Passport to Texas

Taking aim at dove.

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This is Passport to Texas

Beginning in September, dove hunters have 90 days to harvest this plentiful game bird.

We harvest over five million mourning doves annually – which is an amazing number if you think about it. We’re the number one dove harvest state in the nation.

Shaun Oldenburger, migratory shore and upland game bird program leader, says that’s just a small percentage of available birds.

We have a lot of biologists out there trapping birds right now. And we’re seeing a lot of hatch year young – juvenile birds in the population – so that means it will be a good opening season for folks getting out September first, or whenever their opening day is in their zone.

Dove hunting is “front end loaded” meaning most hunters that want to hunt… do so early in the season.

In some places, especially our north zone, pretty much by the first week in October, 90 percent of the harvest has already occurred for that zone for the season. Now, we do have a 90 day season, so it’s a long season. But, what we do is allow those other days to occur for other folks that may have an opportunity later on. We want to make those hunting seasons as flexible as possible for folks, because some people may enjoy going later when there’s not as many hunters out. So we allot a lot of flexibility for dove hunting.

Find bag limits and other hunting regulations on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

That’s our show, The Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series, and funds Mourning Dove Density, Distribution, and Harvest surveys in Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti