Dove season coming up...

[longbedder]

Question for the public land hunters; all I would need is a hunting license and an annual public hunting permit and I can use any of those leases starred on the park and wildlife map?

[Beiruty]

You need $7 endorsement for the Dove too. But, yes the annual permit ($53=$48 permit, $5 Admin fee) is good for all the leases managed.

[longbedder]

Alright, thank you very much.

[Beiruty]

Opening day is this upcoming Wednesday. Effective opening weekend this next weekend the Labor Weekend.

You can go on Weds if you want, but there won't be any birds left, cause I am going on TUESDAY!

Opening day report please? How was it? did you see a lot, did you bagged the day limit.
Did not happen with no photos.

[Crossfire]

Opening day is this upcoming Wednesday. Effective opening weekend this next weekend the Labor Weekend.

You can go on Weds if you want, but there won't be any birds left, cause I am going on TUESDAY!

Opening day report please? How was it? did you see a lot, did you bagged the day limit.
Did not happen with no photos.

I wasn't going to say anything. But - our dog died on opening day. I have been too torn up by this to go out.

[WildBill]

Sorry to hear that Crossfire.

[The Annoyed Man]

TAM and I hunted a friend's new property 3 hours west of Dallas - it was pretty experimental because we didn't know where the birds would be coming from or heading to, but it soon became apparent that they (generally) went north -> south in the morning and the reverse in the afternoon.

It was a trickle of 1-4 birds with occasional large flocks of white-wings (the latter of which never flew over our heads, of course) - from about 10:30 AM - 4PM or so it was dead quiet. Shooting-wise I have to admit that our shells-to-bird ratio was higher than we'd like to admit - but we did get a fair number of birds, although nobody limited out.

Typical terrain shot with a hawk doing a drive-by:


TAM playing Invisible Man:


HRH (aka me) loafing under a tarp:


Yum - bacon-wrapped dove breasts with embedded bell-pepper:


Having a couple of Mojo dove definitely attracted birds - I set 2 out about 25 yards away and we had a fair number of birds flutter in to join the apparent dinner-party.

A good time was had by all. Andy went "matrix" with his little .410 SxS "coach" gun, and was merciless with his O/U 12g. I brought both my new Benelli Super Black Eagle II and my old O/U 12g. The Benelli had a recurring jam which happened 3 times. I was loading 2 rounds of 2-3/4" Winchester #7-1/2 Game Loads into the magazine tube, with a chambered round. On firing the chambered round, it would release both shells from the magazine simultaneously, locking up the action:

I had lightly lubed the "skis" on the bolt when assembling the gun that morning, but I remembered somewhere having heard not to lube Benelli shotguns too heavily. After the last jam, I disassembled the gun and lubed the crap out of it all over, and reassembled it. After that the problem seemed to go away. The gun was NIB and opening day was the first time that gun has ever been shot......so HOPEFULLY it was just a break-in issue. Obviously, we're going to have to have another DFW forum skeet day soon so that I can pump some rounds through the Benelli and break it in thoroughly. On the 2nd day, I used my O/U exclusively and shot it with confidence. Being a left-handed model, I like the Benelli, and the stock design seems to control recoil well. But if you google "benelli trouble with 2-3/4" shells", there are a lot of listings. I suspect that since the recoil system is inertial, and the gun accepts 2-3/4", 3", and 3.5" shells, that the 3" shells are right in the gun's sweet spot, and that 2-3/4" shells might be just marginally too light to cycle the action reliably. In fact, Benelli apparently recommends a 200 round break-in period, which I was not aware of at the time.

But other than that string of malfunctions, I had a really good time. And watching Andy with that little .410 SxS has convinced me that one of those is in my future. He was having an awful lot of fun for someone who still had his pants on.

[Beiruty]

Sorry to hear that Crossfire.

[KC5AV]

We ended up shooting clays opening day. I think we saw a total of 4 birds all morning.

[mr surveyor]

My gang of 6 will be leaving out at 0600 next Wednesday for our 10th annual to the great "Out West" (North of Sweetwater) thinning of the population of the bird of peace gathering. If things go as normal, we will eat plenty of birds during the 5 days, and bring home "plenty" for our quarterly cookouts. Not much better eatin than doves stuffed with cream cheese and a big chunk of jalapeno, wrapped in bacon, and well coated with a good brown sugar/cayenne dry rub ... cooked over charcoal and mesquite.

I absolutely love the start of the school year and the start of the football season .... so I can totally ignore every bit of it and go DOVE HUNTING! :)

jd