So this was only my second season dove hunting so go easy on me. Today I took out a new gun which I hadnt had time to fire before todays opener. In fact I have not fired ANY shotgun since a year ago. Well I fired 9 shots and took down two birds. PROBLEM IS I'm having trouble reconizing which birds are doves when theyre all flying by so fast. Any advice for a greenhorn on positively identifying doves in flight? (Last year I took 6 with 7 shots and they were all dove...guess I got lucky.)

Depends on where your hunting. If your mostly around mourning dove look for a sharp point on the tail and a fast regular wing beat. White wings have a rounded tail. The best way is to look at the flight pattern. When a dove is flying straight they will have a strong, fast wing beat with zero pauses unless they are coming in for a landing. All (that I can think of) songbirds have a pause in their wing beats at some time during straight flight.

BTW people are going to bash you about this. Yes it is against the law but if you have no one to teach you, sometimes you must learn by mistake.

Ya know what the dove on dove soap looks like? look for that. Im not kidding. that deep breast profile is one of the first things to look for.

oh, and dont shoot the chi chi birds. game warden dont like that

Haha, that's exactly what I do.

Thanks fellows. I'm embarassed; but I've been mostly doing the rifle thing.

Find someone close to your area and ask them to mentor you. 6 out 7 and even 2 out of 9 with a new gun is overall doing pretty good. Now the sparrow part, you definitely need to work on. In my opinion a mentor will help a lot.

Kudos to you for admitting this on a public forum. You have some honesty that is kind of rare today. You would be welcome at my campfire anytime.

My dogs let me know if it is a dove or not they can tell before I can

X2

Mentor will certainly help. I had some new hunters with me, and the morning hunt they were ready to shoot at everything that was flying. A few sparrows and a marking bird owes me a beer.

By the afternoon hunt, they had dialed in on what was a sparrow and what was a dove.

Until then wait for closer in shots.

What really surprises me is the honesty,thumbs up, and fellow hunters stopping when they hit their limit and offering to retrieve down birds for random strangers. .......Part of it I think is this forum teaching good hunting respect.

It happens. The best training is just to hang out before the season and watch. As stated above, the breast profile and flight characteristics are a good starting point, but even then mistakes will happen.

x2

Spend time in the field watching the birds fly through. In no time at all you will easily be able to tell the difference between dove and other birds from a half a mile out. Tip, dove fly faster than most others.