Jason's First Hunt

I recently posted about taking Joe hunting, and how he is now capable of hunting on his own.   Joe is on the right, Jason is on the left. 

Last year, Jason expressed an interest in hunting, but we were not able to make it happen.   This year, I was able to take Jason on his first hunt.

I arrived to pick up the young hunters.   A mistake had been made in setting the alarm clock, so no one was up, and I was knocking on the door at 5:15 a.m.   They got up shortly, and we were able to leave only 15 minutes late.   I told them that I was not upset, as it was only their prime hunting time that was being lost.  I gave the boys a short briefing to remind them of the safety rules before we left the house.

The best dove hunting is usually in the early morning, just before dawn, when the dove start flying.   A major storm system had gone through the area, and that often changes the birds behaviour, so we did not see as many as we had a few days ago.

Jason had only shot a shotgun once, under my supervision, a couple of years ago.  He had never fired at a moving  or living target.  On his second shot, he brought down a dove!   He missed the third shot, and brought down a dove on the fourth shot!  That dove proved hard to recover.   It crawled under some creosote bush, dense with trapped tumbleweed, and proved adept at evading both of us.   I had never had a bird that had been downed, that I had actually touched, get away before.  Its disappearance was like a magic act.  We finally gave up on looking for it.

An hour later, Jason and I started to walk over to Joe's position, and we spotted the wounded dove standing out in the open.   I directed Jason to finish it off with a shot aimed to catch the head in the fringe of the shotgun's pattern at 20 feet.   I wasn't going to spend another 20 minutes chasing after the wounded bird.

We do not shoot at flying birds when we are searching for one that is down, because that often results in a lost bird.

After the second dove, a lot more shells were expended.   Dove are fast, maneuverable, small targets.   Jason got one more bird with over a box of shells expended.  Joe also brought down one bird.   We intend to go out again tomorrow, to catch the early flight before church.

Here is a picture that captures the nature of our dove hunting area:

Jason is holding a 20 gauge Charles Daley model 500.  I only allowed him to load one barrel until I was more confident in his abilities.     Joe has my Browning Double-Auto Twentyweight.   They were only made in 12 gauge.

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