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Dove-hunting season starts with a bang
By: TARA BOZICK - VICTORIA ADVOCATE
Shotgun shells and a dove hit the ground. A distant hunter calls out: "Who shot that bird? Outstanding!"
They take a pattern, Mike Powell explains. Watch the birds fly in, and you know what path they'll take after a while.
The dove-hunting season that started Friday serves as a warm-up for the rest of the season, said J.M. Green, designer, of Houston.
"Dove hunting is the hunt of the year, when you knock the cobwebs off your gun and get ready for hunting season," Green said with excitement.
There'll be a lot of hunters out the first few weekends, but after that it dies down, said Travis Haug, game warden for Victoria County.
Haug said the standing crops left in the field from the rains this year will bring the birds. "There'll be hunters everywhere."
"A lot of crop failure is bad for the farmers, good for the hunters," Powell said. He expects the season to get better as the fields dry.
Three types of doves are registered as game: mourning doves, white-winged doves and white-tipped doves, said Powell, a 15-year veteran. Saturday the team shot mostly mourning dove.
"Oooo swallows," Green calls out. "You have to be able to identify the birds."
He said if you can't identify the birds, you have no business shooting.
Green shot one bird in six shots. "You don't want to be the state average," he said in dismay.
The tall grass makes it difficult when the birds learn to stay low.
"Some of these birds over here, I think they know," Green said. "Animals are not dumb. That's why it's called hunting and not killing."
A dove will also fly low after hearing shots to trick a hunter into thinking it's dead, Green said. But then they'll pull out through the field.
"Doves are notorious for that," Green said.
Powell and his customer-friends call the weekend the "Cast and Blast." For four years, the team meets up to fish in the morning, and then hunt dove in the afternoon.
Mohr, a business owner from Houston, said 20 years ago it was only legal to shoot doves after lunch. So, the tradition became afternoon shooting.
Mohr knows only one way to cook doves.
"Grill 'em over a hot mesquite fire, wrapped in bacon with a slice of jalapeņo," Mohr said.
Tim Hardin, 39, engineer, of Magnolia, recalled how his mother used to make all sorts of dove recipes. She would make gumbo or take the meat off the bone and chicken fry it.
"It's like duck," Hardin said. "It's real dark red in color and almost like a liver texture. It's real tasty."
A group of doves fly in from the highway over the 300-acre field. Powell shoots twice, but the dove squeaks by. "Finish him off, Mark," he called.
Mohr and a third hunter farther in the field try, but the dove flies away.
"This is quintessential Texas," Hardin said. "The afternoon dove hunt - it just doesn't get any better than this."
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the Author: Tara Bozick is a reporter for the Advocate. Contact her at 361-580-6504 |
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