It’s one of the happiest times of the year for hunters. Opening day of Dove season! A time when the summer doldrums have come to an end. A time to do inventory of your camo apparel. A time to kick yourself for waiting ’til the first dove flies in front of you to reacquaint yourself with your shotgun!

Don’t worry. Fortunately, for many of us, dove season lasts longer than opening day. There are plenty of chances to remember how to swing a shotgun sucessfully. It would have helped if you had dusted that gun off before you were going to use it to miss dove this morning! Okay, time to put that past us, and see what we can do about it. There are plenty of things you can do to maximize your chances of salvaging this glorious premier reintroduction to this part of your life. Here’s a few seeds to grind in your craw…

What? Me? Put safety first? Yes, if you’re not feeling well and healthy, bringing home birds is not going to be the first thing on your mind. Take care of yourself so you can focus on putting birds in your game bag. If you know you usually are affected by allergies when you’re in the dove fields, make the call to your doctor a week or two early to have your prescription refilled. At least go to the store and pick up some over the counter meds. You can’t shoot effectively when your eyes are full of tears and you sneeze every five seconds. Sometimes, allergies sneak up on us and attack so severely, it can shut down all other operations until the ailment is resolved. You don’t normally think about spending the night in a hospital just because you’re hanging out in a field with some weeds mixed in with sunflowers, but it happens!

Hunt more. Now that the preseason has passed, make the most out of the time you have, and get out to the field! Plan to take the kids with you after they finish their homework to an evening hunt somewhere close by. Find a place that offers day leases. Dove hunting allows us to go for a few hours without the major amount of preparatory work that is associated with something more involved than hunting deer. The more you go, the more chances you have of bringing meat home and making memories with friends and family. You’ll get to know your shotgun again.

Watch your bird go down! Take the time to get a mental picture of where it fell before you run out to retrieve it. Also, maybe you shouldn’t consider trying to “get a double”, especially if the field has thick vegetation that would make it more difficult to find two birds in different locations. I refer you to the adage, “A bird in the game bag is much better than two in the field.”.

Put the other hunters at work for you. Whenever you bring down a bird, they can help you find it. I can’t tell you how many times my dad has crossed a field to come find my bird for me. Another pair of eyes works wonders. Do the same for them as well. If you see a neighboring hunter shoot, do them a big favor and watch that bird go down. Use a landmark to help you remember where you saw it fall. Yes, I’m getting into “triangulating the position”. No, you don’t need to know trigonometry to pull this off. It’s simple. Remember that landmark you picked out? As they start walking toward their downed bird, you have a different angle from which to tell them when to stop walking once they reach that tree or bush or telephone pole on the horizon to line them up with. This will give the hunter a better idea how far away the bird went down from where they shot at it.

Mark the spot. You should have something to mark the spot where you think the bird is laying. Most hunters initially use something like their hat. It’s convenient to hang your hat on the branch of the tallest weed, but not very effective sometimes. If it’s camouflaged, this can add to the frustration if you temporarily lose your hat, too! And if there are no tall strong branches to be found, a camo hat on the ground is about as helpful as that hidden dove you’re struggling to recover. Keep your hat on and tie some flagging tape on a branch instead. Once you find your bird, put that strip of tape back in your pocket to use again later. It’s great stuff, because it comes in a wide variety of bright colors. Now if their plumage would only be fluorescent, we’d all find ‘em easier!

We’ve all heard of follow through. It’s the practice of continuing to move your gun in the same motion and direction for a short amount of time immediately after the shot. Overall, it helps achieve more consistent shots with better results. Familiarity with follow through comes from practice. Shooting at moving clay targets provides a good representation of what it’s like to hunt dove. Nothing, however, is like the real thing.

Here in Texas, there’s seventy days available to get less bad and miss less! Seventy days to pick up all those empty shot shells, and experience some of the first cool fronts of the fall. Get out there and breathe it in. Just make sure to bring the snake chaps, drinking water and antihistamine.