It All Began With Dove Hunting

Written by Matt Morgan for the Q3 2021 NAPS Newsletter - Vol. 6

Syrus with a limit of doves

We've got a few traditions here in the southeastern US, traditions for every season. Our hunting season is always kicked off with an annual tradition that I remember from a young age and my very first days afield.  Dove Hunting.  I guess my very first quarry was probably a bushy tailed grey squirrel but I can vividly recall my first successful wing shot.  We were hunting a watering hole on a family friend's property, there were three dads and their sons that fall afternoon.  I was sitting beside my buddy on the edge of this pond and a few mourning doves had begun to filter in to drink. This particular dove was coming in across the pond with wings locked on its final decent.  I took aim with my single shot 20 gauge and folded up that little grey beauty.  My daddy jumped three feet off his dove bucket from across the pond and let out a rebel yell of approval that put an end to the bird hunting for a few moments.  I was pretty pumped myself.  That yellow shot shell hull was proudly displayed beside my Little League Baseball and 4-H livestock trophies and ribbons that I had won in my early years.  It was a special thing for me and that was just the beginning on what has become a lifelong pursuit.  

Being raised on a family farm I had a few advantages some of my classmates didn't have when it came to hunting opportunities.  My daddy and uncle were not big hunters, though they did do a bit of dove hunting with my brother, my cousin, and myself.  We'd get to invite our school friends along and most all of those guys still hunt with us today.  Every year we would have a sunflower patch set aside in a field corner for the early season doves and if we grew peanuts on the farm that year, we'd have a late season field for those later arriving migratory birds.

One key thing was missing in those early years of my hunting career, a furry four-legged companion.  I've loved dogs since I can remember, but it was not until my Junior year in college that I finally owned a hunting dog.  My second year of college I had done more partying than studying and my wiser than me daddy said it was time my focus was on academics instead of other topics so I returned home and commuted to a smaller university that was only 30 minutes from home.  Back in those pre social media days I found a pup the old fashion way, an add in an area newspaper for a yellow lab puppy.  Convincing my parents that I would be the one to be responsible for his care was the next step.  Training a few retriever drills from Richard Wolters book and I had my first dove dog, Tanner.  That spark started a fire and I would never be without a gundog again.

Fast forward a few years, and couple of labs later and I became curious about versatile hunting dogs.  My career as a pharmacist was in full swing, my lovely and intelligent wife was opening her optometry business from scratch and I needed a new project to tackle.  We had purchased a tract of land that had a few ducks, a covey of quail or two, some deer to track and of course a spot for a dove field.  The thing that was missing was the versatile hunting dog.  All it took was a Google search and I'd found this furry brown, almost lab looking, dog on the MidSouth NAVHDA website.  I'd never even heard of a Pudelpointer or NAVHDA before.  After some research and a few phone calls I was on my way to "look" at a litter of pups.  Robin was less than thrilled when she pulled into the driveway and saw our latest family addition.  She soon gave into that furry face and came to love Gus for many reasons.

Gus' first bird exposure was the dove field.  I made tons of mistakes with him, I’m sure, and he did make a few retrieves that day but all those little feathers in his mouth seemed to bother him a bit.  A couple more dove hunts and he was over that quickly.  Next thing I knew we were in South Dakota and both learning how to hunt a pheasant.  The third day of that trip is when the light switch flipped for both of us.  He took off in one direction and I followed, he locked down, the bird exploded from the CRP, I managed to aim straight, Gus brought that beautiful pheasant back to me and we took a picture.  It was a great moment and that bond was forged.  The world of hunting turned for us.  I wanted to do all I could to make sure we could spend as much time pursuing birds together as possible.

