.gif)
We’ve finally broken the longest string of 100-plus degree temperature days in history! Rain last Monday and the disturbance from South Texas storms cooled us off for a couple of days below 100-degree temperatures! That’s a cause célèbre for sure!
Then my bubble burst. The next few days went back to 106 and 107. Our rain was only a ten-by-ten reprieve. The raindrops were about ten inches apart and fell for ten minutes. Twenty minutes later, our driveway was bonedry, again.
But there’s still hope. A friend at TPWD, the late T.D. Carroll, plotted the weather leading up to September 1 over several years. His research confirmed what many dove hunters have come to expect: It rains right before the opening of dove season more years than not!
And, often, the first rains are disappointingly meagre. But they’re almost like rural people priming the pump at a well. Sometimes it takes a little water poured into the pump to start the water flowing. I learned that as a kid. And I recall years when all we saw was LIGHT rain falling the last week of August. I’m counting on that tenby- ten rain last week just being God priming the pump. And hope history repeats itself!
Heat is a real danger to dove hunters. It can kill ya! Thankfully, we can at least hunt in the mornings, nowadays -- except for those hunting whitewinged doves during the Special White-winged Dove Days in the South Zone. Then and there, shooting is only from Noon until Sunset, and the season is Sept. 1-3 and 8-10. (Please disregard the wrong dates set out in my earlier dove column. The Outdoor Annual app had not yet been updated for 2023 when I wrote that column.)
Statewide bag limit is fifteen TOTAL doves per day, including all other legal doves. Possession limit is 45. In the South Zone, only two white-tipped doves are allowed/day in all seasons. During Whitewing Dove Days, only two mourning doves are also restricted. The Outdoor Annual phone app has colored pictures of the doves and their legalities.
But back to the heat, it can kill ya. Dress coolly, take plenty of water, and try to hunt in the shade. Your dog suffers too. Hunters who thoughtlessly lose dogs to the heat seldom get over it.
I carry a trowel, dig a shallow, shady place about my dog’s size and fill it with water. I add an old towel over it that soaks up the water as it sinks. My dog knows by now it’s for her. As it dries, I’ll add more water.
Once near Brady, it was 105 degrees. After about seven retrieves, Pilo went after a wounded dove that sailed. She got about 100 yards in the sun, turned, and slowly came back by me heading straight to the shade and her “wallow.” Realizing how hot she had gotten, I quit hunting, too.
This year, I may want to take a bigger shovel and make a cool wallow for me!
