Inside Out Blog

North Carolina Dove Opener

9/15/2013

Labor Day morning, Cory and I headed over to the Alcoa gameland for the opening day of the North Carolina Dove season. We have been scouting this area for deer hunting quite a bit during the off season so we decided to setup at first light near the power line clear cut to see if we could catch the morning flight of doves. Not long after we had setup we had a dove fly over us that caught us by total surprise. We saw a few others on the power lines but nothing that flew to us and decided to take a walk around and see if we could jump any on the new logging roads; we did but no shots were taken. On our way back to where we had our gear set I flushed one dove out ahead of us and took a shot but did not connect. Although we did not leave with any doves for dinner we used a good part of the day to scout for deer and are now very comfortable in the area and we do believe we will take some deer as the season progresses. All in all it was a great day out and it beat sitting in the office! Now hopefully our scouting endeavors pay off in the coming weeks. Be sure to keep an eye out for many new posts coming!

P.S. - We would love to hear from our readers how they did on dove this year, so feel free to share your stories with us!

-Paul Nicolucci

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2011 Dove Opening - Persistence Pays Off

9/6/2011

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The 2011 North Carolina Dove season opened this past Saturday at noon. I headed down to Goldsboro, NC to hunt with my long-time friend Derrick, who is deploying overseas with the Air Force this week. We headed out with another friend to the fields where we hunted last year and had a successful day.

We arrived to the field a bit after noon and we were all surprised to see that there was not another soul out hunting. I'm thinking it was due to the heat, it was close to 90! We stood in this watermelon patch that had given us a lot of action last year but nothing was flying! We gave it about two hours and then decided to check out another field that we saw some farmers out in picking their watermelon. Upon arriving we asked permission and they were more than happy to let us hunt their fields. We saw a few birds but only took a couple of shots, none of which yielded any birds. It was now close to 3pm and we were starting to ask ourselves what was wrong! It did not seem as though there was much shooting near us. We heard some shots off in the distance and decided to pack up and go look for the field with the action!

We drove around for about 10 minutes and found a field where there were about 4 or 5 other guys hunting and there were birds all over the place! In the 10 minutes it took us to talk to some of the guys to make sure it was ok to hunt the same field we saw them shoot at least a half dozen birds! We set up in the field and hunted it until dark. We had a great hunt even though the action started late in the day! With the three hunters the bird count was the following:

Paul: 13
Derrick: 7

Our other friend limited out! We then headed back to Derrick's place where I took a couple pictures of the 20 doves that he and I had shot. I'm sorry the quality is not better, but it was dark and all I had with me was the cell phone. We cleaned them up and called it a day.

I'm planning to cook the doves up in the next week or so. I have a couple of recipes that Derrick told me about.

1) Dove Rice - Boil the dove breasts in chicken broth and then add rice(s) and some seasoning to the mixture.

2) Dove Kabobs - Wrap each dove breast in bacon, place on Kabob sticks and grill until the bacon is done.

If anyone else has any suggestions I'd like to try them out, so let us know!

-Paul Nicolucci

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On Deck - 2011 Dove Opener in NC

9/2/2011

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I know many of you like myself are planning on hitting up the fields of North Carolina for the opening day of the 2011 Dove hunting season this coming weekend. I'll be hunting a couple of different spots down in Goldsboro, NC, probably starting on a farm we hunted last year and got close to 50 doves in a few hours, then if we need to we'll head to another spot close to my friend Derrick's house. I'm hoping we have a successful day as Derrick will be shipping out to Qutar for the next 6 months with the United States Air Force!

I'll be using my Benelli Super Black Eagle II, shooting 7.5 shot size game loads in combination with a Kicks High Flyer improved cylinder choke. Now that you know my setup, I'd like to hear what everyone else's favorite dove rig is, so please share it with us using the comments feature!

Just a few reminders:

1) Ensure that your license is up to date including your HIP certification.

2) It will probably be a hot one like it usually is on opening day, so be sure to have plenty of fluids on hand so no one has to end the day early due to dehydration or heat stroke. Also, put some sunscreen on so you don't look like a lobster for the rest of the Holiday weekend!

3) Please be safe out there! There are usually many folks sharing the same field during opening day so make sure you know your shot and beyond. Every hunt that is a safe hunt is a successful one!

4) Also, give your local regulations a look over to check for any special laws for the areas you are hunting (some of the gamelands have specific regulations for dove).

I've also included a few photos from opening day last year!

Happy hunting and be safe!!!

-Paul Nicolucci

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Inside Out Outdoors

North Carolina Dove Opener

2011 Dove Opening - Persistence Pays Off

On Deck - 2011 Dove Opener in NC

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