Today was the opener of the of the Second season here in the North Zone of Texas.....
We were holding LOTS of Doves right up to Tuesday of this week. Front came through and we had 3 small rain events over 3 days bringing a very welcome 1.45" of rain to this semi arid cow country.
Clouds broke and a sunny afternoon evolved , cool temps and a good breeze to make things plenty SPORTY.
Shot a patch of millett that was interspersed with lots of ripe ragweed and croton. Birds were not overwhelming but steady. Shot well on a presentation of long, testing shots. Limit taken well inside a box of AA 20 ga 8's
This season runs thru the 31st in our zone. I intend to make the most of it. Odds are I won't hear another shot.....Nobody out here chases Winter doves. Suits me fine.

What's wrong with your neighbors? 🤔

Winter doves are the finest gunning challenge I can imagine.

Thanks for the update, Paul. Only thing better would be pictures.

Decades ago we had some mighty fine late season dove hunts. No more. Gone with the wind...
JR

When I go Sandhill or Goose hunting, I take some #6 steel shot for late season doves

We should be having a few more fairly good shoots between now and the end of January. The harvested peanut fields are usually a fairly dependable source of shooting. I'll be doing some scouting this week. I wish that all of my friends here could experience a good afternoon shoot with 600-700 doves coming in to feed in a 50 acre field. Some days, when the weather has been clear and calm for a spell, they all seem to come at once. If you scout properly you can almost set the clock by them. However, when a front comes through all bets are off. Their habits are very much determined by weather conditions, here.

I take my scouting seriously because I cannot stand to invite 10 or 15 friends to a shoot and the birds not show up. There's always a chance of this with migratory doves. They can be here one day and gone the next, but good scouting takes a lot of that uncertainty away.

Reports and pictures are required for this thread

One report.

Scouted peanut fields the last two afternoons. Doves in both fields, feeding from about 3 pm until 4:30 pm. Bright,clear, sunshiny afternoons. No huge numbers. Enough birds in both fields for me to shoot by myself with decoys, but haven't seen enough yet to call an "invitation shoot". Plan to watch awhile longer before deciding to go it alone.

Hope to be doing some late season dove hunting N of you, Mel before the late season ends. More up in the panhandle.

Not recently, but some years back met a feller in Snyder who had a place outside Roby and used to shoot on him w/some regularity in both regular and late seasons. Wasn't anything on his place to speak of, aside from some sparsely scattered croton that was better some years than others. The attraction was that he was in the middle of a flyway and the pass shooting there was great sport over his irregular land! Never large numbers of birds but usually enough where I could bag ten or so w/o a dog. Most of his place was hard pan and he had no production. Just lived there and had a day job to make ends meet and tried to farm a few aces leased from others. I always picked & cleaned the birds I took and gave them to him and once gave him a box of cartridges for the old SS .410 shotgun that lived behind his kitchen door. I was an invited guest at their table more than once. Great memories of some fun afternoons and like you said no one else within hearing range of making a shot, ever.

Glad that you are out there having some fun and getting some good sport. And as far as I'm concerned, it's just as well that those birds don't get much late season pressure. I'm of the opinion that many of them stick around in the general area year 'round but I could be wrong. And I know how quickly they can seemingly disappear with cold fronts and weather system changes. Late season birds always seem mature and healthier to me, but I don't know if that's just my impression or a fact.

I love that story, tw. Those experiences alone in that kind of place and setting, with the unique relationship with the uncommon man and his patch of earth, are very memorable. I know you felt blessed, because I know I would have...
JR

in the final analysis, all we really have are our relationships and our stories.

best regards,

tom

Well, a Merry Christmas morning to ALL Sports here.
Having read the piece from tw above, I am delighted to report that fortune still shines on me . The doves are still here in great numbers. I have had very FAST shooting on every outing. Birds yesterday were very sporty on a Brisk north wind that pushed a cold front through. Christmas morning in town, so I won't know until later if the birds have moved out on me. However the temperature drop is very welcome. I can resume running the Bird Dogs, and if the fields still hold some doves , I can continue to try them on until the season end next Saturday.

If I don't shoot another Dove, this has been a Tremendously successful Dove year.
Good Shooting to All

Merry CHRISTmas, Paul.

Congratulations on a good season.