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Dove hunting can be extremely challenging
By Tim Renken Of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
08/24/2002
Last year Missouri's 42,066 dove hunters said they shot 745,599 doves. And Illinois' 59,107 hunters said they killed 1,061,800 doves. That's about 17 doves per hunter per season and about four doves per hunt since the average hunter goes four times a year.
Four doves per hunt? That's all? Four doves are barely a meal for two.
No wonder doves are considered the most challenging of the upland targets. This is dove hunting's appeal. A dove's swift, goofy flight will quickly humble a shooter who's gotten cocky on other targets.
Dove hunting, like all kinds of upland hunting, isn't as popular as it was in the past. About half as many people hunt doves now as hunted in 1975. The annual dove kill is down, too, in both states by almost half.
But dove hunting has held its own compared to other small game, primarily because of the availability of public hunting areas and the excellent shooting they often provide.
State wildlife area managers have learned how to attract large numbers of doves into relatively small areas by planting and mowing sunflowers and other crops. And they also have learned how to keep shooting good by limiting shooting various ways.
The list of public areas with dove fields in Missouri can be found at /www.conservation.state.mo.us/hunt/gamebird/dove. The places reasonably close to St. Louis on that list include the Busch, Weldon Spring and Marais Temps Clair areas in St. Charles County, the Reform Area in Callaway County and the B.K. Leach, White and Logan areas in Lincoln County.
The Columbia Bottoms area in northern St. Louis County, which provided some of the best hunting in the state last year, is closed to hunting this fall because of construction.
In Illinois the closest public hunting area managed for doves is at Horseshoe Lake in Madison County. Three others reasonably close are at Hazlet State Park, near Carlyle, Washington County Conservation Area, south of Nashville, and Pyramid State Park, near Pinkneyville.
Prospects for the season, which begins Sept. 1 in both states, are fair and similar to last year.
Federal and state dove surveys in the summer showed dove populations slightly lower than last year, with some variation between localities because of the wet weather in early summer.
That wet spell in May and June also will influence the timing of the agricultural harvest in both states. In many areas corn and soybeans were planted late and will be harvested late. There won't be much harvesting around here early in the dove season. That might concentrate doves into the sunflower fields that are cut to attract them.
In Missouri, the season is Sept. 1-Nov. 9 and the bag limit is 12 daily. In Illinois the season dates are Sept. 1-Oct. 14 and Nov. 2-17. The daily bag limit is 15.
Outdoors\Reporter Tim Renken\E-mail: trenken@post-dispatch.com\Phone: 314-849-4239
By Tim Renken Of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
08/24/2002
Last year Missouri's 42,066 dove hunters said they shot 745,599 doves. And Illinois' 59,107 hunters said they killed 1,061,800 doves. That's about 17 doves per hunter per season and about four doves per hunt since the average hunter goes four times a year.
Four doves per hunt? That's all? Four doves are barely a meal for two.
No wonder doves are considered the most challenging of the upland targets. This is dove hunting's appeal. A dove's swift, goofy flight will quickly humble a shooter who's gotten cocky on other targets.
Dove hunting, like all kinds of upland hunting, isn't as popular as it was in the past. About half as many people hunt doves now as hunted in 1975. The annual dove kill is down, too, in both states by almost half.
But dove hunting has held its own compared to other small game, primarily because of the availability of public hunting areas and the excellent shooting they often provide.
State wildlife area managers have learned how to attract large numbers of doves into relatively small areas by planting and mowing sunflowers and other crops. And they also have learned how to keep shooting good by limiting shooting various ways.
The list of public areas with dove fields in Missouri can be found at /www.conservation.state.mo.us/hunt/gamebird/dove. The places reasonably close to St. Louis on that list include the Busch, Weldon Spring and Marais Temps Clair areas in St. Charles County, the Reform Area in Callaway County and the B.K. Leach, White and Logan areas in Lincoln County.
The Columbia Bottoms area in northern St. Louis County, which provided some of the best hunting in the state last year, is closed to hunting this fall because of construction.
In Illinois the closest public hunting area managed for doves is at Horseshoe Lake in Madison County. Three others reasonably close are at Hazlet State Park, near Carlyle, Washington County Conservation Area, south of Nashville, and Pyramid State Park, near Pinkneyville.
Prospects for the season, which begins Sept. 1 in both states, are fair and similar to last year.
Federal and state dove surveys in the summer showed dove populations slightly lower than last year, with some variation between localities because of the wet weather in early summer.
That wet spell in May and June also will influence the timing of the agricultural harvest in both states. In many areas corn and soybeans were planted late and will be harvested late. There won't be much harvesting around here early in the dove season. That might concentrate doves into the sunflower fields that are cut to attract them.
In Missouri, the season is Sept. 1-Nov. 9 and the bag limit is 12 daily. In Illinois the season dates are Sept. 1-Oct. 14 and Nov. 2-17. The daily bag limit is 15.
Outdoors\Reporter Tim Renken\E-mail: trenken@post-dispatch.com\Phone: 314-849-4239
