Drunken Elk rescued from Swede's apple tree

When Per Johansson of Saro, south of Gothenburg, returned home from work on Tuesday it was dark outside and the rain was coming down hard. Suddenly Johansson heard a bellowing noise from the garden next door.

“I thought at first that someone was having a laugh. Then I went over to take a look and spotted an elk stuck in an apple tree with only one leg left on the ground,” Johansson told The Local.

The unfortunate elk was desperately entangled in the tree’s branches and was kicking ferociously as Johansson approached.

“I thought it looked pretty bad so I called the police who sent out an on-call hunter. But while we were waiting, the neighbours and I started to saw down some of the branches and then the hunter arrived with a saw as well,” said Johansson.

The group tried to make the elk more comfortable but to no avail.

It wasn’t until the fire brigade arrived on the scene and managed to bend the tree to the point where the exhausted elk could slide out of the branches that the animal was finally freed.

According to Johansson, it looked very much like the elk was severely drunk after eating too many fermenting apples.

Drunken elk are common in Sweden during the autumn season when there are plenty of apples lying around on the ground and hanging from branches in Swedish gardens.

While the greedy animal was reaching ever higher to reach the delicious but intoxicating fruit, it most likely stumbled into the tree, getting itself hopelessly entangled in the branches.

And from what Johansson could gather, this particular animal had been on a day-long bender.

“My neighbour recognised it as the animal that almost ran into her car earlier in the day. She was pretty sure the elk was already under the influence,“ said Johansson.

When the inebriated elk was freed, it lay for a while on the ground, seemingly unconscious.

After emergency services had ascertained that the animal was still alive, Johansson was told to keep an eye on it and call the hunter straight away if it seemed to be suffering.

But by the morning the hungover animal had stood up and cautiously moved a few metres away.

After a while it went on its way, although Johansson suspects it is still skulking around the neighbourhood.

“We often see elk stuffing their faces with apples around here but this is the first time we found one perched in a tree,” he told The Local.
By: Rebecca Martin

The One Million Dollar whitetail buck

With a 46-point rack and a Boone and Crockett score of 334, it's hard to
argue that a whitetail named Stickers isn't the biggest buck to ever
consume protein in Texas .. Sammy Nooner of Hondo brought Stickers home in
February. Since then, fellow deer breeders have been speculating on the
price tag. Some estimates involve seven figures for the 6-year-old
monarch buck, whose semen fetches $4,000 to $5,000 per straw. Noone r,
however, said the price is going to stay between him and the seller -
Tommy Dugger, one of the state's top deer breeders. 'It's probably as

high as anybody's ever paid,'' he said, 'but we're not letting it out; Tommy and I have a gentleman's agreement.''

Damon Thorpe, director of operations for the Texas Deer Association,

said there are probably only two deer in the United States bigger than
Stickers. 'I think you can say with confidence he's the most expensive
deer ever in Texas ,'' Thorpe said. 'It's not inconceivable at all to
think a deer like that is worth $1 million.'' Dugger told the Lone Star
Outdoor News it would not be accurate to say the deer sold for one
million dollars. Wildlife consultant Chase Clark, who works with both
Nooner and Dugger, said the biggest buck title was previously held by
Jake the Dream Buck, which was owned by Dugger. Jake died of a
respiratory illness in the winter of 2005, Clark said. In the meantime,
Dugger acquired the up-and-comer Stickers, who was born in 2001 on the
Glen Morgan ranch.

But Stickers had something else going for him, Clark said. This deer is the offspring of a doe impregnated by artificial insemination with semen
from an Ohio legend named Redoy Ben. The elder whitetail, who was only
about 2 years old at the time, showed a lot of potential, Clark said. Redoy Ben died that same year, also to a respiratory illness. Nevertheless, Clark said the big deer's potential was realized through his son, Stickers. 'It wasn't until October of 2006 that a tape was put on those antlers,'' Clark said of Sticker's headgear. 'Now Stickers
represents the ultimate in the Texas deer breeding industry.''

