Always wanted to do some dove hunting and in years past, I thought I would get to do it but it just didn’t seem to align. Southwest Colorado is not normally known for epic dove hunts but for whatever reason, the bar was set high. This year, the luck was in my favor as a nice roost of doves happened to fall on some property with the family. 150 doves + seemed to be in this one oak grove. This type of hunting was nothing like I have ever seen. It was incredibly fun and I learned a lot as doves were flying every direction and I couldn’t keep my gun loaded fast enough. What also made it interesting is when some thunderstorms came in and doves were blowing by us at what seemed like 50+ mph with the wind and they seemed to be flying in place when going against it.
The average dove to round ration is usually 3:25 which is quite a lot of rounds for not many doves but luckily my average was more like 1:3. Not trying to brag but I quickly learned that doves can turn on a what seems like a dime and I started to be careful with my shots, found the range that worked, and they started dropping like crazy. You wouldn’t think that dogs would add much value when dove hunting but the actually did. We had some birds go down in some thick brush and also some that were slightly wounded found holes to hide in that the dog was able to retrieve them out of.
One thing I really wanted to was to preserve the doves with the skin on. I try to do this with most birds I get for the first time and then I will slack from there depending on affect. It didn’t take that long to do with this many doves, I would say about 4 hours total to clean them, pluck them and get them put away in labeled bags. Not sure what possessed me to do this but I ended up plucking all 29 doves and saved all of the hearts. Super excited to have this many doves. I set aside some for the holidays, hunting camp, and for when family arrives. I will post recipes as I cook with them. Going to smoke a few, roast some, and try some in the fryer as well. Also have some recipe ideas on braising them. 9 are set aside for the “Game Game” that you will learn more about soon. I really hope that doves are creatures of habit and that they end up back in the same roost next year.
Got 2 nights in a row of really good hunting and after that, I think they wised up. Could just picture them saying “Let’s get the hell out of here!!!” Til next year 🙂