outdoors

LITTLE FALLS - In 2004, after a 57-year hiatus, Minnesotans were again allowed to hunt mourning doves when Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed a bill that would permit Minnesota to be the 40^th state in the Union with a mourning dove hunting season. A surge of calls and e-mails from sportsmen and conservation groups ensured the bill's passage.

Before that my hunting buddies and I traveled to South Dakota to hunt mourning doves. One hunting lesson we learned early on was mourning doves are as unpredictable as the weather. A passing cold front can send local birds on their way, or bring new flocks from the north.

I recall one particular hunting trip in which a friend and I arrived in South Dakota a day ahead of the Sept. 1 dove hunting opener. We had spent that evening scouting, looking for concentrations of birds. There were doves everywhere. In many locations we saw them strung along the power lines like popcorn on a string at Christmas.

About sunset we found a millet field with hundreds of doves flying in to feed. The farmer who owned the field gave us the nod. That night we had dreams of keeping a shotshell manufacturing company in business with our nifty shooting the next day.

Mother Nature had a different plan. With a wave of her hand she sent the vast majority of those doves southward on the wings of a cool north wind. Migrants from the north did not replace the birds that left. The following morning we saw few doves and shot just four birds. I've experienced similar dove departures here in Minnesota.

I thought about this last Wednesday when I arose before the sun and drove to one of my favorite dove hunting spots. Accompanying me was Emma Rifai, a family member visiting from Seattle. Emma is not a dove hunter, but she has an interest in the outdoors. With opening day still a week away, it mattered little how many doves we saw during our scouting foray. What was important was that we explore various locations for a combination of factors that would attract and hold doves. Surely they will be migrating between then and the Sept. 1 opener.

Doves prefer to feed in the open in short cover so we kept our eyes peeled for harvested oat fields. We also watched for overgrown or weedy fields that contained scattered openings, which are particularly attractive to feeding doves. There the birds consume various weed seeds, especially foxtail. New CRP fields, weedy openings in corn, bean and sunflower fields, or other unattended areas also caught our attention.

We saw the first sizable group of mourning doves near a potato field that was rimmed with foxtail and Johnson grass, another weed that produces seeds doves love. About 20 doves were perched on a power line, and 10 or more flew from the edge of a field road where they had been feeding.

The spot also contained a low area filled with standing water from recent rainfall. That's a definite plus since it adds one more factor to the dove-hunting equation; a place for the birds to drink. An additional bonus was a nearby pine plantation that I knew from previous years is used by the doves for nighttime roosting.

We also noted that because of this year's early spring, foxtail and Johnson grass seeds were at or near the final stages of ripening. The seeds should be falling to the ground by the time the season opens Wednesday.

Our mourning dove scouting foray ended midmorning without us finding the mother lode. I know from past seasons dove numbers can change overnight so hopefully the migration will pick in the coming days.

The daily limit on mourning doves is 15, with 30 in possession. Shooting hours are from a half-hour before sunrise to sunset.

Bill Marchel, an outdoors photographer and columnist, lives near Brainerd.

Bill Marchel, an outdoors photographer and columnist, lives near Brainerd.