West Texas Doves

Whether plinking or chasing big game, tell us about your day outdoors!
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mr surveyor
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West Texas Doves

Post by mr surveyor »

I think I'm all packed .... and every year I intend to travel light, but it still looks like a pile for just a 5 day trip. We'll be heading out at 0600 tomorrow for our (small group) 10th, we think, annual dove hunt North of Sweetwater ... a little over 300 mile trip. In all those years we've never come home in complete disappointment, although there were some years that were absolutely unbelievably successful. And nearly always something to remember from every trip ... like last year on Friday morning when a huge thunderstorm soaked the world, and two of our motel rooms (if you could call it a "motel") took on 5-6 inches of water in about 3 minutes. Then there was the year that on the return trip home an old pickup truck lost half his load of furniture right in front of us on I-20 in the DFW area..... and the other year that .... yeah, always something memorable :lol: . Hopefully we'll still have the same success as in other years by all coming home in one piece :D

See y'all Sunday night or Monday +guns


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Re: West Texas Doves

Post by Ranch Dog »

Wishing you the best JD! Have a great time!
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Re: West Texas Doves

Post by Jaybm »

ha ha jd, now you've got my memory juices flowing, some great times and yes
always something that stood out to make every trip memorable.

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Re: West Texas Doves

Post by Missionary »

Greetings
I have not seen your particular dove type but they all have to be fun to try a hand at.
Where I stop to eat my sandwich out in the desert there are a bunch of very small doves. About mid morning they start coming out of the hills and fly down to the valley to feed. As they go through my "eating area" they are really buzzing along as it is down hill to the valley and my spot is still about 350 feet above the fields that lay 1/2 mile away. Often thought about trying for them. Just do not know if I can swing that fast. They are not high maybe 15-20 feet above ground but look real fast.
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Re: West Texas Doves

Post by Ohio3Wheels »

Dove - A conspiracy between Mother Nature and the ammo makers to sell shotgun ammo :D
Hope the hunt was great.

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Re: West Texas Doves

Post by akuser47 »

Best of luck and hope of fun stories to come back with you to be shared among us here.
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Re: West Texas Doves

Post by Ranch Dog »

Waiting to hear how this all went down!
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Re: West Texas Doves

Post by mr surveyor »

well ... this was the first of hopefully will be very, very few, extremely poor trips. The first evening at our "new digs" was very promising. Great place to stay, less than 1/2 mile down the dirt road from the place we had leased. The old fellar that owned the "cabin" said we were welcome to shoot doves on the (gasp) 8 acres he owned around that cabin, so 3 of us took him up on the offer that first evening. In a couple of hours we were cleaning 34 birds and thinking the next three days would be a huge success. The next day, Thursday, myself and the two guys I was trucking with, had a total of 5 birds on our actual lease, and the other two that made the trip didn't fare much better. Friday morning we decided to find another area and called a guy who had a milo field we hunted several years ago (extremely, overly successful spot ;) ), and he did have a recently harvested 100 acre milo field we could hunt. The opening weekend, a week or so after harvest, he had a group hunting that did get a decent number of birds but were losing quite a few in the milo stalks. After they left, the farmer shredded the stalks and left nothing but a flattened field with tons of seed heads and shredded stalks. Man, did that ever look good..... but very, very few birds. That place was rich with turkeys, coyotes, skunks, buzzards, hawks, and several coveys of quail. They say that the quail are finally recovering out there, and it's pretty obvious. In my 10 years of dove hunting out there I've never seen so many quail, or turkeys.

No one in our group "limited", or really even came close, and I was probably at the very bottom. I could blame it all on my right eye not being able to focus on the birds when the gun comes into alignment/view, but I suppose that would be a cop out. The last two hours on Saturday evening I decided I would try shooting left handed as my left eye isn't quite as bad as the right .... all that grain on the ground and I didn't have a single bird fly within range. Stationary targets that allow my eyes to focus, and at least catch the front sight, aren't that big of a deal, but fast moving snap targets have become a major challenge.

Our "legal limit" to bring home for the five of us would have been 225 birds (not counting those we may have cooked at the camp) .... we never fired up the grill and only brought back 140 total. Also didn't make the trip into Sweetwater for the annual bullet/powder buy, but we all made it home in one piece from what will end up being our first "forgettable" trip. :lol:


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Re: West Texas Doves

Post by Ranch Dog »

They can't all be 100%'rs or you would get tired of that as well. Hey, any time out with gun in hand is time worth enjoying.

Do you put in for any of the drawing hunts with TPWD? I was drawn for the Chaparral WMA buck hunt in South Texas. Been applying since 1986!
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