Living in the southeast means that hunting wild upland birds requires a good bit of travel.  Yeah, there are a few wild bobwhites around, but the story of their population decline is well documented.  What could I do to increase our hunting opportunities closer to home?  Easy, get back to my roots of dove hunting.  I had gotten away from planting my own dove field for a few seasons but no longer.  My father-in-law retired from farming and gifted one of his John Deere 4020 tractors to us, I found an old harrow that went for cheap at an auction, my daddy loaned me his bush hog and I bought one of those cyclone spreaders.  We had the tools needed for our first dove field.  Hunting doves can be done over many types of crops, brown-top millet, milo, corn, peanuts, wheat and sesame seed are all crops I've planted and managed to scratch out limits of birds over.  Water holes, clear cut tree stands and even a sod field are a few others places I've hunted but the best of the best crop to attract doves in my experience is a nice clean sunflower field.  Sunflowers are basically the filet mignon of dove food plots.  They are also picturesque.  Sunflowers are what you will find in our dove field every year.

After all of that preparation, the reward is watching your new budding pup or seasoned bird dog getting actual hunting work after a long hot summer.  Some claim that doves are more shooting than hunting, I disagree.  There are no other game birds with a 15 bird limit that I know of in our area.  An afternoon where your four-legged companion has that many opportunities (hopefully) to make retrieves is an excellent chance to work on steadiness by blind, retrieve to hand, scenting work if the bird lands in taller grass or the nearby woods, blind retrieves, ect.  Most of my close bird hunting friends have their own bird dogs.  Another aspect the dove field may offer is the chance for your dog to learn better manners while around other dogs.  These skills are needed and examined throughout the various testing levels of NAVHDA. 

One other appealing aspect of dove hunting is that it requires very little gear.  There are many gadgets that can be purchased but the basics are a shotgun, some shotgun shells (I prefer 7.5s), a dove bucket, fresh water for your pup and that's it.  I do use a Mojo dove, a shell belt with a separate pouch for my doves, and I bring along a plastic tub and a bag of ice.  This provides a cool spot for my dogs on those hot/humid afternoon hunts.  The plastic tub I use is one I found at my local Tractor Supply.

Access to dove fields is generally easy to come by.  The state of Georgia has several Wildlife Management Areas planted for doves and I'm sure this is an option in other states.  Also, pay dove shoots and dove clubs are advertised in hunting magazines and on social media pages.  Knocking on farmer's doors is an age-old approach, or if you have access to a plot of land you can plant your own.  One thing to keep in mind on the dove field is gun safety.  Choose your shots wisely, doves are known to dip and dive and fly lower than they can be taken without shooting in the direction of other hunters.  

 Another nice point to make is how good they are as table fair.  If you've not had a bacon wrapped dove on the grill then you don't know what you are missing.  A more traditional method of cooking them is to pluck the birds (leaving the skin intact) and fry them whole.  They can be eaten straight out of the frier or taken a step further by slow cooking them in gravy and onions like my Grandma Catherine used to do. The meat is darker but so very delicious.

As I am writing this my Pudelpointer, Syrus, is at my side and the heads of our sunflowers are beginning to droop and lose a few of those yellow petals.  Syrus and I are entering our fifth dove season together.  I was shooting doves the moment I got the phone call from Doug Rogers telling me that he had a pup for me out of his latest litter.  That was on opening day of dove season 2016, hence Syrus' registered name Juniper Creek's Early Season Syrus.  Later that fall, the day after puppy pick-up I went dove hunting for a bit and brought back a freshly shot bird for Syrus.  I tossed it for him and watched this eight week old pup make several retrieves in the yard.  Syrus was a keeper.  We've hunted pheasants, ducks, geese, grouse, quail, snipe, woodcock and doves together from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and both Dakotas.  It all began with mourning doves.

Several doves have been hanging around the driveway getting ready to feast on some black oil seeds.  Finding shotgun shells this year has been tougher but I did manage to score enough to get us through several hunts.  Syrus and I will do a few bumper tosses and some steadiness work when the sun gets lower. I've sent my buddies a few pictures of the field and they've shown them to their kids to remind them about what is on the schedule for the upcoming September weekends.  Hopefully one day we will sit back while the next generation makes all these preparations and us old guys can reflect on our kids' first dove and how it opened their world to hunting and gundog ownership.  This tradition will continue, for me it all started with dove hunting.