Two officers, eight members, one guest, and four sons (15 total participants) had a great time at the 9/1/07 - 9/3/07 Fall Dove Hunt (Buda).
Report from Eddy Chance:
Ron Denison and I hunted along with Bruce Crockett opening morning at the Von Quintas field. There were approximately 25 to 30 hunters that showed up at the field. This was the first hunt that I was able to use my black lab Midnight. I had him trained by Eric Sutton of Soggy Bottom Retrievers.
I highly recommend Eric he is a great guy and worked wonders in my opinion with Midnight. Midnight made several text book retrieves during the hunt. Check out his website at http://www.soggybottomretrievers.net/
I started my hunt up at the front of the property where the trucks usually park. After day light I shot one bird but there was lots of action on the back of the property near the tree line. After a while I walked back and found an empty spot away from the other hunters that were already there. Within a few minutes I had shot several birds. I called Ron on his cell and told him to come back and help me cover that area of the field. I shot several more birds while waiting on Ron to drive over from where he had been hunting. Within 30 minutes I had my limit of birds. It was a great time working my dog and finally having a dog that could go get my birds for me.
Sunday evening Ron and I hunted with Larry Dowden who missed opening day due to a commitment in Dallas. We all decided to meet at the Mesquite Grove Sunday evening. I brought along my girlfriend Kelly, her son Ross (age 15), and my two boys, Hunter and Jordan (both age 14) and of course Midnight. Ross had never hunted dove so I gave him my Benelli and stayed close to him giving him pointers. After several dove had flow over he made his first kill. He was very excited to say the least. Ron offered to loan me his new Benelli so that Kelly could try her hand at hunting as well. However after the first shot she decided that it just kicked her too much. We hunted the back tank for some time but noticed that there were lots of birds flying over the front tank so we made our way back to the front. Larry finally showed up and the hunt was on. We all shot birds and had a great time. I think that we finished that hunt with Ross - one bird, Hunter - one, Jordan - one, and me - five.
We all decided to try the Mesquite Field Monday morning. I picked up Larry and Maggie, his black lab along with Ross, Hunter, and Jordan at 5:30 AM. We arrived that the field and took over the prime spot at the front tank. Ron showed up with one of his boys (Jake). The morning started off very slow with only a few birds. It wasn't unit around 9:30 AM that we really started seeing some good numbers of birds. However most of them were flying fairly high. We did however manage to kill several birds. We all took our dogs down to the tank to play in the water. The dogs had a great time cooling off in the tank. We all had a great time and finished up the day with Ross with one bird, Hunter with two birds, Jordan with two birds, and I took three (I was mainly helping the boys and working the dog).
Kelly's son Ross is now hooked and we are planning on getting him his first shotgun this week. We picked up a heavy duty shoulder pad for Kelly so that she can try her had at shooting as well. I'm going to take them to the skeet range this week to work with them even more.
All in all it was a great opening weekend spending time with Kelly, Ross, by boys Hunter and Jordan, and of course my old hunting buddies Ron and Larry.
Report from Ken Miller:
I went to the field near the school yard on opening day and had my limit after 1 1/2 hours. I then went on Sunday night and had my limit in 1 3/4 hours. I went Monday morning and had my limit in 4 3/4 hours. Birds where still flying at 11:30 AM. I was checked by the game warden as I came off the field.