Doves

calamari

Member
OK, it's a pheasant forum so think of them as little gray pheasants.
I made my first scouting trip in preparation for opening day and found very few of them and some bad info on the web about areas. A site that speaks with authority says that safflower and sunflower food plots were planted on the Nelson Slough Wildlife Area but I never saw any. I didn't walk all of it but the site said there were a bunch of them so I'd like to think I would have found at least one. Also the levee road is closed at Sacramento Ave so unless you want to walk from there to the area(over a mile) you have to go to the other access near the bridge. That one goes through the bridge construction site so that may be exciting.
They have planted a lot of sunflower in the Knights Landing-Tisdale basin but little has been harvested. I did find about 40 acres of a 160 acre field that had been cut that had perfect dove requirements around it... water, gravel, and roost trees. No birds at all flew into it. What birds I saw were associated with walnut groves with no potential for hunting.
Anybody seeing anything yet?
 
Why no potential in the orchards Cal? All of my dove hunting is pass shooting in vineyards and orchards. Seem to be a decent amount flying over the creek bisecting one of my uncles vines in the evening. I'll head out in the morning to check our traditional opening morning spot, the farmer says he has been seeing quite a few flying out there in the morning. I'm sure I'd have room for you, I know its a heck of a drive for dove hunting but the offer is there if you'd like.
 
The owners of the walnut orchards don't live on or near the property so getting permission isn't really possible. I wouldn't know where to ask and frankly I've never felt really comfortable asking a landowner for permission. I feel as though I'm bothering them so I just hunt the designated public areas. I'll find something.
As far as coming down and hunting doves in the S.J. Valley I imagine it's as good as it gets but as you note at $3.65/gal too rich for my blood for doves. I really appreciate the offer though, I really do. I hope you and your gang have a great and safe shoot. Since Richvale isn't operating this year maybe we'll run into each other on the Wildlife Areas.
 
Yeah, its a long drive for a little bird but I figured I would at least offer. Saw some doves moving this morning but nothing real exciting. There's a few open acres on one of our fields grown up with tons of fiddle neck and foxtail that has doves moving in it. I may head out and weed eat a bit for the farmer tomorrow. You know, to keep the weeds down.:cheers: I'm thinking of maybe trying the Klamath basin this year, should be an interesting change of scenery if nothing else.
 
OK, it's a pheasant forum so think of them as little gray pheasants.
I made my first scouting trip in preparation for opening day and found very few of them and some bad info on the web about areas. A site that speaks with authority says that safflower and sunflower food plots were planted on the Nelson Slough Wildlife Area but I never saw any. I didn't walk all of it but the site said there were a bunch of them so I'd like to think I would have found at least one. Also the levee road is closed at Sacramento Ave so unless you want to walk from there to the area(over a mile) you have to go to the other access near the bridge. That one goes through the bridge construction site so that may be exciting.
They have planted a lot of sunflower in the Knights Landing-Tisdale basin but little has been harvested. I did find about 40 acres of a 160 acre field that had been cut that had perfect dove requirements around it... water, gravel, and roost trees. No birds at all flew into it. What birds I saw were associated with walnut groves with no potential for hunting.
Anybody seeing anything yet?

I live in woodland Ca surrounded by a tomato field, a Sudan?? Grass field and a milo field just down the road. I have seen a lot of doves. Opening day dove season all you hear all day are shot gun blasts. I'm not sure where public land to hunt the doves is other than the Yolo bypass and cache creek area (which I've seen a lot of quail) up there.
 
You could try the WA's on the feather river off 99, I think Lake of the woods is pretty big and there should be some doves moving around out there.
 
Cal you should start Your MT trip the first week in Sept.
There is an abundance of Eurasion doves, no limit. If You locate a feeding area and a watering area just get a good seat, lots of shells.
A little bit bigger then Mourning Doves, tasty little critters.
 
You could try the WA's on the feather river off 99, I think Lake of the woods is pretty big and there should be some doves moving around out there.
That's about 2 miles upstream from Nelson Slough. Supposedly they planted some plots across the river at the O'Conner Lake unit but who knows if they did?

Cal you should start Your MT trip the first week in Sept.
There is an abundance of Eurasion doves, no limit. If You locate a feeding area and a watering area just get a good seat, lots of shells.
A little bit bigger then Mourning Doves, tasty little critters.
They've got them out here too and I think they put a limit on them but no season. They used to be unprotected year around shooting but they changed something. I don't know. You find them in the oddest places. Bodega Bay on the coast or Table Mountain Golf Course in Oroville.
I need cold weather to keep the birds edible.
 
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Well we got into them pretty good this morning and some how I managed to out shoot my brother. Took 34 shells and about a half hour to get my limt. Did anybody else get out this morning? (All state reports welcome)

20130901_070143_zps37594335.jpg
 
Yes Robert,

I got out this am, not in cali, but in AZ. Limited in two hours, Birds didn't fly until 7:30 ish and they it was on. I shot 8 white wings and two Morning Doves, In a 15 minute time frame. It was nuts, had a great time, and only got shot once. Got a big red welt on my collar bone. Hurt like hell, Kids and Idiot parents, I didn't go into the skin, But it took the breath out of me.

