doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Dove season

You'll get that, Bro. Geo., for better or for worse................prolly on the new hunting pic thread.

SRH

To be fair, I'll try to do the same with my 12ga. Still no bet, but you've piqued my curiosity. If my shell pile is too embarrassing to post, I may just disappear for a little while...Geo

Good news from the dove club. "The fields are both still wet in the low areas but they are loaded with the birds. " I will be getting gear ready tonight.

On Saturday, it will be dog drive in the morning (NID Mag 10) and dove shoot in the afternoon (Win 21 12g)and listening to the Clemson Tigers football while driving from the dog drive to the dove shoot.

Now, I only need to figure out how to cram a teal shoot in before the dog drive when the teal season opens on the 15th. A Lowcountry September McNab. (please note that marsh hens may be substituted for teal, if the tides are right.)

Nice life in South Carolina...Geo

Stan: weren't you experimenting with planting some wild sunflowers the deer weren't supposed to eat? If yes, how did that work?

I got a terrible stand, just as the Texas seedman told me I probably would in my soil type. Some came up and made multiple heads. I'm going to mow them down this week to help prevent the little songbirds from eating all the seeds out of the heads. They are supposed to repopulate themselves each year if you ever get a good stand. I saved half of the seed I bought and will overseed the same field this October/November to try one more time to get them established. But ..............big disappointment............ deer will eat them. They ate the tops out of many of my plants, but they don't eat them nearly as bad as the perodovik type that we normally plant.

I'm of the conclusion that the deer population here is so much denser than most of the country that there is nothing I can grow that they won't eat. Given a choice between getting totally rid of either deer or wild hogs I would keep the hogs in a heartbeat. I can handle them ...............I can't handle the deer.

SRH

Few things worse than illiterate deer who don�t read the seed bags which clearly state not to be eaten by deer. When you have extreme high density in deer populations they will eat everything in my experience. Just wish I liked shooting them more. If they put a bounty on them I�d stay poor. The advantage with hogs is year round hunting but hogs are smart. Deer you either need crop deprivation permits or real aggressive in season culling shall we say.

The deer hunt clubs who lease deer hunting rights on my farms are given clear quotas for each farm. Harvest so many deer each year, check them in or show the farmer or their lease will not be renewed. Had one group who would only shoot anything with antlers. All those does were like rabbits breeding. Populations went from too many to way too many. Size of deer decreased as number soared. Health also I�m sure went down. The crop damage they did was hard to explain. Beans and even corn were impossible to raise within 50 yards of any wood line. It took three years of culling the heard to get things back into balance. It was so bad every branch, vine or shoot in the woods was eaten back. You could see for 50-75 yards in every direction in the woods with nothing in the way. Not a single leaf. Vowed to never let things get that far out of control.

Here in Florida the season doesn't kick in until Sept. 22. Virginia's season used to open on the first Sat. in Sept. and was always so much fun shooting with friends.

Stan, I understand about the deer. I own some farm land in Virginia that is covered up in deer. I can remember as a kid there were no deer anywhere around where our farm was located - you actually had to travel a couple of hours to find sustainable deer to hunt. Now they are everywhere.

Back to dove, I shot some in FL last year and the birds were high flying, and the shooting was pass shooting. I used a sidelock Greener 12 gauge, 28 inch barrels, choked tight IC and IM. RST shells, 3/4 & 7/8 loads with #7 and #8 shot. I would have preferred to use a smaller gauge gun but the distances and flight paths dictated a 12 gauge for me.

I shoot them all summer long with deprivation permits. I have friends who hunt them on my place all season. My grandsons hunt them. Killing one is like dipping a thimbleful of water out of the ocean. It ain't missed. I have a field of peanuts that comes to within 40 feet of my little back porch and patio. I've killed seven does this summer while kneeling on my porch, all within 180 yards of the porch, during the afternoon. It's hopeless.

I've got close friends with a big packs of hog dogs, that will go every night if they've got hogs to put them on. They kill a lot of them, but the important thing for me is that if you put the dogs on the same group of hogs two or three times in a few days, they will leave that part of the country for weeks, sometimes months. Not deer. Kill one, the rest run out of the field .....................for maybe an hour. Then they're right back eating.

SRH

Stan, you guys could always hire Dr. Gary Alt to be in charge of deer management in Georgia. After several years of his "expertise" in Pennsylvania, deer populations fell so dramatically that he quit his job and left the state due to numerous death threats from pissed off deer hunters.