doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Dove season OVER in Texas Panhandle

TW
Thanks for the post
NO, I do not keep the shots per dove data
Some days I will shoot 15 doves for 20 shots,
sometimes a box of shells is required
and sometimes ........

Yes, I am shooting whatever, no tanks or grain fields, tough birds but FUN

I, also, am getting older and do not travel well, at 75,
overnights is not on my list of fun things to do.

Mike

Congratulations on a Fine Season Sir.
My country ,some 3.5 hours south of you had our greatest Dove abundance in 6 years. Both resident birds and the later migrants were VERY numerous from opener until the last.
Shooting only slowed in the face of much needed and appreciated rain intervals. Each weather change was quickly followed up with a new influx of birds to fill the temporary void of flights leaving ahead of the weather fronts.
I shot here at the ranch on almost every afternoon. I can't recall but one season (2011) starting and STAYING as HOT as this one did.

Glad to hear that great report, Paul. We're between seasons here in GA now. We had a good first season, basically native doves, which ended October 8. We have another short one that comes in Nov. 18 and lasts 8 days. Then it's out until December 19, when it comes back in and lasts until the end of January.

My grandson and I started seeing big droves migratory birds hitting my picked corn fields last week, and we are about to start combining peanuts either tomorrow or Tuesday, so they will start pitching in behind the peanut combines then. I love the long, late season here and am super excited about the prospects!

Every time I see you gentlemen post about dove shooting in TX I remember the wonderful fictional story by Bob Brister entitled A Small Wager Among Gentlemen in his excellent book Moss, Mallards and Mules. I just have to reread that story every year or so.

Having a season end, even after a good one, can be a hollow feeling. What does one do after all that activity ends and you must go back to the more "ho-hum" day-to-day stuff. I'm at the point now where all the anticipation in advance of a "season" is lots of fun too, the planning and the logistics. The whole time you're planning for it, you also worry (a little) about the vast raft of things than could upend all your plans and it's only after you're there, deeply involved in it all, that you (or I) can let go of that alternate planning and fully enjoy the processes. When it's all done, when the guns (& birds) are cleaned and the gear has been put away for another year's slumber, then the silence starts to creep in. You're grateful, of course, that it all worked-out so-well, but now what? That's even worse when winter has completely bowled you over and it's a Monday morning and you've just shovelled deep snow off of your driveway...Fall is just too-brief, too-ephemeral, darn-it.

I suppose you must just begin again, and start making plans for the next "adventure", the next season, and move forward to putting the pieces together. You know, there's a now oft-unused Spanish 12 sidelock double in the gun cabinet and a small, late, trip to South Dakota for pheasant might just be the ticket...

Nah. First doves, then ducks, then quail and pheasants (hunting the corners), then geese and sandhill cranes,
All of these can be non walking intensive with some planning.

Then fishing after that, I use my Osagian Freighter Canoe with 2 HP Johnson

Last year , walleye about 60 miles from Amarillo,

That's the spirit! I know I'll snap out of it once I get back into the swing of things here. I've got elk and deer tags to deal with here shortly as well. If only our fishing here hadn't been just so-overrun by endless users of the resource. I used to really fill-in the seasons nicely with that option using my flyrod(s).

Pretty grim in that department here now, just too-many people competing for the use of that specific resource (water). All our local rivers (not to mention lakes) are a circus now, and almost all the time. Everybody seems to have recently moved out here to smoke pot and go flyfishing. I guess if you're properly stoned, you don't seem to notice that you're not alone and you are not catching fish? I really miss it but...I'm either too-old or too-spoiled (or both) to put up with all of the horse-manure that goes with fishing here these days.

Either you have a walk-in freezer the size of my apartment's kitchen, or you have a frying pan the diameter of a kiddie pool.

In the old days. . .when I was in Belgium. . .9/10th's of the hunters' game wound up in the Belgian restaurants - same as the old pigeon shooting days in England. You had to be careful biting down because of the shot. One would hope that the game is consumed likewise (Though I have a Vietnam era friend whose freezers are like archeological digs).

He may have friends who cannot hunt anymore who enjoy eating doves, as do I. He has almost a whole year to eat them himself, if he so chooses, and he can buy a chest type freezer at Walmart for under $200 that will hold a lot more than 163 doves. I recently bought one to put in my shop into which I put 180 ears of sweet corn.

Your post leaves one wondering about it's motivation .......... envy, or sarcasm?

WELL . . .

You must have a very small apartment

Fudd, what do you do with your harvested game?

20.1 cubic foot freezer in the garage. Had it for years
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Whirlpool-20-1-Cu-Ft-Upright-Freezer-Color-White-ENERGY-STAR/3291100

66 1/2" x 31" x 30" external dimensions

Some were donated to homeless shelter, some went
to friends or wives of those no longer able to hunt.

All birds were cleaned, soaked for 3 days, bagged in
water. frozen or donated after being cleaned.

Mike