Please contact your state senator and urge them to support SF83, which would allow a season for mourning doves in Iowa.  It made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and will be heading to the floor for a vote.  I have included a link for Iowa Firearms Coalition's action center, which will write and send the letter for you, should you not wish to compose one of your own.

http://www.capwiz.com/iowacarry/issues/alert/?alertid=32997506

Done.

Excuse my ignorance, but why do people hunt doves? I hunt deer and I would love to go pig hunting, but what is the sport of dove hunting? Are they good to eat or is it mostly because they are small and fast?

yep.

My following response is going to come off as a little hostile, but please believe me that this is something I am passionate about and there is no hostility directed towards you but rather the ignorance that keeps Iowa's current ban on dove hunting in place.

They are more moist than pheasant or quail, and they move quickly, but neither are the reason the law needs changed.

Doves are not song birds.  Do you want uninformed legislators regulating game harvest pandering to the general public with feel good laws, or the Department of Natural Resources, which from time to time takes biological facts into consideration when making decisions?  (I have to admit it kind of hurt to type that.)  How would you feel if they suddenly decided that pheasants, quail, and ducks were just too pretty to shoot?  

People who argue there just isn't enough meat on doves to eat obviously haven't tried them.  I am a 265 lb male with the applicable appetite, and it takes about five for a complete meal if there are no sides and doves are all I eat.  

On my last weekend trip to Kansas, six of us came home with about 120 birds.  When was the last time you went hunting and went through seven boxes of shells in two days?  Keep in mind, you hunt for about four hours total each day, and during the entire time you are able to carry on conversations with/bond with those who you hunt with.  Dove hunting, unlike many sports, is a truly social event.

Do you have a compelling argument why Iowa should turn away the dollars associated with the sport, when dove hunting is legal in 38 other states and is often approached as a family/friend centered event?  Last September's weekend trip netted the state of Kansas $500 in license fees alone from the six of us.  The hotel, out of field shopping, restaurants, and misc spending added another couple of thousand dollars to the economy of that small Kansas town.  Remember, that was just six people over the course of a weekend.  Upland game hunting is such a part of that town's economy that one of the hotels we stay at has a steel outline of a pointer out front, a bird cleaning station, and in house kennels.  Why should Iowa reject this revenue, while our legislators seem to be so hell bent on raising taxes and getting chunks of federal stimulus money that originally came from our own pockets anyway?  

Way too many decisions are made by legislators where emotion overruns logic.

Most importantly, even if you do feel doves shouldn't be hunted, do you believe that it is your place to make that decision for other free-born Americans who would choose otherwise? For me, what it comes down to is this: I give people the leeway to make their own decisions in life, as long as those decisions do not impede on me.  I get pissed, very pissed, when others don't extend me the same courtesy.

Once again, please do not read this as a personal attack.  It is meant as no such thing, but simply a means to express both the oft glossed over logic while imparting some of my passion on this issue.

Gee, I'm glad you preceded and followed that with a disclaimer aimed at me or I would've felt a little butt hurt.

I wish you the best getting dove hunting approved. I haven't gone bird hunting since I was a kid, but it isn't for any moral reasons, just time constraints.

Fortunately for me, pigs are big and ugly and there aren't very many people intent on protecting them when they start to show up in bigger numbers in this state.

I wasn't sure how to type it out so it wouldn't convey tone towards you that I didn't mean.  I doubt pigs will ever be a problem to hunt.  If the deer depredation tags associated with my father's place are any indication, the argument of ruined crops = need to kill pigs will go over well in this state.

I hope we get it BUT the Iowa DNR will never put in the effort that Missouri does

done!

I didnt know we had wild pigs here ?

Mostly on the southern edge IIRC. I have heard claims of them being seen as far north as Worth County but nothing reliable. The last I read was that DNR says shoot them when seen, and report the kill so they know where they are, but don't actually hunt them. The idea being that the pigs will get wise to the fact they're being hunted and move on, I'm assuming the DNR would want to send in a team to eradicate the "colonies" as they're found.
Wild pigs in IA are still small in number, and the DNR wants subtraction practiced on them.
As for the doves, I'm pretty neutral on the idea of a season. That might change if/when we get a season and I see what they taste like. If they taste good and there's a sustainable population to hunt why not? For those who have eaten dove-do you just breast them or is there enough meat on the legs and wings to be worth plucking/skinning?

You breast them, and they are delicious.  I far prefer them to duck, pheasant, or quail.

Here is a short overview done by the DNR.  Doves are extremely populous in the state, and one of the most prolific game birds in North America. In states where they are hunted (including every state surrounding Iowa), hunters only take about 5-7% of the population, far under the regular mortality rate of 60% or so.

Iowa DNR fact sheet about doves - a quick read

i hope everyone is helping send these.  as carry folks the state got a lot of help from people who don't even carry or intend to.  so even though some of these circles don't overlap, i'm certain that as core 2A people the hunting crowd will be appreciative of everything we can do to help them.

EVERYONE needs to be out there spreading the word on this!

A couple of years ago a coworker friend from Mo.was taking opening day of dove seasonSept.1 off work so he could of course go hunt them.I thought he was crazy and he asked if I didn't like to shoot and shoot alot knowing damned well that "alot" is my favorite kind of shooting.Anyway we went down and joined some of his relatives and had a ball shot a limit of doves but it took a whole lot shooting and fun and ribbing each other for missing easy shots and hitting some harder ones.We had coolers with lunches pop turns into a party, BS session.Oh and they are good to eat wrapped in bacon marinated in italion dressing and smoked on a weber grill.