My favorite time of the year

Fall is absolutely hands down my favorite time of the year. I can think of at least twenty to thirty reasons why, but here are just a few. Fall means that hunting season is upon us now. I wait & anticipate all year for hunting season. It doesn't matter what game I am pursuing, from Upland birds to Mule Deer, I am excited. As my son has gotten older, and is now tagging along in the field, it means that I get to spend some very precious time in the field with him. Fall also means to me, that on the first cold day, my wife will make us her world famous Green Chile. She is going to make it this very weekend to be exact. Thanksgiving holiday is also in the fall. This means to me that my family & dear friends will gather to celebrate and remember what we are all so thankful for, to me that is just having them around me. Fall also means to me that the blazing heat is finally over, we can turn the air conditioner off and open some windows around the house to let in the beautiful fall breezes. Along with the heat dissipating means that I don't have to water the yard nearly as much, and that also means that I can finally put the blasted mower away for one more season.

So, here's to a wonderful fall for everyone!! Get out, enjoy the weather & watch the beautiful foliage.

Little Brazille Creek

This is one of my favorite spots around Glasgow to hunt Whitetail Deer, Upland Game Birds & Doves. This is a beautiful creek to just sit by & chill waiting for Doves to come into your decoys on a warm early fall day or push the banks for Grouse & Pheasant. Later on in the fall the Whitetails use this creek & surrounding Cottonwood thickets as cover during the day & come out in the evenings to gorge themselves on the local alfalfa fields & pasture grass.

Dove Opener

I thought I would take a few minutes and give an update on my happenings. Dove season opened Sept. 1st, which was a Tuesday this year. I was out bright and early opening day and had my decoys setup on a recently harvested wheat field. The Doves were coming in strong for the waste grain that gets left behind from the combine.



I was hunting by myself this morning and after getting a few doves in my game bag the shooting really died down. I then decided to go setup on a row of dead Cottonwood trees that also bordered a newly harvested wheat field, but this field had already been swathed and baled, so there were hay bales that the Doves liked to come into to sit upon and pick grain.



I was able to get a couple more Doves from this setup, by this time it is nearing 10:30 am and the heat is rising. By the time I packed up it was 80 degrees and too warm for me to be out in long camo pants & shirt. I went home and rested up to wait for some friends to get off of work that I knew were going to meet me that afternoon for another hunt. We met up that afternoon about 5:30 pm and worked several different angles for the Doves. The best seemed to be to place a shooter in a corner of a field that had some dead trees that the Doves liked to come to rest upon. 5 of us out in the field kept the Doves flying from one cover location to another and we all did pretty good getting some Doves. We hunted until about 8 pm, when it was just getting too dark to be able identify clearly what were non game birds and which were Doves.



My son & I went out on Labor Day evening to see what we could muster up for Doves. We placed some decoys in some dead tree limbs in a grove of dead Cottonwood trees and waited, and we waited, and we waited some more. We only saw 2 shootable doves that evening. Mind you we saw plenty of Doves roosting on power lines and on somebody's clothes line that borders their garden. It seems as though this last small cold front that we got pushed alot of the Doves out that were here. I am hopeful that the season isn't done already when it should just be getting started. I will keep you updated though.

We maybe didn't see alot of Doves this evening. Jack took along his new .22 just in case we saw some gophers or other small critters that needed dispatching. It was a good evening all in all, having him along was the icing on the cake.



Here is the end result we all hope for. Some great Dove skewers and a nice Beef steak!