State's first dove hunt provides challenges, fun

LAMONT - Four first-time dove hunters say they thoroughly enjoyed their initial experience Thursday during the opening day of Iowa's first dove season.

“I was excited to go, and it turned out to be as much fun as I thought it would be,” said Jeff Mescher of Independence, who with his brother, Pat Mescher of Dundee, their friend, Ron Sperfslage of Manchester, and your correspondent shot 24 doves in a privately owned pasture near this northern Buchanan County town.

“We went a long way up the learning curve in just a couple of hours,” said Pat Mescher, who wore full-length camouflage while his brother and friend coped with the torrid afternoon by wearing cutoffs and T-shirts.

Having observed dozens of doves frequenting the pasture during recent scouting trips, they set up a spinning-wing decoy near a fence onto which they clipped a dozen stationary decoys. Then they took cover in the scant available shade and waited for the birds to come.

Some of the doves homed in on the spinning-wing decoy and presented easy targets as they swooped near it. Others seemed not to notice any of the decoys and presented more challenging shots as they wheeled erratically past the shooters.

“The key to hitting them is seeing them coming so you're ready when they get there,” Sperfslage said. The few doves that escaped the hunters unscathed zoomed in from the cornfield to their rear, giving the hunters but a split second to react.

The hunters' bag of 24 doves - well short of their combined legal limit of 60 - came at the expense of 73 spent shells. Given that most of the bagged doves were shot at more than once, sometimes by more than one hunter, only a small percentage of doves shot at actually escaped.

Though the one-bird-per-three-shells ratio is not all that impressive, it is fairly typical, said Todd Bogenschutz, upland game biologist for the Department of Natural Resources, who spent 45 shells Thursday morning while bagging his limit of 15 doves at a state-managed hunting area in central Iowa.

Bogenschutz, who hunted along the edge of a recently mowed and tilled 15-acre plot of sunflowers, said his first Iowa dove hunt “was every bit as good as” his many previous dove hunts in Missouri, and it will only get better as the DNR plants more managed food plots on state hunting areas.

After the Legislature and Gov. Terry Branstad authorized Iowa to become the 41st state to allow hunting of the continent's most numerous game bird, the DNR had to scramble to establish plots of sunflowers, millet and wheat, according to spokesman Joe Wilkinson.

While hunters at state-managed food plots will typically see higher dove concentrations, the Lamont hunters' experience illustrates that doves can be successfully hunted in unmanaged Iowa farmland.

DNR research biologist Willie Suchy said the DNR expects about 20,000 hunters to participate in the state's inaugural dove season.

How many were out on a weekday for opening day, he said, is anybody's guess.

“We've had people looking at parking lots at state-managed hunting areas, and there has been a fair amount of pressure at most of them,” Suchy said.

As for the rest of the state, it has not been crowded, he said.

Suchy said both the DNR and hunters will learn from their initial experience.

“We will expand opportunities, dove hunters who enjoy themselves will recruit others, and the sport will grow,” he said.