Scouting territory for dove hunting pays off

Friday marked the start of Colorado’s dove hunting season. As fall arrives, so will the follow-on Colorado bird seasons including waterfowl, pheasants, quail and a myriad of less hunted birds.

It was dove that had Erik Wettersten of Evergreen and myself heading south to be in place for hunting doves in the Arkansas Valley area. Erik and I have hunted for years together and work for a dedicated conservation organization, Ducks Unlimited, which focuses on the preservation and restoration of seasonal wetlands that benefit ducks as well as hundreds of species of wildlife.

The Arkansas Valley of southeast Colorado is a beautiful semi-arid, desert region in which the Arkansas River provides numerous oases of cultivated farmlands which serve host to migrating birds. The grain croplands, prairie pastures and water in the Arkansas Valley provides all the lifecycle needs for resident and migrating mourning doves.

With many thousand acres and a bird that can cover 50 miles in an hour’s flight, scouting matters. Nonterritorial by nature, a dove’s haunts are dictated by weather, water, sanctuary, and feed — not tradition. A notable change to this year’s landscape was the abundance of water. In an ironic twist to the sad “buy and dry” history of the Arkansas valley, one could not overlook irrigation canals running at capacity, full stock ponds, and seepage-supplied ditches now holding cattails. This year’s abundance of water spread our quarry.

Last year, on a field south of Swink, we had an excellent opening day with numerous limits, but now, for the 30 minutes we surveyed that once productive quarter section, we saw only three or four doves. We moved east to the Fort Bent area between La Junta and Las Animas, which has always been a favorite. A lifetime friend, farmer, and rancher Chris Harrington, had equally disappointing news on the dove situation. “In my 60 years of hunting I had never seen so many doves in the trees and in the fields then this year. But the mid-august rains and cooler weather moved them out.”

We spent 45 minutes scouting Harrington’s farmland and tree rows and only saw a handful of doves.

While Wettersten and I had typically enjoyed excellent opening day dove hunting, we both began to face the realization that the 2017 hunt might be an exception. Remembering a farm that I had hunted many years ago, we headed north with low expectations. With a sinking sun, we saw sunflowers, some standing water, some cut grain — and dove. Not a lot of dove, but the activity we had sought but not seen on fields. Reacquainting ourselves with the landowners, and obtaining permission, we secured our opening day spot.

We arrived to our spot early Friday to set up our dove decoys enhanced with a “spinner” decoy on the ground. We were greeted with a beautiful sunrise, light wind, a few high scattered clouds, a comfortable 70 degree temperature — and some dove. There were lulls, there were waves, and there were those ninja-like singles that appeared, then juked, then jived, and then flitted out of range with the serenity broken only by a hunter’s muttering instead of the 20 gauge’s (or yes a 28 in my case) echo. But by 8:15 a.m., scouting had paid off and a 30-bird limit was in the bag.

A beautiful Colorado morning had joined a couple old friends, a nameless field, and some skittery birds, to deliver the authentic experience that keep sportsmen seeking the next sunrise.