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Dove hunting opener generally good across Southern California

The dove hunting season opener was generally described as good but not great in most areas of Southern California, with the best hunting along the Colorado River and in the Imperial Valley. The mid-week opener made for very light hunting pressure, and it was also the coolest opener in memory for most hunters.

Leon Lessica, with Desert Wildlife Unlimited in the Imperial Valley, said their annual aerial counts of the public hunting fields showed it was the “lowest turnout we’ve ever had” with only 1,876 hunters. On weekend openers, the count can be as high as 4,000 hunters.

“Overall it was a very good opener,” said Lessica. “People were saying they hadn’t seen as many whitewings in a long, long time.”

While many hunters in the Imperial Valley had limits of mixed mourning and whitewing doves before 8 a.m., the average bag was between four and seven birds per hunter.

Durwood Hollis of Rancho Cucamonga hunted near the Wister Unit of the Imperial Wildlife Area and said he bagged just four doves but that “if I’d have shot better, I probably could have killed a limit.”

That was the story throughout dove country.

Tim Main of Upland was with nine hunting buddies near Holtville in the southern Imperial Valley and said that while he limited out, “it took a while to do that. I’d say it was just OK.” He said most of the hunters in his group had from five to eight birds when they quit for the morning.

Along the Colorado River, there was generally excellent shooting in the Yuma-Winterhaven region. Ed Callihan of San Bernardino was short and sweet, “It’s been super down here.” He and his group hunted the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation and saw thousands and thousands of birds scouting the evening before the Wednesday opener. Callihan said they all had limits by 8 a.m.

Further up the river, Jeff “Jesse” James of Redlands was hunting the Cibola Sportsman’s Club on the Arizona side of the Colorado River south of Blythe and said opening morning was excellent. “Everybody shot limits except me and a couple of other guys who can’t shoot.” He said the highlight of the morning was when one of his group shot a banded whitewing dove.

On the California side of the river, the best shooting was north of Blythe off Second Avenue on the Department of Fish and Game’s Palo Verde Ecological Reserve, where James said “most guys were shooting limits.”

The San Jacinto Wildlife Area in western Riverside County near Lake Perris was a pleasant surprise this year after shooting so poorly last year. Tom Trakes with the DFG said 205 hunters turned in cards and they reported bagging 290 birds, for about a 1 1/2-birds-per-hunter average. Last year the average was 1/4 bird per hunter. Trakes said there were six limits reported, and that the shooting remained pretty fair in a few spots on Thursday morning, too.

Jose Sanchez of Anaheim said he managed to get four birds at San Jacinto opening day. “Overall, I have to say I had my opportunity to shoot a limit if my shooting would have been better.”

Doves seem to bring out poor shooting in shotgunners, but it’s not all about a heavy bag. As Tim Main said, “A bad day of hunting beats a good day at work any time.”

Thu Sep 02 2010, 06:08PM by TC
Posted in Upland Birds | |        

Dove opener only outdoor event shared nationwide

     Across the nation, hunters will take to the field next Wednesday, Sept. 1, during the earliest general bird hunting season in the nation, and the only opening day shared by every state that has dove hunting.

     This makes the "dove opener" the largest participatory outdoor event staged in the nation each year -- probably the whole world. In California alone, some 60,000 to 70,000 hunters will take to the field, and nationwide the number is around 2 1/2 million.

 Think about those numbers. The majority of television shows don't draw that many viewers each episode. Not that many people attend any professional football teams' games in any given season, even if they make the Super Bowl.

     You know someone who will be going out next week. They are likely going with friends or family because dove hunting is a social event that, for a brief moment, brings this little slice of mankind back to their ancient roots as hunters/gatherers.

     It is also the event that kicks off the fall hunting seasons, and for those of us who wish these three or four months of fall were really six or seven months long, it is a relief to finally be able to put the dog in the truck with a weekend's worth of food and gear and meet hunting buddies around campfires glowing in the night and stare into the coals, hear stories, and anticipate the next morning's hunt. It's been too long.

     The phone has been ringing all week in hunter's houses like mine, and we are all getting more excited by the day. My wife went to the store to make sure we had the marinade makings for our doves, and I was in the garage today checking the shotgun shell inventory. I know my boys won't think to buy shells, so I'd better make sure there's plenty. Do they have their hunting licenses, yet? That goes on the to-do list.

     It's less than a week away.

     BLYTHE-NEEDLES REGION UPDATES: In last week's column, Leon Lessica said it was going to be one of the best dove seasons in a long time in the Imperial Valley. But since I wrote that, I started thinking back. I believe Lessica says that every hunting season -- and he's right every year. Doves are one of the most common and populous birds in the country, the nationwide harvest of around 20 million birds each year doesn't put a dent in the population that numbers in the billions.

