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
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
), 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.
jd
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Guns - They aren't really yours until you void the warranty!