Dove hunting: Decoys work…if there are birds

LOUISBURG, MINN. - I was in a late-morning stupor, nearly asleep in my hunting blind, when two mourning doves suddenly landed near my spinning winged dove decoy.

I stood, shouldering my 12 gauge, and flushed the birds from the harvested wheat field. The first shot hit air. Ditto the second.

But as the birds darted right-to-left across the field, they aligned just as I fired my third and final shot.

Both birds dropped -- proving the old adage: It's better to be lucky than good.

But the incident on opening day of Minnesota's 2011 dove season also proved something else that many dove hunters have discovered: Those battery-powered decoys work. The two doves could have landed anywhere, but they chose a spot near my mechanical decoy with its whirling wings.

"I think they work like a million bucks," said hunting companion Mike Smith, 60, of Cologne, Minn., who bagged two dozen birds over three days last week using a spinning winged decoy. "The birds come right in," he said. "You don't need anything else. It's amazing."

That was the consensus of a half-dozen hunters I hunted with in western and southwestern Minnesota. This year is the state's eighth dove season since the Legislature re-established hunting of the migratory birds in 2004. About 11,000 hunters pursued them last year, bagging an estimated 100,000 birds.

But don't expect miracles. They aren't dove magnets. Plenty of birds ignore them. But enough fly in for a closer look to improve the chances of shooting doves.

Of course, you still have to hit the erratic-flying birds.

Experienced dove hunter Greg Larson, 60, of Woodbury, put out two spinning winged dove decoys this year for the first time, hunting in Renville County.

"You're playing with odds, and if you can tip the odds in your favor, it helps," he said after a morning hunt. "But you still have to be where they are -- or want to go."

Slow going

Six of us, hunting in Lac qui Parle County on opening day, bagged 18 birds. In recent years, we've often each shot 15-bird bag limits. We saw doves, and missed plenty, but simply didn't encounter the numbers we've seen before.

"They're just not here," said Phil Thomsen, 72, of Minneapolis, who has a hunting shack in Lac qui Parle County and drove for hours last week scouting for birds. "I'm convinced the dove population is down, at least in this area," he said.

Hunting in heat and humidity during five morning and afternoon hunts on harvested wheat fields in Lac qui Parle and Renville counties I bagged 13 birds -- my poorest tally in years. My hunting companions experienced mostly the same, though Mike Smith shot nine birds one morning.

"I just happened to be in the right spot," he said.

It's difficult to tell whether the dove population is down or if they simply weren't in the areas we hunted.

On Saturday, five of us surrounded a wheat field in Renville County, where we had seen dozens of birds the previous day. Everyone had a spinning-winged decoy. A few birds flew into the field, and some fell to our shots. But the sky was mostly empty. By 8 a.m., we pulled up and moved 10 miles to a different field and shot a few more birds, but it was clear 2011 wasn't going to be as successful as the past few years.

By 10 a.m. we called it a day, bagging 20 birds among us. Still, over the three days, we all ended up with enough for a meal or two. More important was getting together with friends and hunting dogs and toting a shotgun again.

Disappointment?

"I'm never disappointed hunting," Mike Smith said. "It's just a fun time."

Doug Smith • dsmith@startribune.com