When I was a kid, dove hunting was a big deal. I still love it. Maybe it's because of all the memories of hunting with family and friends, or maybe it's the high speed shooting.
In the old days, dove hunting didn't open until 1 p.m. Dad would pull us out of school at lunch and we'd head to Uncle Ted's. He had a lot of doves. He owned a seed company out at one of his farms and had a skunk hanging around his office. He told us if we caught it away from the office to shoot it.
While we were exchanging pleasantries he looked out the window and said, "there he is." My brother grabbed his shotgun and shot it. The only problem is he only wounded it. It ran straight under Uncle Ted's office and died. But not before it sprayed up the area pretty good. Uncle Ted gave us grief. "I told you specifically to catch him away from the office." Well, we'd done all the good we could there so it was time to go hunting.
If you've never dove hunted it's a blast. It's also humbling. Dad always said if you hit one out of three you were a pretty decent shot. I guess I'm not a very good shot. They can be deceiving. They look like they're just coasting in. Then you open up and they turn on the afterburners and hit Mach 5 and it's all history.
I hate it when they're coming at me and I miss the first shot at 20 feet. They hit ram speed and I lean over backward trying to bear down on them as they pass over. I nearly flip over backward and off they go with me emptying my gun at them and hitting 10 feet behind them. They look like they're just coasting but I was following one down the highway today at 40 mph, and I wasn't catching up with him.
It's been my experience that if you're missing them, then lead them more. Everyone will tell you to lead them 3 to 5 feet but I think we lead them more than that. Look at the top of an electrical line and hold your gun up like a bird is on one end and you're leading him on the other. Most likely that's an 8-foot cross arm and it looks like you're only leading him 3 to 4 feet. Follow through. Don't stop when you pull the trigger.
I read an article once on dove hunting and the author said they come in dipsy doodling. I think that's the best description that I've ever heard of how they fly. They are very deceiving, to say the least. I used to hunt them in the marijuana fields in Nebraska and they really fly weird there. They'll come gliding in right to you and try to land not 15 feet away, with me missing all three shots.
Most people hunt them with low base 8s or 7 ½s, not because something else wouldn't work better, but because you'll be shooting a ton of shells and blow your shoulder off. They're also cheaper.
Dad bought all of us a shotgun when we were 10. I started dove hunting when I was 7 using my sister's shotgun. I was so small that I couldn't hold the butt to my shoulder and reach the trigger so I had to hold the butt under my armpit and look down the barrel that way. It made for tough shooting but it was better than not getting to hunt at all.
I've never figured out for sure what makes one flyway better than another, but you can sure pattern them. Usually they'll follow a tree line.
Pick them as you're hunting. It helps them cool down and also saves you from picking a whole pile of birds after the hunt. Of course, there's always one guy that doesn't pick up his so you end up picking some anyway.
As a kid, Mr. Teague made us clean the whole bird. Since leaving home I only breast them. There's no meat on the legs and back anyway. As kids we dipped them in milk and rolled them in flour and fried them but the best way to cook them is to wrap them in bacon with a slice of jalapeño and grill them. And lastly, make sure you clean all the dead birds out of your shell vest. That's not good when you grab it a few weeks later to go out and notice that there's a dead one still in there.
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