Furs, Feathers & Fins...

Dove hunter and dog... 

Every wingshooter should have a good retriever, and vice versa.

On the Big Piney River where I spent my boyhood years, there were few crop fields or feed-lots, and so I didn’t ever hunt doves. Just out of college, I went to work as Outdoor Editor for the Arkansas Democrat in Little Rock, and therefore, went on my very first dove hunt that September when I was only 21 years old.

Oh yes, I had hunted everything you could find on the Big Piney, ducks, squirrels, rabbits and quail… but Grandma McNew would have disowned me if I had shot a dove. She watched pairs of mourning doves raise young ones on their farm all summer long and she referred to doves as ‘birds of peace’. She referred to dove hunters as something else, and none of the papers I write for would print what she called them.

And just a year after her passing, there I was with a fellow who worked in the printing department of the newspaper, hunting doves over a little water hole west of Little Rock. I was good with a shotgun, so there was no worry there. But with half my limit down, I swung on a bird I caught a glimpse of, just almost behind me, and I folded him in mid-flight. Before it ever hit the ground I knew I had shot a robin.

Do you know what that would have done to me if it had gotten around that the outdoor editor of the states largest newspaper had killed a robin for a dove? You know, this is the first time I ever wrote about that. The guy I was with said he had made a mistake like that once, and told me not to worry about it, but I didn’t get over that for a long time. It was difficult for me to live with. Outdoorsmen don’t make mistakes!

On September the first, I will hunt doves with my old friend Rich Abdoler over a sunflower patch planted on the public lands of Truman Lake. But it will be hot, and my young Labrador will not be happy with dove feathers in her mouth. All three of us will be a great deal happier in a couple of weeks when the teal season opens, if only there is some cooler weather by then, and flights of those biscuit-sized early migrating ducks to be found. But that’s another column.

I never will be a dove hunting enthusiast because it is too close to a slaughter at times. Over those fields, burned wheat or cut sunflowers, it is just too easy, and it is too much a social event. I am too much a purist for this. On Truman Lake and at other wildlife management areas where grain is found on the ground because it is cut just for doves, there will be too many hunters and too much shooting. Opening day rivals the opening of deer season, except in most areas it sounds as if you are in a war zone.

In many areas, hunters are baiting doves, and that is illegal. But it happens so often, because there is this gray area between actual baiting and the harvesting of a stand of crops. Doves must have food on the ground, and when they find it, they come in by the droves. If you want to read more about them, their life cycles, diseases and so forth, there is a long article about doves and dove hunting in the September issue of the Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Journal. There’s not enough room in this column for doves if you are going to talk about squirrel hunting and topwater fishing, which I am about to.

You can truly feel like a hunter and be alone out in the woods right now hunting squirrels, which are working the hickories in big numbers. It is a good year for squirrels, and it is a great challenge if you use a .22 rifle, or even a small-bore shotgun like a .410 or 28 gauge. I like to borrow my dad’s over-and-under squirrel gun, a Savage-Stevens with a .22 caliber barrel over a 20-gauge barrel, to use as a squirrel gun, but it is more of a challenge to take my little Ruger .22 and see what I can get with it. I kill fewer, but I hunt more.

Early in the morning you can slip through a still woodlot and hear the squirrels chewing away on hickory-nut hulls, and see the pieces dropping to the forest floor. But there’s lots of greenery for them to hide in. Young squirrels are better eating than doves, in my book. And you will never hear of an army of squirrel hunters in the woods. You’ll be alone. I like that. Copperheads may have something to do with it, but I suspect today’s hunters don’t get to shoot enough when they go squirrel hunting. And you can’t bait squirrels.

Just the other evening I caught a four-pound bass on a top water buzz-bait on the upper reaches of the lake. It wasn’t far from the river that feeds it, but the water is so low and stagnant it looks like a different world than last year. We need lots and lots of rain, and the cool weather that will follow.

I know I said that I would write more about the court case over at Doniphan, Missouri where a judge ruled that the Missouri Department of Conservation’s charges against hunters pursuing deer with dogs was unconstitutional because the laws were too vague and not specific enough. He questioned agents who were unable to properly interpret the laws. I will put that off until next week, and next week I will also talk about the MDC biologists trying to change catfish regulation on Truman Lake. I support what they are doing there, and I will tell you why in next week’s column. They are trying to bring back the numbers of big catfish, and I think they have a good plan.

Now is the time to let me know if you would like to have a table at our big Grizzled Old Outdoor Veteran’s Swap Meet. This was a huge hit last year, with more than a thousand people attending. This year it will be held at a big gymnasium at the Brighton Assembly of God Church right off of Highway 13, about 17 miles north of Springfield, just east of Morrisville, Mo. on Saturday, October 9. We have a lot of things planned for that day, and if you have outdoor equipment to sell, from boats and motors to fishing lures, anything that has to do with the outdoors, you can get a table just by contacting me. The church will put on a big dinner that day at noon, and if you are interested in great bargains on antique lures or old guns, or canoes and boats, all kinds of outdoor gear, make plans to be there. It is free to all who want to come. And I will be there signing my books, giving away our October magazines, and helping to raise money for charitable causes, which is what all this is about. But then again, it is great fun when outdoorsmen can get together and tell stories and enjoy being together. I always look forward to this because I get to meet so many readers at such a get-together. If you have one of my books, bring it that day and I will sign it, which makes it worth a nickel more at most used bookstores.

We will honor many World War II vets that day, so please make plans to join us if you are a veteran. See more information about this on my website, which will include a map to the site, and some of what will be there… www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com. Or just call my office to get printed information and a map sent to you…or to reserve a table. Call 417 777 5227, or write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613 The e-mail address is lightninridge@windstream.net.