Glade you had a great shoot and scored some doves. Tricky Little bastigas. :thumbsup::)
 
Yes Robert,

and only got shot once.
:thumbsup::)
Man, that made me laugh. Reminds me of shooting Gambels' Quail in the Mojave. Some people's kids.
A friend and I got permission to drive to a wildlife area from the intervening property owner and not have to boat 12 miles from the closest launch. Others had similar permission so although initially we thought we had it to ourselves, we didn't.
I shot 6 for 19 shells and my friend got 5 for a similar ave. We didn't hunt the evening flight because the other guys came back and got right up in our spot. I picked up their empties and told the older guy who brought them about it. He acted like he was surprised but again, some peoples kids
Probably 25% of the birds we saw in the area driving around after the morning hoe down were Eurasian Collared doves. I shot one to look at it and it was about 10-15% larger. I don't understand the regs in that can you shoot 10 Eurasians in addition to Morning Doves or is it a combined limit? Oh well, a little wing shooting makes the rest of the year more successful.
 
hoping to get out Thursday and have a chance at some. They're all over our neighborhood, but of course they're off limits. Still need to figure out where to go, but these posts and pics have me pumped to get out there.
 
Man, that made me laugh. Reminds me of shooting Gambels' Quail in the Mojave. Some people's kids.
A friend and I got permission to drive to a wildlife area from the intervening property owner and not have to boat 12 miles from the closest launch. Others had similar permission so although initially we thought we had it to ourselves, we didn't.
I shot 6 for 19 shells and my friend got 5 for a similar ave. We didn't hunt the evening flight because the other guys came back and got right up in our spot. I picked up their empties and told the older guy who brought them about it. He acted like he was surprised but again, some peoples kids
Probably 25% of the birds we saw in the area driving around after the morning hoe down were Eurasian Collared doves. I shot one to look at it and it was about 10-15% larger. I don't understand the regs in that can you shoot 10 Eurasians in addition to Morning Doves or is it a combined limit? Oh well, a little wing shooting makes the rest of the year more successful.

You can laugh all day long. Getting shot isn't funny. I'm not talking about being rained on. :D I was freaked out that we saw no collared doves at all. Same place last year killed 10 + limit of morning and white wings. This year no collared doves at all.

At least his year we only had a half the people, we had last year.:thumbsup:
 
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I got four doves a few miles south of chico

All the birds were singles but I saw a lot that flew by out of range. I was hunting in a public area so they were probly pressured quite a bit.
 
You can laugh all day long. Getting shot isn't funny.
:

I'm not laughing because I think getting shot is particularly funny. I laughed because it made me remember hunting Gambels and having a guys two kids shoot at a bunch on the ground that were in front of a Yucca plant and I was in plain sight on the other side of it. The shot hurt like hell but luckily didn't penetrate.
Why it makes me laugh is more complicated but may be tied to Mel Brooks description of comedy.

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
― Mel Brooks
P.S. How do you kill a 10 + limit of birds? Does Arizona's reg.s say the limit is 10+? Odd.
 
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I'm not laughing because I think getting shot is particularly funny. I laughed because it made me remember hunting Gambels and having a guys two kids shoot at a bunch on the ground that were in front of a Yucca plant and I was in plain sight on the other side of it. The shot hurt like hell but luckily didn't penetrate.
Why it makes me laugh is more complicated but may be tied to Mel Brooks description of comedy.

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
― Mel Brooks
P.S. How do you kill a 10 + limit of birds? Does Arizona's reg.s say the limit is 10+? Odd.

No limit on collared does. 10 mourning and white-winged in aggregate. so you can only kill 10 morning and white wings in aggregate, in one day, but there is no limit on the number of collared dove you can take.:)
 
Its no surprise to me but most of the doves I've shot have had craws full of almonds. The remainder of the contents of their craws were dove weed and some tiny black seed I can't identify.
 
The remainder of the contents of their craws were dove weed and some tiny black seed I can't identify.

The tiny black seed sounds like Mullein Seed. Doves love it.
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Here's what the plant looks like. Kind of fuzzy with a gray cast to it. You've seen it a bunch of times on plowed or scraped ground. Often first and only plant that grows there along with Doveweed.
images


jmac, I assumed that was how it would have happened but it just sounded funny. I didn't see any Collared Doves last year in the Sacramento Valley North of Sacto. This year I saw them as far North as Oroville and they were really thick in the Knights Landing area.
 
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Its no surprise to me but most of the doves I've shot have had craws full of almonds. The remainder of the contents of their craws were dove weed and some tiny black seed I can't identify.

We got a few doves this evening. They had the same thing in their crops (tiny round black seeds). Out here it's Foxtail seeds in their crops. Not sure how much of that stuff you have out your way QH, but it could be the same thing:confused:
 
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Cal, I was always under the impression that doveweed and turkey mullein were the same thing but those seeds are about the right size. 1pheas4, tons of foxtail out here so that could be it too.
 
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