Hunting Dove in South Texas

Hunt Date -- September 7, 2015

Well here we are again! Another opportunity to go hunt white-winged dove in South Texas. It's a tradition of mine over the years – I look forward to this window of time where you can get out and hunt with some friends and not spend the whole day doing it.

Typically, we head south about 1 o'clock or in some cases we go toward Hondo, but this time we went toward the Pleasanton - Jourdanton area to see if we could get our limit of white-winged doves. Our strategy is to begin or hunt at about 3:30 in the afternoon and hunt ‘til dark. Texas Parks and Wildlife enables us to keep 15 white-winged doves, and that was our intention on this hunt. We loaded up the truck, loaded up the guns, made sure we had our ammo --- and we headed south. 

Tip of the day #1

One thing people sometimes don't think about is buying high quality ammunition. Why would that be important? Well, generally the better the quality of the ammunition, the more fire-power you have. Don't let your ammunition be your weakest link. Reach out there and touch them. You’ll have the ability to make much longer shots.

Tip of the day #2

Another thing people most generally don't know is the Asian Ringneck Dove, which are a little larger than white-wings, do not count as one of your 15 for your bag limit – – therefore, those are bonus birds.  My hunting buddies said that we've seen a steady increase in the number of these birds being harvested in 2015.

Tip of the day #3

One critical piece of hunting equipment when you're hunting dove is a small lightweight foldable chair. It can enable you to comfortably position yourself out of sight of the birds and enable you to relocate very quickly.

As you can see some of the guys we hunted with just parked their trucks right against the tree line. 

We took it to the next level – – we cleared brush, and we parked our new GMC TV truck when we got up in the brush – – stealth is key.

Fred and Doc were prepared to shoot some birds with me today. We knew we were in dove season because it was hot -- Texas heat, that is -- but we were hoping to see big numbers of birds flying over. 

This hunt turned out to be a bit disappointing; we didn't have volume of birds but we had small groups and solos. The season's not over yet. Check back for hunt #2! – – Dave