I had quite an abysmal opening day. The part that sucks the most about it is that I did all the hard work most people don't do before a dove hunt to ensure I had a great day. I scouted the field in the rain Saturday, found tons of birds in a certain area, the other areas were pretty empty. This was at Bark Camp Barrens. I did some skeet shooting to get a bit more accurate. I got to the field super early to make sure I got in that good spot, it tends to get very crowded later on. And wouldn't you know it, all the action was in the parts of the field that I saw almost no birds in when I scouted. The part of the field I was in is historically the hottest part of the field every single year on the opener and this year it was a dud. All that work and I got to shoot at maybe 13-14 birds, they were all long shots and I missed them all. I normally wouldn't even have shot at them except that I didn't have much action so I was taking my chances. Only had a couple actually come close to me and someone got them first. I blew a hard earned vacation day at work for that result.
I'm hoping I'll have better luck this weekend, I plan to hunt every morning and late afternoon. Not sure where as of yet but I'd sure like to take home some birds. I'm not going anywhere near a designated field on Labor Day though. I'd rather cruise the edges of corn fields on public land and jump shoot a few.
