Regardless of how much fun we have shooting clay targets and teaching shotgunning around the country, we still love to hunt the real thing. As avid bird hunters, Vicki and I look forward to September 1st every year. The dove opener signals several things for us, not the least of which is a few weeks off to hunt and play and rest.
Our course curriculum changes from long crossers and chandelle curling shots to flushing and passing shots. Our rhetoric changes from focusing on the front of the target to focus on the head of the bird. Our customers’ heavy target guns are replaced with field guns, which are lighter and made to be carried a lot and shot a little.
Regardless of whether the birds are feathered or painted, the principles of successful shotgunning that we continue to discuss in this column remain the same. It’s more about focus, rhythm, tempo and gun mount than any other thing.
Without practice, you as a hunter will have moments of glory followed by moments of misunderstood failure. In a sport with as much built in failure as shotgunning, without some practice prior to your first trip to the field each year, your results will tend to extend your vocabulary in several directions — none of which your mom could be proud of.
This time of year, we begin to see large flocks of doves flying around while teaching our dove clinics at American Shooting Centers in Houston. We take every opportunity to get our students to look at the birds as they fly by. Without exception, our customers are amazed at the fact that you really can see their heads and they don’t fly nearly as fast as they remembered.
I guess if I could hunt only one thing it would have to be doves in a 10 mph wind. I think that little bird is the most challenging target to hit on the planet (and they are tasty too).
If September 1st will get here without a lot of rain, it should be a great opening day around Houston. We are even seeing large flocks of white-winged doves—in Houston! Who’d-a thunk it?
We are not, however, looking forward to how hot it will be on September 1st. But drinking plenty of water will help with that. We are used to the heat – or as used to 96 degrees and 98 percent humidity as anyone can be.
If you are not used to being outside, you better drink plenty of water while in the dove field. Dehydration can sneak up on you in the excitement of an opening day dove hunt! Once it gets you, it will take days to recover. Your eyes are more sensitive to moisture than any other organ. When you begin to become dehydrated, your focus is one of the first things to go. And you don’t recognize it because both eyes begin to lose focus at the same time. Stay hydrated while in the hunting field. Drink water or Powerade drinks.
An opening day dove hunt is a great opportunity for an experienced hunter to introduce someone new to the sport of bird hunting. If you take a kid or even your spouse dove hunting and they have never been, your success needs to take a backseat to theirs. Any and everything you can do to ensure their first experience hunting is safe, successful, and ethical and fun not only helps our sport, but also ensures you will have a hunting partner for life.
Encourage and console new hunters. Getting the limit is not the goal. Getting your limit is not the goal. Having a fun and safe outing in the field is the goal. To be able to participate in and learn about the sport of dove hunting is excitement enough. If you happen to harvest some birds, well, that’s a bonus.
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