     While there have been thunderstorms flickering across the deserts at mid-week, the severity hasn't been enough to run off many birds, like thunderstorms have done in the past. At least Lessica didn't think so. Everyone else seems to agree.

     Further north, the reports from the Blythe and Needles regions were still pretty glowing, matching those from the Imperial Valley.

     Wayne Pinkerton, the new, old owner of B&B Bait in Blythe and dove hunting central in this region, is back managing his shop starting Sept. 1. He told me he was putting up a sign, "Under Old Management."

     While we were talking Thursday afternoon, he kept interrupting himself when a dove would fly past the bait shop. "There are two more coming down 8th Avenue," he'd say. Then four more would fly past, then a whitewing, and it would be "six more going in the other direction."

     Finally he summed it all up by saying, "I think it's going to be a good hunt."

     One of B&B's regular customers and an avid dove hunter, Bilroy Phipps has been scouting since the weekend. He said he though the dove numbers in the valley were about the same as last year, but the birds weren't concentrated in a few "super honey holes" this year, making the birds scattered.

     "Guys are going to have to hunt this year," said Phipps.

     The popular spots on the Palo Verde Ecological Reserve, a public hunting area north of town off 2nd Avenue, will be excellent, but mobbed as usual. Phipps joked that this spot "will be great. Just take your flack jacket, protective glasses, and helmet."

     Phipps reminded hunters coming to Blythe that the American Legion Hall will be having a hunters' breakfast opening morning, and there will a free barbecue at B&B Bait, where they will even cook up your doves for you.

     In the Needles region, Cliff McDonald said there had been very few thunderstorms in the east Mojave desert and none along this stretch of the Colorado River.

     "If it stays like this, there's going to be good hunting in the Needles area and Mojave Preserve," said McDonald, who heads up the volunteer crew that keeps wildlife water sources functioning in this part of the world. "I'm seeing lots of doves on every guzzler and desert spring I've visited in the last month, and I don't think that's going to change a whole lot before the opener."

     Then he added this clincher about one desert spring he refused to name. "There were so many doves there, you could get a limit with a single toss of a throw net."

     It was illustrative. I don't need to remind hunters that throw nets are not a legal method, do I?

     DOVE NOTES: The limit on doves is again 10 per day, 20 in possession after the first day. That means you can only shoot 10 doves opening day -- even if you eat all 10 of your opening day birds for lunch, and even if you have Arizona, Indian Reservation, and California licenses. The limit is 10 per day. Period. Hunters must leave a feathered wing on their doves when transporting them home. Eurasian collared doves can still only be hunted during the dove season, but there is no limit again this year.

     To download the current version of the map to the public hunting fields in the Imperial Valley, go to www.DesertWildlifeUnlimited.com.

     You can read and comment on my "On Eating Doves (and liking them)" post on the "Discussion" portion of my Western Birds Facebook page, and you can also post your own recipes there.

     For information on dove seminars and tune-up shoots, see my outdoor package from last week, available on line at this direct link: http://www.outdoornewsservice.com/odpkg/news/News_08-19-10.html.

     Dove hunting reports and photos from next week's opener should be e-mailed to Jim Matthews at odwriter©verizon.net or odwriter©aol.com. Or you can post them to the Western Birds Facebook page. We'll have a roundup in next week's outdoor package on opening day that will include some of the information from your updates.

Fri Aug 27 2010, 10:35AM by TC
Posted in Upland Birds | |        

Rutting in the Redwoods

Orick, Calif. - California's most public and violent courting ritual occurs each September and October at Redwood National and State Parks when male Roosevelt Elk, North America's largest, bugle and challenge each another to become bull elk of the harem.

The impressive display of testosterone run amuck is viewed easily from the Elk Meadow Cabins, six remodeled mill worker's cabins near U.S. Highway 101 that are offering a special rate for elk rut viewers.  Stay one night at the discounted off-season rate of $199 and each additional night (up to four nights) is $150.  This special rate can be obtained only in advance by calling (866) 733-9637 and asking for the Elk Rut Rate.

During elk rut, the powerful bull elk are seen posturing and rising dramatically to lock antlers as they push one another back and forth to exhaustion in order to assert their dominance and gain breeding access to the cows (female elk).

Thu Aug 26 2010, 05:29PM by TC
Posted in Big Game | |        

Excellent mid-week dove hunting opener predicted

Leon Lessica is my gauge about how dove season opener is going to be any given hunting season.

Lessica has lived in the Imperial Valley for more years than I’ve been alive, and he’s been the driving force behind Desert Wildlife Unlimited, an Imperial County group of volunteers who have built and maintained desert water sources in the region for wildlife. Lessica is also the guy behind getting the public dove fields in the valley planted and thrashed each year just for dove hunters.

