Final check today confirmed that we have doves for our family dove hunt opening day. Hope the weather is cool and the birds take a while to get our limit on.
This hot dry weather has hurt dove numbers on the farm. Looks like the numbers are down about a third from last year. But if you go from 3,000 to 2,000 you still have enough birds.
Quail have taken a real hit this year. Five years building up the local population may be just about wiped out. Hard to sustain good numbers with two bad hatches in the same year or two years in a row of bad hatches. Almost glad that this is my last year on the farm. Very depressing to see bird numbers crash in spite of good food, cover, water and hard work. Mother nature always kills more birds than I do.
