HUNTING
Tasty morsels lie below the plumage of doves, whether they be native mournings (right) or larger invasive Eurasian collareds. Author Troy Rodakowski reports harvesting roughly equal numbers of both species last fall in the Willamette Valley. (TROY RODAKOWSKI)
Enjoy Dove Days Of Summer, Fall Migratory bird season in the Northwest kicks off this month with tasty doves. By Troy Rodakowski
I
’d never really concentrated on dove hunting until I came back from Uruguay in 2016. We had an amazing couple days hunting the sorghum fields, where swarms of doves and pigeons came in to feed. True, I grew up hunting in Western Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where I shot my first bird at age 10.
But nowadays I make sure to mark the dove opener – September 1 – on my calendar every season.
DOUBLE-BARREL DOVES The mourning dove is the most abundant game bird in North America. Hunters harvest more than 20 million of them annually out of an overall estimated U.S. population of nearly 350 million.
While mourning dove numbers have seemingly increased the last several years, possibly thanks to very mild conditions during their migration and on their wintering grounds, Eurasian collared doves are also now thriving throughout the Pacific Northwest and spreading rapidly. Last season it seemed as if nearly half of the birds we harvested were Eurasians. Remember, these do nwsportsmanmag.com | SEPTEMBER 2021
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