10 - stupid bug landed on my glasses right as I yanked the trigger
9 - dang ground squirrel holes, I lost my footing
8 - Was that a dove mixed in with them tweety birds? I wasn't sure so I pulled up
7- Crappy import shells, that's the third one with a bad primer
6 - Must of bent my barrel in that fall back there
5- Dayum brother in law, his reloads suck
4- I was sweeping just fine, the dove just stopped flying
3 - Shouldn't have et that PBJ, got jelly all over my trigger finger
2 - Didn't you hear that rattler buzzing? It puckered me up so bad I yanked it way right.
1 - I hate new guns, never can find the safety on em.
Got anymore you've heard?
Wut ya got?
Shot of the gang at Cibola Sportsman's Club in Cibola AZ. It was a good opener this year. Limits by 8am and everyone safe back at camp for a float down the Colorado River to cool off.
It's that time of year and some hunters without dogs are asking about quail calls to help locate coveys to save some boot leather. I've used the Lohman's, Primos and Iversons quail calls over the years. The wooden calls sounds the best to me but you have to keep them dry or the wood warps, ruining the call most times. When it's wet I use the plastic Primos call. I don't think Iverson is still making their quail call, I had to talk the dad into making me one one years back and I believe the son now runs the business. You might call and ask. Iversons.
I like Jim Matthews' quail calls the best, they're a lot louder than the others so in the windy west the call carries the best. Many times I've stood on a small hill and hit the call and the birds told me right where they were across the valley. I don't have a dog either and this saves a lot of walking sometimes. Jim has a production version and a higher priced custom signature version made from selected woods. You can see the special sound chamber in the 2nd pic that gives the Matthews call the extra umph for longer range.
Well almost, with the fires raging in SoCal my dove opener looked grim. I had to cancel plans to head to Blythe to film the Big Breast Contest. That's biggest "dove breast" for all you knuckle draggers.
So today I went into the bosses office and made a pest of myself, more like I threw a fit a 3 year old would have been proud of. I had been doing yeoman's work all weekend working at the La Canada fire and I asked for just a bit of time to go shoot some gray rockets. It must have been when I ran my bosses favorite thumb drive through the shredder when he decided it might be in his best interest to get rid of me for the night
Off I raced home to sneak out for an evening hunt.
A few singles all out of range at first. No worries, I had scouted the old haunt a few times in the month before.
Friendly sheriff volunteers stopped by to say hello. They let me know they had seen 8 rattlesnakes in my spot earlier in the day. Lovely. I was overjoyed at the news since I'm known as a snake magnet on dove hunts.
Right about sunset a flight of 4 low fliers came in from behind me and I missed the lead bird going off into the sunset. I dropped the 2nd bird but it was out a bit far and it dropped into a boulder strewn wash I was next to. I scrambled down the dirt berm to get the bird when I heard that distinct sound, a snake buzzin'.
Crap.
I could see my bird but them big boulders are easy to get bit by a snake in since you can't see under them real good and the light was fading. I wasn't real sure where the buzzing was coming from either and I wasn't going to press my luck so I ended up leaving my only bird.
Old orange orchard where I set up.
I repositioned so as not to drop any birds into the wash again but never saw any more birds in range. A few high fliers going to roost and that was it.
Sunset on another dove opener. Haze is from the smoke from all the fires here. Twas good to take the shotgun for a walk and bust the first caps of the season on live game.
"Find the food, find the game", my dad and uncles used to always tell me. During September in Missouri the fox squirrels and gray squirrels are already cutting hickory nuts, it sounds like rain when the shells hit the leaves on the way down.
In early bowhunting season in Missouri the preferred deer food is persimmons. Deer flock to eat the tasty fruit when it hits the ground, the same for ripe apples. I've seen deer about break their necks standing on their hind legs trying to reach the highest apples on a tree.
