September Doves

Some of my fondest memories as a child were dove hunts. You learn a lot about people and yourself when you hunt with them. For instance, I had been around my favorite Uncle ever since I was old enough to remember, but I never really got to know him until I started hunting with him. Even a small boy with little hunting experience can tell when a kind old man is putting him in the best spot in the field. He showed me how to do it, and I did all the walking for him to pick up his birds. I miss my Uncle. Every time I go dove hunting, it makes me smile to relive in my mind a tiny fraction of the time that I spent with him in harvested crop fields so many years ago. So, it was with fond memories and much excitement that I traveled to the north Delta in Dundee, Mississippi for an early season dove hunt at the invitation of Delta Duck Hunts.

This particular dove hunt opened for me with a bang. Literally. I got to the field just a little late, and it sounded like Beirut on a night of particular civil unrest among the natives. The other guys, most acquaintances of mine, were already blazing away. A couple of guys were close to limiting out, having only been in the field 20 minutes or so. So, my wife and I scampered along the outside edge of the field, weaving in and out of the vegetation with our heads down, muzzle flashes bright in the fading dawn. I imagine we looked somewhat like the opening sequence from M.A.S.H. as we looked for a spot to set up shop. That or perhaps a Three Stooge’s routine!

The field we were hunting was a large area of sunflowers which had been plowed under to provide shooting lanes and cover from the sharp eyed doves as they twisted into the field riding the thermals of the wind. The rows of sunflowers were beautiful in the soft golden light of morning, all dappled green, brown and yellow. The brisk wind blew the dried husks of previously cracked seeds around like little miniature dust devils. Just like old times! Something I always notice about walking through a sunflower field is how the dried seed heads make a “screeching” noise as you brush up against them. That scratching sound is something that I always associate with the pleasures of dove hunting, or pushing through the cornfields of South Dakota for cock pheasants.

The field was one of the properties groomed for hunting by David Melton of Delta Duck Hunts in Tunica, Mississippi. I distinctly recall how big the seed heads were on the plants, hanging upside down as gravity and the weight of the head overwhelmed the tiny stalks. I asked David if they were the “giant” sunflowers that I hear about on the hunting shows on the radio. “No,” he said, “let’s just say they got an overabundance of fertilizer.”

The massive seed buffet that David Melton had set for the birds certainly did its work. The birds were everywhere. For the first hour of the hunt, doves poured into the field in intermittent flurries. One of the special things about dove hunting is the tension of anticipation within the periods of calm, which are then interrupted by brief moments of furious action. Once the gunshots crash over the field, it is silent again. You are then back to being part of a watercolor portrait of a beautiful sunrise in a crop field. But the anticipation and tension contained within the beauty of the portrait are still there. The birds will come again. The gunshots will crack out. Great shots will be made that fill the chest with pride. And good-natured ridicule will follow any publicly witnessed miss.

Such are the joys of dove hunting.

On this particular hunt, I had the pleasure of sharing a stand with my wife. She has done a little skeet shooting, but was new to the art of spotting doves. She patiently listened while I tried to explain how to pick out a dove from other birds by the shape of the body, the beat and shape of the wings, and that particular “whistling” noise their wings make as they pass close by you. She summed it all up neatly by observing, “If the other people are shooting at it, it must be a dove, right?” Still, she picked up the skill in short order, and really enjoyed herself. However, the learning process did lead to some Abbot and Costello type exchanges:

“Is that a dove?” “That was a dove.” “It’s gone now. Why didn’t you shoot at it?” “I thought you were going to shoot it.” “Oh.” “I didn’t think you thought it was a dove.” “Now my head hurts.”

My wife is a really smart lady. On only her second dove hunt she immediately grasped what I call the Rule of Reverse Polarity. As magnets with misaligned poles push against each other, so also do doves and this particular dove hunter repel each other. I will explain. It works something like this. If I am standing over here, and my buddy is set up over there, doves will always fly over there. However, the inexorable operation of the Rule of Reverse Polarity states that as soon as I leave and walk over there, the doves will then immediately fly over here, in the space I have just vacated. This happens in just the same way that moving one of the magnets will cause the other magnet to pivot as the waves of force move it way. My wife instinctively grasped this natural law that curses my hunting. “Walk over there towards Mr. Busky,” she would say. “I want to shoot something, and if you go over there that will send them over here.” Sometimes I feel like that little kid in the Charlie Brown cartoons with the rain cloud over his head!

All things considered, it was a great day in the field with friends and family. My wife and I left with close to two limits of doves. We got to spend a pleasant breezy morning will both old friends and new ones. We got to watch other folk’s dogs steal our doves, and laugh when the same guy had his doves swiped by yet another dog. Great dog handling was evident and great fun to watch. We witnessed a beautiful sunrise in a beautiful setting. And everyone got a lot of trigger time chasing the challenging and tasty target that is a mourning dove. It is hard to think of a much better way to spend an early autumn day.

For more information on dove hunting with Delta Duck Hunts, please contact David Melton at Delta Duck Hunts.