Dove season opens Saturday

Thirty-two September dove seasons have passed since I used to hunt the gray-colored skyrockets on a regular basis. Back then, me and a couple of buddies would jump in our trucks with our dogs and head into the New Mexico desert to a couple of stock tanks we knew of.
There was plenty of Bureau of Land Management property surrounding the town of Alamogordo, where I lived. Very seldom did you ever come across another hunter. And, quite honestly, living in that part of the country was almost too good to be true when it came down to accessibility.
I have to admit when I first moved to Louisiana, not having access to a good hunting spot was a struggle and tough pill to swallow. Much of Louisiana’s prime hunting land was behind locked gates. What’s more, it remains that way today.
In other words, you pretty much have to be invited when it comes to dove hunting in these parts, which leads to another difference between here and the southwest. There isn’t the hardcore group of hunters who hunt dove all season long.
Instead, dove hunters in Louisiana use the traditional opening weekend as a tune up for the September special teal season.
It’s generally a big to-do as well. A few years back, a friend invited me to hunt with him at Rick Moore Farms near Lake Charles in Welsh.
Moore, on opening weekend, doesn’t hunt the traditional Saturday noontime-till-sunset opening day. He would rather open his farm to the public for a fee and hunt a day later on Sunday, so they can get a full day in and hunt when it’s cooler at sunrise.
After the morning hunt, Moore treats the hunters to a big lunch and cold drinks in the shade under huge live oak trees on the property. Hunters are welcomed to socialize, rest, take a nap or go back to the field.
Another difference between Louisiana and New Mexico is obviously water. Quite often, it was easy to get a limit during our afternoon desert hunts. Dove need water. They would fly to the stock tanks after stuffing their craw with seeds all day. Just before sunset, we’d run the barrels of our shotguns hot.
New Mexico’s September dove season ran for 30 straight days back then, and I hunted nearly every one of them for several years.
By contrast, in Louisiana, it’s the available feed that dove are after, since there is plenty of water around. Private land outfits like Rick Moore Farms hunt fields specifically prepared for dove.
Farm to farm, field preparations are different depending on the agricultural crop planted or not planted. On one field, it may simply mean bush hogging grown over weeds.
For another, it may mean some form of manipulation associated with normal agricultural processes.
Whatever the case, hunters should expect for their money a field prepped in such a manner where if a Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Enforcement Agent arrives, he won’t be issuing tickets to hunters for hunting over a baited field.
A Louisiana dove field prepared for hunters always will have shooters. On the hunt I made at Rick Moore Farms, we probably had 30 hunters spread across a few hundred acres. The field had several 30-yard wide swaths buffaloed where dove would come in to feed throughout the day.
With so many guns and dove on the move, it was a pass-shooting affair. Hard shooting, too.
What’s more, nothing like those stock tanks in the desert. But, at least I was hunting dove again.
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries continues to do all it can to offer the public dove hunting opportunities. I put in for the Elbow Slough Wildlife Management Area’s opening weekend lottery hunt but didn’t draw out. But, you’re not limited to Elbow Slough.
Other Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Wildlife Management Area north to south include Bayou Pierre WMA, in northwest Red River Parish; Big Colewa WMA in West Carroll Parish; Bodcau WMA in Bossier Parish; Boeuf WMA in Caldwell Parish; Clear Creek and Fort Polk WMAs in Vernon Parish; Russell Sage WMA in Ouachita Parish; Richard K. Yancey WMA in Concordia Parish; West Bay WMA in Allen Parish; Sandy Hollow WMA in Tangipahoa Parish; Sherburne WMA in Iberville/St. Martin parishes; and Pointe Aux Chenes in Lafourche Parish.
Most all of these wildlife management areas have some sort of brown top and Japanese millet planted to attract dove. Other attractants the department plants are milo and sunflowers.
Non-toxic shot is required on all wildlife management areas, which may be problematic due to steel shot’s availability in smaller sizes like No. 7½, 8, or 9.
Louisiana and Mississippi’s dove seasons opens Saturday. I’ll be hunting over a sunflower seed field somewhere north of Vicksburg, Mississippi, by invitation.
And though it’ll probably be the only dove hunt I make this year, I know it’ll be a good one no matter if I limit or not.
You don’t have to sit out opening weekend of dove season. Visit the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ website for information on where to hunt dove.
For information on dove hunts at Rick Moore Farms, call 337-540-5211.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Flores is The Daily Review’s Outdoor Writer. If you wish to make a comment or have an anecdote, recipe or story to share, contact Flores at 985-395-5586, or at gowiththeflo@cox.net or visit his Facebook page Gowiththeflo Outdoors.