El Centro weekend #2

[Captchrome]

Our opening day fields are still holding. Limits of morning dove and White Wings plus 30 Euros.

 

[D16hunter]

Nice job i went out and got 11 eurasians and one mourning and left with birds still flyin around it got too hot

 

[Sdbirds]

Nice

 

[Lungpopper]

Nice batch of birds

 

[Ajsnack]

Nice, I couldn't quite find them this morning when I was out there.

 

[NBK]

Excellent!

 

[brice s]

Nice shoot!

 

[bcsquare]

How was the weather? I was planning on getting out Sunday but checking the weather the day before, it said there would be scattered t-storms with a 60% chance of rain.

I obviously missed out on some good shooting.

 

[Captchrome]

The weather was hot, humid and miserable. The weather forecast was dead on. Around 5 p.m. Saturday a massive thunderstorm cell moved in from the west creating a huge dust storm followed by heavy rain for several hours. I had just finished my Saturday limit as we hunted Euros in the morning when I looked west and saw the dust cloud rolling acrossed the area. We just made it to the hotel before the dust completely covered us.

 

[Hallx7]

T-storms killed us at San Jac. We only saw one bird. I'm going to try it out again this weekend. Next year we're heading south and getting a hotel for opener. So far my first year has been a bust.

 

[AirRifleHunter]

Looks like you got a good location. Nice job and thanks for the photo! Makes me a little bit jealous ;D, but not in a bad way. I'm glad there are those of you who have great success when you hunt and look forward to the day I finally gain the knowledge and experience to do the same.

I finally got to go out for my very first dove hunt this past Sunday (the 8th). We saw a few dove, but not as many as we should have. We didn't see any Eurasians at all. The heat was keeping the dove down under the trees and in the shadier boughs and branches of the trees in the orchards. While we didn't limit out, I had a fanstastic time and learned allot about dove. I only ended up with two mourning doves. The other two in our group each bagged four, so our group total was 10 for the day. They (the other two in our group who have hunted dove many times before) said that it was a very uncharacteristically slow day due to the heat/weather.

I would like to try some place closer to home this weekend (the place we went to was 5 hours North from my house). I know El Centro and Imperial are closer and I just need to use my BLM maps and Google Earth to locate some potential spots. I just want to find some decent spots away from the masses of hunters, which is always the challenge.

 

[Captchrome]

I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination but what I can tell you is there are some places that the birds use always, like irrigation canals, tree lines between water and feeding areas and hay stacks around these areas. The rest of finding concentrations of Dove is to burn fuel and drive around the fields until you can locate what areas the birds are using. Pay attention to the little details that otherwise you may not even notice such as birds sitting on power lines, in dead trees or if you see a few birds flying try and follow them if you can. I've found most of my hot fields by watching where the birds are going. Use binoculars to help you scan stuff and to see where birds are going. Some of the best post opener hunting(in my opinion)is to set up in a flight path between the feeding and watering/roosting areas and shoot as the birds pass by. Also,don't think that you have to be out in the middle of farm land to find the birds. Three of our best fields were less than 1/2 mile from the freeway. Most people would drive right by these fields without a look. As for Euros, they seem to be found near population. Houses, buildings etc. Feeding lots seem to be a good place to look. One of the best and hunter friendly feed lots is the El Toro Land and Cattle Company in Heber(a couple miles south of El Centro). They love having people shot the birds as they cost them big money in grain loss every year. Just go in the office and ask ifor the GM. They usually will give you written permission to hunt and tell you where you can go around the cattle pens. I hope this helps.

 

[Lungpopper]

I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination but what I can tell you is there are some places that the birds use always, like irrigation canals, tree lines between water and feeding areas and hay stacks around these areas. The rest of finding concentrations of Dove is to burn fuel and drive around the fields until you can locate what areas the birds are using. Pay attention to the little details that otherwise you may not even notice such as birds sitting on power lines, in dead trees or if you see a few birds flying try and follow them if you can. I've found most of my hot fields by watching where the birds are going. Use binoculars to help you scan stuff and to see where birds are going. Some of the best post opener hunting(in my opinion)is to set up in a flight path between the feeding and watering/roosting areas and shoot as the birds pass by. Also,don't think that you have to be out in the middle of farm land to find the birds. Three of our best fields were less than 1/2 mile from the freeway. Most people would drive right by these fields without a look. As for Euros, they seem to be found near population. Houses, buildings etc. Feeding lots seem to be a good place to look. One of the best and hunter friendly feed lots is the El Toro Land and Cattle Company in Heber(a couple miles south of El Centro). They love having people shot the birds as they cost them big money in grain loss every year. Just go in the office and ask ifor the GM. They usually will give you written permission to hunt and tell you where you can go around the cattle pens. I hope this helps.

For anybody that is a newbie looking to get started. This is about as good as it gets. Everything you need to know is right here in front of you.

 

[Boudroux]

I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination but what I can tell you is there are some places that the birds use always, like irrigation canals, tree lines between water and feeding areas and hay stacks around these areas. The rest of finding concentrations of Dove is to burn fuel and drive around the fields until you can locate what areas the birds are using. Pay attention to the little details that otherwise you may not even notice such as birds sitting on power lines, in dead trees or if you see a few birds flying try and follow them if you can. I've found most of my hot fields by watching where the birds are going. Use binoculars to help you scan stuff and to see where birds are going. Some of the best post opener hunting(in my opinion)is to set up in a flight path between the feeding and watering/roosting areas and shoot as the birds pass by. Also,don't think that you have to be out in the middle of farm land to find the birds. Three of our best fields were less than 1/2 mile from the freeway. Most people would drive right by these fields without a look. As for Euros, they seem to be found near population. Houses, buildings etc. Feeding lots seem to be a good place to look. One of the best and hunter friendly feed lots is the El Toro Land and Cattle Company in Heber(a couple miles south of El Centro). They love having people shot the birds as they cost them big money in grain loss every year. Just go in the office and ask ifor the GM. They usually will give you written permission to hunt and tell you where you can go around the cattle pens. I hope this helps.

For anybody that is a newbie looking to get started. This is about as good as it gets. Everything you need to know is right here in front of you.

LOL wish I would have read this yesterday. Just posted my first dove hunting experience.