We have had a remarkable year. Finally got through all the dove fields for the first shoot. Today was better than openning day. we started at 2pm and by 3:30 eveyone had thier limit and the field was closed. Saturday we will start all over again in the first field that has not been shot since openning day.
It is great to have folks hunt that really enjoy the fellowship of friends with great guns and the conservation of our natural resources.

Pretty photo, Dale. Here there are still sunflowers in some fields in W. TX that have yet to have the seeds make due to all the rains & cooler than normal weather this summer. Birds have been scattered with the result being spotty shooting in a lot of places. I don't think there is any lack of birds. A cool front with more rain hit Sunday night/Monday morn moving a lot of birds into W. TX from what I'm being told. Leaving in the morning to go find out. Will be in the Wichita breaks for the weekend. Hope your weekend is a good one.

Thanks for the photograph of the sunflowers, ours aren't that big, even if it is Texas;-) The native sunflowers that the dove like best here are perhaps two feet high and have heads roughly the size of a fifty cent piece. Plenty of croton [dove weed] this year, but also late in making.

Big rains out there earlier in the week, the ground was still damp less than two inches under the surface, standing water still in many places. The birds remained scattered, biggest flights observed were <20 birds, the fellowship and the food was great, all got some shooting in and managed a few birds, all managed to miss a few as well. Later in the season may be better, we have until the end of Oct. here.

I keep thinking of Dig's remarkable recent 'pig' shoot & Geno's fine red dog .. and the last dove that just beat me ;-)

It seems as if in my area of Ohio, the big flights have not come down yet. Seeing many pairs and a few small grps. of 3-8 birds, but not the large grps. yet. I did have a unigue experience on the second weekend. The State has an area where they planted large areas of sunflowers and the birds were definitely there! But, you drew for a position in the field and that is where you stayed. Nothing wrong with that! But, some of the clowns in the field think nothing of shooting at birds 100yds. out, shooting birds that are directly over your head even though they the shooter, are 75ds away. I even had other hunters, shooting at the birds that were flaring into my decoys. I probably won't do it again, but if I do, I will wear a flak jacket and helmet. :-)

Yeah, I like the public hunting ground setups the State of Ohio creates, it's just too bad many of the "hunters" on public land are "skybusters" and just generally morons when it comes to "sharing" the land. Looks like I'll try to go to a farmers place I know of for the weekend.

Mike Doerner