Come rifle season in November white oak acorns are the tasty morsels the deer want. Many times I watched does feed all day long near my stand in Rothville MO. One small buck I shot one year was so engrossed in eating white oak acorns we walked right up on him as we tracked another deer my uncle Larry had shot just minutes earlier.
Last week my hunting partner Rick (Westy) and I were checking on a local spot for some varmint calling. As we turned to leave we spotted these band-tail pidgeons dive bombing some scraggly looking trees along an old abandoned orange orchard.
"Hmmmm", we wondered, they can't be loafing in those trees in the 102F heat. What are they doing?
A closer look with the binos gave up their secret, fresh fruit was hanging on some Blue Elderberry trees.
I have to be brutally honest about these planted bird shoots that we've put on the past couple of years, JHO won't be participating anymore for several reasons.
1) The biggest reason is the safety issue. Every time I've been out on a planted bird shoot we've had issues with folks who are not aware of where their muzzle is pointing or had fingers on the trigger while walking. Even after warning the shooter we've had the same issue pop back up again the same day which puts in in a jam over kicking someone out of the shoot.
In these bird shoots we're also mixing small groups together that have never shot with each other and it's caused some strife. I know I've hit the ground a time or two over the past couple years when someone swung too far and almost blew someone's head off. I know 2 people who've been shot in the past 2 years while at pheasant shoots like this and I don't want any part in any shooting.
2) It's a canned hunt. I grew up chasing pheasants in the frozen cornstalks of Iowa and Missouri and these hunts, or shoots as they should be labeled, are just not my cup of tea. The dogs do get a work out but that's about it. You walk up and kick the pheasant out of sparse cover and bang! Wild pheasants are a completely different game, they use their cover to best many upland hunters. That, and many times a bird gets pounded by 3 or 4 shooters as it flies across field, leaving a bloody mess you can't even salvage for a bite to eat. Antis also use this type of canned hunt in their argument on hunting being called fair chase. I've always been for fair chase and these type of shoots do not make the cut for me.
3) The other issue we've had to deal with is dog owner's who have NO control what so ever over their dog or dogs. The last hunt we had a springer flushing out a pheasant from our field even before we walked out, the owner was no where in sight. Later, this same dog came back and we hollered for someone to reel in their dog and no one around responded. We never did figure out who was letting the springer run all over other fields. The hunt before that we had to ask one person to put their lab up in his truck after the dog ruined several fields by flushing birds out of them. Some folks who think they have control over their dog are completely oblivious to the whole program. This issue has also caused some heartburn between groups at these shoots as they watch a loose dog flush out birds they just paid to shoot.
The bottom line, just too many folks in tight quarters swinging shotguns around with many of them newbies or just way too careless for me. The California DFG youth hunts are more controlled in that they have several mentors around the kid and only hand them a shell when it's time to shoot. That's great but it's still a far cry from a fair chase hunt. One young hunter put it best to me after teaching him to shoot pidgeons at the local dairy in Chino. We were on his first planted pheasant hunt and after kicking the bird several times the pen raised bird finally flushed up and he shot it. The kid turned to me and said, "This ain't no fun, let's go shoot pidgeons." So we did, leaving our 2 other birds for another shooter in the next field to finish off.
I'm not trying to dis the DFG or the pheasant clubs it's just I have to be truthful on how I've always felt about these shoots. I tried to go along for the kids and group shoots for the comraderie but it's just not going to work for me.
Lots of smiles and high fives for the junior hunters again this year. There were 39 juniors, we were hoping for 50 but the rain may have kept some home. It turned out to be a nice day after an early morning rain, just a bit windy at times which made for some challenging shooting for the young hunters.
Huge thanks to the staff at San Jacinto WA, the volunteers who brought their dogs to point and retrieve the birds and everyone else who helped out to make it a great day for the next generation of hunters..
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.
I do honest reviews on gear, services and trips that are sometimes given free to JHO in compensation. I report the good AND bad from my perspective. Your mileage may vary.
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