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Dove and other wild game hunting…

Drahtguy Kevin

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I leave Sunday to spend a couple of weeks chasing this glorious bastard as well as the king of upland game (ruffed grouse). I’ll also get to pop a top with friends and judge Drahthaars in their utility test. Fall is a wonderful time of year.

1633484435152.jpeg
 
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Tex

Tex

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I leave Sunday to spend a couple of weeks chasing this glorious bastard as well as the king of upland game (ruffed grouse). I’ll also get to pop a top with friends and judge Drahthaars in their utility test. Fall is a wonderful time of year.

View attachment 144160
Snipe? Never hunted them, always wanted to.
 
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Tex

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I leave Sunday to spend a couple of weeks chasing this glorious bastard as well as the king of upland game (ruffed grouse). I’ll also get to pop a top with friends and judge Drahthaars in their utility test. Fall is a wonderful time of year.

Cool, post up stories and pic. I have leaned a lot listing to you guys. Whats cool about this forum, you got perspectives not only across the US but across he globe. You guys are talking about birds I never heard of before. My interest is peaked now on upland, I may have to look into that. My focus has always been dove for fun, serious is duck hunting, and I like hunting public duck for the challenge. I had a private duck lease for years and got bored with that.
 

Talisman

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Just curious, what do you mean your dog "didn't like" retrieving the dove? Would your dog refuse to retrieve it?
I had a three labs and a chessie that loved to retrieve, especially waterfowl even swimming through blocks of sea ice. A couple of times I limited on ducks without firing a shot when the dog would see a cripple in the marsh grass and retrieve it, with a two bird limit for black ducks or teal it was easy for the dog to limit out. With doves none would retrieve without a second command. Maybe the TX doves have better connected feathers, but where I hunted them the shot would knock off a cloud of feathers and the dog would have a few dozen feathers in the mouth and up the nose with the retrieve. Grouse, pheasant, ducks and geese were never an issue.
 
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Tex

Tex

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Dove excellent eating. Woodcock hard, hard to hit. Snipe are very elusive have to hunt at night, with a gunny sack, subdued light, a whistle and a great imagination.
The snipe prank is pretty funny. It happen to me when I was kid early 70's, but just want to call this out, cuz rookies on here don't know. But snipe is a shore bird like the wood coock (I just learned about on this thread). I'm enjoying all the posts on here...
 
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Tex

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Snipe are very elusive have to hunt at night, with a gunny sack, subdued light, a whistle and a great imagination.
This is really so funny, I'm sorry if I spoiled the fun, but this really could have gone from "real old timer prank" to "social media Ski talk prank" lol. I'm trying to help the Velvet Hammer, I probably should stay in my swim lane. :roflmao:
 
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Andy and Tailsman made posts about their dogs not wanting to fetch dove because of the feather in the mouth. I wanted to comment more on that.

First, dove feathers are the same in Texas as any other state, dove are migratory, there are local birds, but we pretty much shoot the same birds that migrate down the flyaway.

I have heard many say their dogs do not like dove because of the feathers in the mouth. So not the first time I heard this. I just think there are a lot of things that can happen where a dog will not want to retrieve a dove, and feathers can be one.

My first gun dog Molly (RIP 2015), she did great here first dove season 2006, pics below, my son in the pics... First season she did great.. Second season, and I think it was my mistake to take my eyes off her on retrieves putting too much trust in her, she is like "well my master is not watching me, he must not care, I'll just make this dove my own and have a little snack". Yeah, Molly ate a dove. And she was never the same since. Every dove she fetched after that day, she bit so hard on it, there was bite holes in all the dove breast. And yes her mouth was full of feathers on each retrieve. I did yard work with her, it helped a little, but not enough. I ended up just not dove hunting with her, she was a duck dog only. I would hunt dove opener with no dog, then focus on duck season.

So kinda been cool to hunt dove with Tara, I have never had so much fun hunting dove.

2006 pics of Molly and my son dove hunting..

Ryan Ferreira.JPG
DSC03355.JPG
 
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Wilhelmson

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The closest I ever came to hunting was when i was 12 my friend and I ordered a .22 pellet gun for $75 plus shipping. It was pretty powerful for an air pump gun. My parents never knew about it. I was tall so i would put the gun down my leg to walk to the inactive railroad tracks. We had to walk by the police chief's house. I was a pretty good shot so got my share of small game, even a crow way up in the sky.
 
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Pete in Idaho

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Like the labs and German Shorthair Pointer shown here. Had 3 German Shorthairs spanning 40 yrs and they all retrieved doves well. My last shorthair got bit by a ratttler on her lst day of dove hunting. She made it and lived 13yrs and was an awesome hunter. Lots and lots of great memories.
 
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Tex

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The closest I ever came to hunting was when i was 12 my friend and I ordered a .22 pellet gun for $75 plus shipping. It was pretty powerful for an air pump gun. My parents never knew about it. I was tall so i would put the gun down my leg to walk to the inactive railroad tracks. We had to walk by the police chief's house. I was a pretty good shot so got my share of small game, even a crow way up in the sky.
I did not really get into hunting till later in life. Did some dove hunting in high school (late 70's), put prior to that, we hung out at the creek with our pellet guns. We shot snakes and rats. We would build fires at the bottom of cliff rat holes and smoke the rats out, they would come running out the top of the cliff rate holes we were ready and smoked them with our pellet guns. We were the rate busters. We worked for free.
 
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Going through some old photos, found this gem my daughter, 2007... love her shirt "You can't see me" lol.

DSC03056.JPG
 

Coach13

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I hunted a ton growing up as it was a source of food where I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains. We killed and ate a lot of grouse, pheasant, wild turkey and white tail deer.

I do very little hunting these days except for a little duckhunting along the Potomac River. There are so many white tail deer out here in Loudoun County Virginia that I could hunt deer with a hammer. They are more like pets than anything else now so I could never shoot them. Not to mention, unlike as a kid there’s a grocery store down the street that I can afford to shop at!
 

Tricia

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Snipe, up there with Squonk. I hear, great eating.

This is really so funny, I'm sorry if I spoiled the fun, but this really could have gone from "real old timer prank" to "social media Ski talk prank" lol. I'm trying to help the Velvet Hammer, I probably should stay in my swim lane. :roflmao:
Snipe is really good eating for vegans.
 

Tricia

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I hunted a ton growing up as it was a source of food where I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains. We killed and ate a lot of grouse, pheasant, wild turkey and white tail deer.

I do very little hunting these days except for a little duckhunting along the Potomac River. There are so many white tail deer out here in Loudoun County Virginia that I could hunt deer with a hammer. They are more like pets than anything else now so I could never shoot them. Not to mention, unlike as a kid there’s a grocery store down the street that I can afford to shop at!
I hunted when I was growing up.
Its been years since I've done any real shooting. I do have a pellet gun that I use to get the pests in my back yard, ....and to keep Phil in line.
 

Coach13

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I hunted when I was growing up.
Its been years since I've done any real shooting. I do have a pellet gun that I use to get the pests in my back yard, ....and to keep Phil in line.
I’m guessing the latter is a losing battle! Lol
 

Tricia

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dbostedo

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I could hunt deer with a hammer

:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:

Snipe is really good eating for vegans.

I know the snipe pranks make people think snipe is imaginary... but they are actually a shore bird, as someone pointed out above. This is a snipe:

1633710126156.png


Also... the prank comes from how birds are actually caught at night at times... here's a reference:

 

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