Armor Plated Robo-dove

 This was my first dove hunt where I shot Whitewings only. No mourning dove! Last season by my house, I shot the “trifecta”: Mourning, Whitewing and Eurasian Collared or Ringneck doves. But nothing but Whitewings? Different. My buddy invited me out to his front yard for opening morning of dove season. It’s okay, he lives in the country! He has many post oak trees with a few clearings from which we worked. It was challenging, because I’m used to an open field where I could miss dove easily. Now we add the element of a severely narrowed field of view. Cool! I can miss with a much smaller shooting window. Thanks, buddy!

Have you ever heard the expression, “Bringing a knife to a gunfight.”? That’s what it felt like when I shot at these dove. Why? They were Whitewings. Armor plated, flying high as a spy plane Whitewings. Here’s an example of my frustrating events I experienced that morning. I finally brought down a bird in plain sight, no high grasses to hide it, completely in the open. I was on my way to retrieve it when the other hunter yelled, “Two, comin’ from the west!” In that nanosecond, I had to make the decision whether or not I should attempt to shoot at the incoming or ignore the temptation and go pick up my bird. Turns out he wasn’t ever mine. After I shot and apparently missed the newcomers, the sound apparently scared off the downed bird who apparently had enough time to recover from my phaser, which apparently was on “stun”. That bird’s tail feathers were sticking straight up in the air as it laid there on the ground. Either it was stunned or it was playing opossum.

If you shoot Eurasian Collared or Rock dove (pigeons) in Texas, keep the plumage on them for identification purposes, even though they do not count toward daily bag limit.

I grew up hunting dove the old school way. In a field full of sunflowers. Thinking a dragonfly was a dove over and over and over again. All the dove were Mourning dove. I’m not used to those high flyin’ Whitewings. Well, even though it was way too late in the day, I figured out that I should have been using my Modified choke. After kicking myself in the pants for not changing out from Improved Cylinder to Modified sooner, I shot much, much more effectively. Although, I didn’t shoot near as good as I did a few days before with those clay pigeons that flew in a consistent flight pattern! So, if you find yourself in Whitewing flightpath territory, and you want a chance of bringing down a big bird that likes to zoom past you just inside satellite orbit range, use your Modified choke. You’ll save money, and trim a lot less branches that way.