Dove Hunt Opener In Arizona & California

I hunted at Cibola Sportsman's Club with the Corbett family, it was their 10th annual dove hunt and steak dinner the night before the dove opener. About 60 shooters with many limits early. Lots of whitewings. I manned the camera until about 9am and then knocked a few down. The shooting was small groups of doves that were fairly steady all morning. I saw one big flight of about 25 birds that our group knocked 2 out of.

I saw 2 Eurasion Collared Doves at the cleaning station. Didn't hear much shooting at all from the Cibola NWR nearby. In fact, the valley seemed kind of quiet compared to past years on the dove hunting opener. I can say the weather and nice breeze was a change from the usual furnace like 115F that Cibola is famous for. It was 84F when we started shooting and with the cloud cover it was perfect shooting. When I left at noon it had just hit 100F. Lots of white 50 gallon barrels with "NO TRESPASSING" marking fields. One group said they scouted all day Sunday only to find 2 fields they could shoot.

I stopped by Yellow Mart in Blythe on the way home and most of the hunter there shot limits early that morning. One dad and son said they had 10 shooters in their group who all got limits. 2 older gentlemen said their long time favorite spot down near the river was a dud, they had one bird each they said. Lots of folks coming in there to check out the sales and pick up more shells and licenses for those just getting down to hunt. Yellow Mart has a big map of the area posted in their store that shows the good spots to hunt. They also had a Dove Hunter paper that had lots of good info in it. The big "Welcome Dove Hunters" banner hanging over the main drag was kewl to see.

Traffic home on the I-10 was light, looked like mostly river rats. Saw a a few pickups with dog crates in the back.

Cam was a Canon GL-2

More info on dove hunting in our Upland Hunting Forum