Every October I eagerly await those early cold fronts that can induce some fast and furious late season Dove hunting action.  I have to admit that this season has not started out with a bang for me, yes I have done alot of shooting, but only to find a small bag of birds in the freezer.  I have been plagued with the bad luck of early season rain and high flying flocks of whitewings.  Not until the late season do I truly enjoy some quality shooting.  Last weekend on October 25th, me and my son had an incredible late season Father / Son dove hunt just southeast of San Antonio.

     I wont call this dove season a total rainout, but if the drought would have continued and rains would have stayed away the dove flight would have been tremendous here in Bexar county.  But, the opposite occured and my first 3 dove hunts were less then par due to heavy rainful in early September.  All this was erased in one glorious afternoon hunt on a beautiful Sunday.  The skies were light up with fat morning dove migrating into Texas from up north.

    The icing on the cake was that we shared the dove field outside of Picosa TX that afternoon with my son's select league baseball coach and his father.  A double father / son dove hunt in a excellent patch of dove heaven.  The field was perfect, lots of goatweed and a nice water tank nearby for birds to water and then large roosting oak trees to spend the night.  The plan worked to perfection, we ambushed thirsty birds as they flew in to the tank from nearby fields of goatweed and sunflowers. 

     Shots rang out early from my Remigton 12 gauge semi-auto and continued to eat shells all afternoon long.  My 10 year old was hunting with his trusty single shot 20 gauge that originally was my first dove hutning rifle.  We went through four boxes of shells in one hour and had dropped plenty of birds all around us.  The results were the same for Dustin Walls and his dad who set up in a square box set up to keep the birds circulating around our set up.  The plan worked to perfection and we had great shooting opportunities at low flying birds.

    In conclusion, my dove season started with great anticipation and high expectations to see those hopes washed away by early season rains.  With late October cold fronts, excellent numbers of migrating morning dove filled the healthy dove fields south of San Antonio.  I will get one more shot at late season glory, as we are planning a South Texas Dove Hunt near Alice, TX the day after Halloween.  It was either that or go hog hunting or Redfishing.  We choose to fill our freezer one last time with some fat doves this weekend.  The best part of it all is that we may hit some good flocks of whitewings that fly a little lower in Alice then they do in San Antonio.  I'm excited and looking foward to firing up the pit to share the beautiful bounty of the birds we harvested this season.