When I spoke to him on Thursday, he’s just spent the day before driving 286 miles on desert back roads checking all of DWU’s guzzlers and tanks. He sees whitewing doves daily in his backyard. So Lessica is a good gauge on how the dove season will be. He has familiarity with the region and a historical perspective few other hunters possess.

The reality is that dove hunting season is always “good” in the Imperial Valley and along the Colorado River, the question is just how good it will be. So here’s Lessica:

“We’ve got more dove this year than we’ve had in a lot of years, and we’re loaded with whitewings. It looks really good if we can just hold these storms off a couple of weeks,” said Lessica. “Most years I can pick you three or four [DWU] fields that are holding more birds, but this year they’re all really good.”

That same sentiment has been echoed over most of the areas where dove are hunting in Southern California’s desert and agriculture area. Bilroy Phipps in Blythe said it was going to be “average to good.” Tom Trakes with the Department of Fish and Game at the San Jacinto Wildlife Area said said it was going to be “a decent” opener because the area has more feed for the birds than it has the last few years and they had just finished knocking down a bunch of wheat this week. Harold Horner, the only bird hunting guide in the high desert, just smirks when you ask him about doves. Then his eyes sparkle and he almost whispers, “there are a lot -- A LOT -- of doves.”

MID-WEEK OPENER: Dove’s are a federally managed bird because they are migratory, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sets the season framework that all states must use as parameters for their individual seasons. Opening day is always Sept. 1 nationwide, and that makes the opener on a Wednesday this year.

Lessica always flies the Imperial Valley public fields opening day to make car-hunter counts. On the fields DWU prepares and grooms for hunters, there are 3,500 to 4,000 hunters when open day falls on the weekend, but only 2,500 to 2,800 on mid-week openers. And Lessica doesn’t believe hunters who don’t make the opener go ahead and come the first weekend. “Plus, there aren’t as many kids, and I’m all for the kids,” said Lessica.

These was an effort spearheaded by San Diego Union outdoor writer Ed Zieralski to get the California dove opener moved to the Saturday following Sept. 1 if Sept. 1 didn’t fall on a Saturday or Sunday. The idea was to assure all hunters had an equal shot at attending opening day, but the effort didn’t generate the support Lessica and Zieralski thought it might receive. So it’s on the backburner for now.

SEMINARS, SEMINARS AND WARM-UP SHOOTS: In the next two weeks, there are a flurry of dove hunting clinics and seminars designed for beginning or hunters looking for information on where and how to hunt doves. I’m doing a pair of two-hour seminars -- one this Saturday at The Shootist in Murrieta and another Aug. 28 at Bass Pro. Both cost $40 per family and include a trial subscription to my bird hunting newsletter Western Birds. The San Gabriel Chapter of Quail Unlimited has a pair free one-hour clinics at noon and 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 28. The first will be at the Turner’s Outdoorsman store in Signal Hill and the second at the Turner’s in West Covina. Last, the gang from Jesse’s Hunting web site and forum will have a pig roast and tune-up shoot at Prado Olympic Shooting Park in Chino starting 8:30 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 29. Cost is $25 per shooter for four hours of unlimited targets. (Sadly, not even unlimited target practice will help my shotgun shooting.) It’s a pot luck, so bring a side dish.

Thu Aug 19 2010, 03:33PM by TC
Posted in Upland Birds | |        

Judge puts Yellowstone wolves back on endangered species list

     Late last week, a Montana judge forced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to put the wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains back on the endangered species list, even though there are 10 times the number of animals and wolf packs that were required in management plan for delisting.     Ten times the number and growing by leaps and bounds.     The ruling sort of follows the law, but the USFWS has played fast and loose with the Endangered Species Act since the wolves were first introduced, so there’s really no reason for the courts to worry about following the law now.     There is an investigation ongoing that is likely to prove the federal agency has done two very illegal things: 1) used illegal funding for the wolf relocation, and 2) introduced a subspecies of wolf that was not native to the Yellowstone Park and Central Idaho region.     Since California’s Department of Fish and Game has made a mockery of spending money in dedicated funds on programs and projects outside of the legal funding
parameters, the news that the feds are doing this isn’t an earth-shaking revelation. But that second point is particularly worrisome and precedent-setting.     How?     For the Endangered Species Act to apply to wolves in the continental United States, it has to be proven that the wolves here are significantly different than the tens of thousands of wolves living in Canada and Alaska, where they are not endangered. If they are the same subspecies as those in Canada, they can’t be considered “endangered.” The species may have lost this part of their range, but they aren’t endangered, and it would be up to the states to recover and manage the wolves outside of the ESA.     But the feds argued, probably rightly, that wolves that lived in the northern Rocky Mountains were indeed a different subspecies, and that a recovery plan needed to be put in place. There were remnant populations of these wolves in Idaho and Montana, but this is where the story get hinkey. The feds didn’t try to capture and utilize this genetic stock of wolves for their relocation efforts, like they are tying to do with Mexican wolves in the Southwest. The feds went to Canada (probably using illegal money, remember), and brought un-endangered wolves of a different subspecies south and dumped them in Wyoming and Idaho. Those large, pack wolves were dramatically different than the native wolves that frequently hunted alone or in pairs.      Those non-native, Canadian wolves have likely already hybridized with the native wolves and screwed up any genetic integrity in the subspecies. The pack wolves have also had a far greater impact on the prey species in the region than anyone predicted -- which makes sense when you consider these animals evolved with a different type of wolf. Moose are simply gone in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. In the core of wolf range today, elk herds are about 10 percent of what they were pre-non-native wolf introduction.     And now a judge in Montana has said these non-natives have to go back on the endangered species list? This the most unbelievable mismanagement of a species this country has ever seen, and that’s saying something.

