Hunters look forward to first dove season

Iowa wingshooters, discouraged by the collapse of the state's quail and pheasant populations, look forward to Iowa's inaugural mourning dove hunting season in September - the success of which will be helped by creating attractive habitat for the birds.

“I'll be out there. It adds another hunting opportunity early in the year,” said John Houck of Cedar Rapids, a longtime pheasant hunter and dog trainer.

“There will be a learning curve for me, but I welcome any opportunity to spend time outdoors with family and friends,” said pheasant hunting enthusiast Steve Ries of rural Alburnett.

In signing the bill into law last month, making Iowa the 40th state to authorize a dove hunting season, Gov. Terry Branstad expressed hope that the dove season will slow the decline in hunting license sales caused, in part, by the dwindling of the state's pheasant population.

“I don't think we will pull in a lot of new hunters, but the dove season will help retain people who are already buying hunting licenses,” said Todd Bogenschutz, upland game biologist for the Department of Natural Resources.

Houck, who has hunted doves in Illinois, said a successful dove hunt depends on food plots to attract the birds.

Bogenschutz said the DNR plans to establish food plots - sunflowers, sorghum, millet and wheat - on state-owned leased farm ground. “The staff is scrambling to secure the seed,” he said.

Most of the 150 wildlife areas managed for doves by the Missouri Department of Conservation feature sunflower food plots, which have proved to be the best dove attracters, according to resource scientist John Schulz.

With approval by the Natural Resources Commission expected in June, Iowa's dove season would start Sept. 1 and run 70 days, with a daily bag limit of 15 birds and a possession limit of 30, Bogenschutz said. Only a small-game hunting license and habitat stamp will be required, he said.

Most of the hunting will be done in September because most doves, a cold-intolerant migratory bird, will have gone south by the end of the month, he said.

Missouri dove expert Schulz said he is not worried about Iowa hunters intercepting all the doves before they cross the border.

Banding studies show that about 80 percent of the doves harvested in a given state were raised there, he said.

Hunting pressure - which accounted for a nationwide harvest of 20 million doves in 2007 - does not greatly affect populations of the prolific and adaptable species, Schulz said.

“They are habitat generalists, meaning they can live and nest just about anywhere, including on an asphalt roof,” he said.

Schulz described the mourning dove as an exclusive grainivore, which eats all kinds of seeds. Both parents convert the seeds into crop milk, an efficient way of feeding their young, which enables them to raise a brood from egg to independence in one month, he said.

Dove hunting, unlike most outdoor sports, requires little investment of time or money.

“You get yourself a shotgun, some shells and a bucket to sit on, and you are a dove hunter, partner,” Schulz said.

The sport appeals to older hunters because it requires much less walking than most other types of hunting, he said.

The fast and elusive mourning dove can simultaneously change speed and direction, making it an especially challenging target.

In one survey conducted at a managed field near Kansas City, 800 hunters fired 40,000 rounds to kill between 1,200 and 1,400 doves, Schulz said. In sharp contrast, Ray Marshalla, a wildlife manager with the Illinois DNR, said he kills 65 percent of the birds he shoots at.

Asked to describe the dove as table fare, Marshalla, who harvests about 400 doves per year, said none of his “ever make it to the freezer.”

Although Iowa has not yet prepared any dove harvest estimates, about 15,000 Nebraska hunters harvested about 280,000 doves in 2009, according to Jeff Lusk, the state's upland game program manager. About 35,000 Missouri hunters harvest between 500,000 and 800,000 doves a year, Schulz said. In Illinois, more than 50,000 hunters harvest an average of about 1 million doves per year, Marshalla said.