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Just got back from beautiful Dateland Arizona after taking part in our annual dove hunt. We've been doing this hunt for over 25 years. It was hot this year -- hotter than I can remember over the last dozen years or so. It got up to 116 on Saturday, but, like my Dad said, at least it was a "wet heat." Laughing

As usual, though, the birds cooperated. The spot we hunted this year had hundreds of birds using it. First thing in the A.M. they flew east to west, out to some harvested milo fields. They flew high all three days -- made for some challenging shooting. My buddy swears he saw a flight wearing oxygen masks. On the way back to water and roost they returned west to east, heavily laden with grain and much slower -- not very challenging shooting at all, but good work for the dogs, as we all had several doubles, and I had one triple with my 16 Ga. M37.

We saw mostly white wing doves, so we had to be careful in filling out our limits (in Arizona you're allowed only six white wings; the rest have to be mourning doves). My nephew, making only his second dove hunt, got six, seven and nine birds on succeeding days.

We feasted on "dove nuggets" and dove and cheese-stuffed chilies on Saturday night, and spent most of our free time after the morning hunts in the swimming pool or playing cards. In short, a good time was had by all.

Glad to hear there are birds somewhere in AZ. They are few and far between up here in the high country this year.

Dennis

I have always had a good dove shoot along the Gila river, around Hyder, Aqua Calinete, and west. Lots of White Wings.

In the late 1970's a very good friend's Brother was the Ranch Manager at the White Wing Ranch. The Ranch was closed to all hunting except for a select few. We would come back to Phoenix after the Labor day Week-end with Ice chests full of Dove breasts. Kinda spoiled me back then. I think the limit was 15 or 20 birds per day. And we could hunt all day.

Those were the Days when Winchester would sponsor a Dealer Dove hunt, they would bring hunters in from all parts of the Country.

We hunted near Yuma and Saturday morning we were on the way to breakfast by 7:00. Plenty of birds and not that many hunters. That's a good day.

Saturday night a storm came through that knocked out the power. Hail, rain, wind, lightning, you name it, the storm had it.

As the poet once wrote, "It was a dark and stormy night..."

Sunday morning most of the birds were down in Cabo San Lucas or somewhere but they weren't in Yuma. At least not as many of them. It took about 2 hours to limit out and by then it was moving close to the 110 degree mark so we left for home.

Another good hunt with some great people.

Member Joined: 18 Aug 2006 Posts: 114 Location: Tucson, AZ

I got lazy and didn't go out this past weekend, but it sounded like it was a good openner. We live a short block from the desert and I could hear quite a few shots. Smile