Posted: 12/3/2008 3:12:22 PM EDT
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Anyone care to point me towards a good place to hunt mourning doves around Tucson? I've shot a couple at our normal quail/rabbit hunting spot, but I think it was just a group passing through and I haven't seen any more there.
Thanks in advance . 
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Its been a few years since I visited my favorite spots due to a back injury so I'm not sure of their status with the expansion of city boundaries and all. As a general rule, look for a desert water hole and stake it out come early morning. We have been fairly dry lately so just about any of them should be good for some action. The latter is especially true for the first dove season in September, but come the second season I almost always took doves secondary to hunting quail instead of staking out water holes specifically for them. Scouting around is key to finding a good spot of course and also is fun, at least imo.
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Thanks. Thats pretty much what I was doing- there's a water hole near where I hunt and we got some dove at about 10am. I was looking for a cornfield, or something of that nature that might attract more of them. With all the dove around the city, I'm tempted to just get a slingshot and throw some bread in my yard 
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Yeah, I hear that! I remember using the old cardboard box, stick and string trap on blackbirds as a youth back east. Its almost tempting to do the same on the dove in my backyard, but short of being nearly starved I'll stay a sporting man I reckon.
I used to go to some dove flyways in Avra Valley which was always excellent hunting, but with the expansion of Marana I bet most of those locations are now within city limits. Still, must be some good open locations over there, but they may take some searching to locate. Up off of Florence highway and near Redrock were also good to me, but both are a bit of a drive. If I get a chance, I may do some pre-season scouting for next September's hunt near my property in Cochise Co. There are a lot of crops being grown down there including corn so I suspect the dove hunting to be excellent. If anyone is interested in teaming up next year for some hunting excursions, let me know. All my old hunting buddies have either left the state or have just grown too lazy to beat the brush anymore. |
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If I haven't moved to Texas by then, I'll take you up on that offer. Cochise is Mearns' Quail country too, isn't it? Do you hunt over dogs? I don't have a bird dog, so I haven't tried hunting them yet.
For this season I'll just keep hoping to catch the odd dove at my normal watering hole to supplement the Gambel's. 
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I've never hunted for them down there so I can't say how good it is. I have, however, hunted Mearn's in 3 different locations in the Santa Ritas, usually with dismal results (no dog) in the past decade at least. Seems like I see more Mearn's when Whitetail hunting than I do when carrying a shotgun. A good bird dog is just about mandatory for hunting the boorgers otherwise you literally have to beat the brush which isn't too productive in my experience.
The bad thing about the dogs though is that a Mearn's locality can be hunted out a lot quicker than Gambel's or scalies locale. Gardner Canyon used to have a very healthy population until concentrated dog hunting occurred. There was some talk about possible restrictions being placed on that locale a number of years back to revive the population, but I don't have any idea if that occurred or not. |