had been hunted hard for 4 days in a row starting on Labor Day.  There were a couple of shining moments that we overcame our not-so expert marksmanship.  I pulled off a left-right (my hardest passing shot) double and Andrew managed to pull off what might be the first triple I’ve ever witnessed.  Bang, bang, bang…3 doves.

It was a great dove hunt and I was back in the grad. student office by noon, what more could you ask for especially since dove season opener had came and went.  Still plenty of doves out there, but 30 will be real cozy on the grill soon.