how'd your dove hunting go?

9 total for the season 6 for me and my brother got 3.
That's alot better than the last 4 seasons combined.
Hope the December season is better.

14 half day hunts, 116 birds, 8.3 birds per hunt. It is the first season probably since 2007 I hunted dove all season, normally I just hunt the opener. But me and Tara really had fun with dove this season.

We had 3 great hunts around Haskell.

Worst year I've ever had at our place in Van Zandt County. Never fired a shot. Had the groceries, had the water...just zero dove. Very odd. Still relaxing to be able to walk out the back door and hunt...just would have been nice to have some birds for the dogs.

First year in a long time I did not have multiple hunts. Had 2 hunts, limit on one and 8 on the other. Pretty sad season for me.

18 hunts spanning Harris, Waller, and Dewitt Counties. 14 birds total. Best hunt was 5 birds. Not for lack of shooting, but lack of opportunity. I knew this would be a tough season hunting mostly near home.
Still, had a blast.

2 hunts.... 3 birds total. No birds where I could go. Worst dove season for me in over 50 years of hunting.

Saw more quail than dove.That was nice to see. Probably won't bother with it next year. Developments are growing faster than fire ant piles, so not much future for birds around here anyway.

Daang!!! what zone are you in? Season limit is 45 here in montgomery county.

I think you are confusing season limit with possession limit, which is 3x daily limit.

But Haskell county I shot my birds.

6 hunts, 38 birds. 2 hunts were limits. Had a few random big groups of white wings on our place this year that helped.

Don't remember how many shot, but we had a great season.

This was the best season I had. I went into the South zone last weekend and came out with 5 birds. If I had a dog I would have had 9. I can't believe i left 4 in the milo rows like that, very frustrating not finding the birds. Felt bad too, i worked hard for them.

I learned a trick that ended that - LASER focus on the milo stock where it landed, I did not under any circumstances move my eyes until I reached that milo stock and then i put my hat on it. Only then did i start looking. I was surprised that the doves could be as far away as 10 feet from where I swore it landed. I also learned to let the far ones go. Shoot the closer birds only. Next year I'm going to have mojos instead of cross-crossing corn or milo fields to kick them up.

Also a callout to cleboje if your reading - your PM got me over the hump and I started pointing the shotgun. I have a long way to go to be proficient, but now I know what it is supposed to look like from my point of view. THANKS!

Sneaky - Correction, make that Stompy - , I found your birds. I probably saw close to 150 in 2 days. First time I've ever seen that many, and I can tell you I've burned many gallons of gas in the last 3 years looking.

That’s the trick, and don’t mess with doubles unless you drop the first one in a real easy markable spot.

Slow at first but we figured them out hunting some tanks coming to water for evening roost. Mostly short hunts but fast action.
Best part was it's a mile from the house.

We killed a bunch of birds. White wing season was really good, morning dove opener was really good, and then we had some good hunts after the October fronts. I hosted a 21 man hunt in late October and we still managed limited for all of the guys that were decent shooters.

More importantly, my 9 year old son upgraded from his pellet gun to a 410 and actually managed to knock some birds down.

Best season I've had in many years. All thanks to access to some great fields about an hour north of Abilene. Our leased place was better than normal, too, but not until mid Sep.

The big thing this season showed me is that one property that can look good can have zero birds, and just a few miles away a similar place can be loaded up with them. Migration can be completely random like they think they're teal or something.

Crappy!

13 half-day hunts 125 birds, just over 9.5 per hunt. Mostly hunted the afternoons, Williamson and Bell counties in Central Tx. Shot several limits in September but things really slowed in October as the migrants didn't stick around on our fields. Overall on a scale of 1-10 I'd give it a 4, and it would be much lower than that if September hadn't produced.

Decook
Glad you found your rhythm...it's a great feeling when you watch a dove "cartwheel" from being center-punched by a pattern...now to practice, practice, practice to build that muscle memory!
I had to attend a wedding in Austin, so I missed the last weekend of the first split in the South Zone.
Hope to get on some more birds once the second split arrives in mid-December!
Joe

Slow season for us, great opener with limits first 2 days. After that, slow poor season.

Made about 6 hunts in September and averaged 4-6 birds/hunt.

They finally cut the sunflower fields and I scratched off 5 limits, then a 8 bird and a 5 bird day October 31st and November 1st.

Finished with 118 birds in 13 hunts.

Hunting Sunflower fields in Slaton.

Where in VZ are you? We probably saw 30ish birds a day when we went out in Myrtle Springs