Sat Aug 14 2010, 09:07PM by TC
Posted in Big Game | |        

Eight bighorn sheep struck dead by lightning in Montana

Thu Aug 12 2010, 10:46AM by TC
Posted in Big Game | |        

Comprehensive dove seminars to cover top public hunting spots in Southern California

     Jim Matthews, editor and publisher of Western Birds, a comprehensive scouting report for Southern California bird hunters, will be giving a pair of dove hunting seminars in August that cover public hunting opportunities throughout the region.

     “The single most-asked question I receive from hunters is ‘Where can I go?’ And my seminars give new hunters and veterans alike the resources they need to find  public hunting areas throughout Southern California,” said Matthews, a Southern California native who has hunted the region for over 40 years.

     Matthews said the seminars will provide a package of maps and detailed instructions on how to hunt all of the popular dove hunting areas in Southern California, along with information on map resources and how to use them to scout out your own, less-crowded hotspots.

     He will also cover shotguns and ammunition, decoy use, and hunting tactics when setting up on fields, in desert washes and saddles, and near water sources. He will also cover dove hunting etiquette.

     The first of the two seminars will be held from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, August 21, at The Shootist in Murrieta, while the second seminar will be the following weekend from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, August 28 at Bass Pro Shops in Rancho Cucamonga.

    Cost for either seminar is $40 per person (with family members in the same household included free for that price). The cost includes a package of maps handed out at the seminar and a special two-issue trial subscription to the Western Birds newsletter.

     For more information or to get a flyer-registration form, you can call Matthews at 909-887-3444, go to the Western Birds’ portion of Matthews’ business web site at www.OutdoorNewsService.com, or visit Matthews’ new Western Birds Facebook page at this direct link:
www.facebook.com/pages/Western-Birds/128544773832003

     Flyers/registration forms are also available at both The Shootist and Bass Pro Shops. Seating is limited so preregistration is recommended.


Tue Aug 10 2010, 07:27PM by TC
Posted in Upland Birds | |        

FEEDING THE HUNGRY WITH WILD GAME, FISH

FEEDING THE HUNGRY WITH WILD GAME, FISH: Outdoor television has jumped on the bandwagon of using wild game and sport-caught fish to feed America’s hungry, but it feels less about doing a good deed to me than generating publicity for their television programming. The Sportsman Channel’s national “Hunt.Fish.Feed.” initiative, as they hype it, will be in San Diego from 10:30 a.m. to noon Wednesday, Aug. 4, at St. Vincent de Paul Village on Imperial Avenue in downtown serving 400 pounds of venison and a like amount of sport-caught fish in tacos to the needy. They sent me a press release and a PR person called.

Thu Jul 29 2010, 05:42PM by TC
Posted in CALENDAR EVENTS | |        

Here they come RUN!

Fri Jul 23 2010, 03:42PM by TC
Posted in Waterfoul | |        

SAGE GROUSE HUNT DEADLINE ALSO AUGUST

SAGE GROUSE HUNT DEADLINE ALSO AUGUST 10: All applications for this year’s slate of proposed sage grouse hunts also must be received by the Department of Fish and Game no later than August 10. You can apply electronically on-line for the sage grouse hunts at this address: www.dfg.ca.gov/licensing/sagegrouse/sagegrouseapply.html, or with a postcard application.

The proposed hunts have not yet been approved by the Fish and Game Commission, but you can apply for one of the four free hunts to be held Sept. 11-12 should the Commission approves the hunts. As usual, there is one hunt in north Mono County near Bodie and one in south Mono County near Crowley Lake. Up to four people may apply together for a single hunt. For more information about sage grouse hunting permits, you can Glenn Underwood at 916-928-5841.

Thu Jul 22 2010, 04:30PM by TC
Posted in Upland Birds | |        

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