61st Year at This Dove hunt

[Harry Collins]

Papa's little 20 gauge Trojan has made it's 61st appearance at the opening day shoot at the Stewart Home. Boy, is it sighted in! I don't know why I shoot any other Parker. A dear friend, John, had cancer and was given three months to live. He went to Houston and it's been about five years. When he was able to make his return to the shotgun I took him to this shoot and sat with him and picked up his birds as he was adapting to shooting left handed with a .410. Now he's shooting right handed again and with a 28 gauge 1100. We sat together so it took a little longer to take two limits out of the same stand. I took some long shots and was screwed into the ground by some very close and fast birds. Did I mention the 12 year old scotch? Oh, never mind.....

[Dave Suponski]

Congrats Harry,Looks to be a hell-of-a-lot of fun! Someday:rolleyes:

[Ed Blake]

That is the most genteel-looking dove set-up I've ever seen. No weeds. I'll bet you don't even have ticks or chiggers. Where's the fun in that, I say.

[Destry L. Hoffard]

Good work boys, always a pleasure to see something like that.

Destry

[Harry Collins]

Shot at my undertakers today. Same gun with same results. Damn sporting along the tree line with the birds zipping over. Reese Day was down the line and on the phone with our Chris Bamohl. Reese dropped a dove and a hawk made the retrieve, but dropped the bird for the lab. Hunts the next two days and eating hell out of them as we go along.

Harry

[C Roger Giles]

Harry;

Good photos and the personal photo of you is excelent, shit eating grin, hat and Parker, just does not get any better unless you had a big or maybe two pulls off a single malt jug to top off a fine hunt.

Roger

[Travis Sims]

Around where Harry and I live, he's prolly huntin on a horse farm? Another forum member here did opening day i know of. You wouldn't know it, but some of these big horse farm make great dove shoots.

Nice going Harry!

[Fred Preston]

A wonderful tradidtion with your Trojan Harry. You guys in central KY seem to be getting the flights. Here in north central OH I haven't seen any I would call migraters in the past few days, though a walk along the woodlines and through the barnyard will raise a few. I now have 9 breasts in the refer and it's about time to start cooking. That includes the 3 in the pic below with the BHE 12 that found them. The first 2 came 2 days ago with that little Turkish 36 (.410) I recently got; the other 4 fell yesterday to the old reliable Trojan 20. I used up about 2 boxes all told, so I guess the kill ratio is about 5:1. All hunting was done within an hour and a half of sundown. The first of the seasons is on; let the games begin.

[Harry Collins]

Fred, that is a beautiful Parker. Everything is green as a gourd here and the only sunflowers that are dry and attractive to dove are the ones that were sprayed. Another friend burned a wheat field and that left the kernals lying on the ground and even they are being ignored.

Shot again yesterday wih the same Parker with the same results. I had a soybean field to my back and the first three dove shot fell into it. They fell close to the edge and I never took my eye off the spot, but they were never found. After that I just didn't shoot any behind me and was careful not to let the incommers get to close because of carryover. We will shoot that field again Sunday.

I have wanted to shoot the VH 28 gauge, but can't keep my hands off Papa's 20 gauge.

Harry

[Destry L. Hoffard]

Had some news from Dad last night that a cold snap has passed through and run off quite a few of the birds at home. Shooting tomorrow afternoon over some burnt wheat, will file a report in the evening. This could turn into a squirrel hunting trip real quick......

Destry

[tom tutwiler]

Took the new (to me) CH 16 out today for the opener in Winchester Va. Wish I had a better kill to shot ratio, but after hitting my first bird with RST's I followed that up with 5 straight misses. Full and Full chokes with birds over a waterhole don't seem to make a good combination (at least for me). After scratching down three more birds, made the switch to an open choked Fox Sterlingworth 16 and my shot to hit ratio improved by a good amount and 12 birds are now cleaned and in fridge waiting for marinade and bbq tomorrow.

Hopefully on Monday we will get out again. I've determined this full choked CH may be better suited to pass shooting doves or even better suited to hunting out west where distances are greater. Certainly not a 25 to 30 yard waterhole gun IMO.

[Bill Murphy]

Tom, I solved that problem years ago by sharing my dove hide with a black and white or liver and white pointer or setter and wearing a Hawaiian shirt and white straw hat. Now I have an excuse to shoot my ten gauges at doves.