Nooner, a South Texas gasoline distributor, is also known for the
quality dove hunts he offers from his base in Medina County .. 'We just
wanted to help the genetics,'' he said. 'It was fun just trying to see how big a deer could grow.'' But Nooner may be on the verge of seeing
his profits grow as well.
'Let's assume he did pay $1 million for the deer,'' Thorpe said. 'All he has to do is sell 200 straws to get his money out of him. You can easily

get that in a year, and do it safely.'' But despite his pedigree, Nooner
and Clark agree there's nothing uppity about Stickers. 'Some deer are
more nervous than others,'' Clark said. 'They don't do well in breeding
operations. But Stickers is pretty laid back. 'He's great at posing for
the camera.''

by: http://www.bowhunting.com/blog/author/Bow-Staff.aspx

White-tailed deer abundant; mule deer, elk, so-so

First, the good news: White-tailed deer hunting should be good this fall.

The herds have taken some hits in recent years from hard winters, but they’ve repeatedly proven resilient. Whitetails should continue to provide some of the state’s best big game hunts.

But overall, you can expect deer hunting to be tougher than last year.

Deer hunters in 2010 (whitetails and mule deer) snapped a three-year decline in harvest despite 12,715 fewer tags sold between 2008 and 2010.

Idaho deer hunters killed 44,328 deer in general and controlled hunts in 2010, including 25,337 mule deer and 19,031 whitetails for a combined success rate of 37 percent. In 2009, hunters killed 42,300 deer.

The harvest will likely drop this fall because of a hard winter that killed lots of mule deer fawns.

“We expect deer to be down a little because we had some high over-winter mortality,” said Brad Compton, state wildlife manager.

WHITE-TAILED DEER

Whitetails in the north and north/central parts of the state provide the best deer hunting opportunities year after year.

Long hunting seasons, including hunts during the rut and lots of either-sex opportunity, have landed the North Idaho hunting units among the top for harvest and success rates for several years running.

Unit 1 in the northernmost Panhandle is a perennial top unit for whitetails and routinely exceeds statewide success rates.

Unit 10A in north/central Idaho was another winner last year, landing in the top five for both deer harvest and success rates, and it was also a top elk producer. While hunting units north of the Salmon River provide the best whitetail hunting, the animals are distributed throughout Idaho except the southern-most parts of the state.

Deer hunters with a general tag can harvest whitetails in most areas throughout October, but those wanting to hunt whitetails in the prime November rut must opt for a white-tailed deer tag, which excludes hunters from killing a mule deer.

MULE DEER

Mule deer hunter’s modest bump in the harvest last year will likely be shortlived because mule deer hunters will be hit with a double-whammy: low fawn survival and conditions that could make deer hard to find.

Last winter, Fish and Game biologists monitored 192 radio-collared fawns in 39 hunting units south of the Salmon River, and only 26 percent survived. It’s the lowest survival rate since monitoring started in 1998, and a fraction of the long-term average of about 60 percent survival.

Fawn survival is an indicator of upcoming hunts because fawns that survive winter become yearlings in the fall, which are typically a large percentage of the deer

harvest.

That being said, adult winter-kill was average, and the state’s buck/doe ratio is meeting Fish and Game’s objectives of 15 bucks per 100 does. That means there should be a fair number of mature bucks available this year — if you can find them.

The prolonged, cool, wet spring created abundant forage for deer and prime conditions for good antler growth. While that bodes well for the animals, it doesn’t necessarily do hunters a favor.

Abundant forage and water often means animals don’t congregate around scarce water sources like during a dry year, so finding animals could be a challenge.

ELK

Did elk harvests bottom out in 2009? It’s an interesting question after harvest declined for four years, but went from 15,800 in 2009 year to 17,792 in 2010.

F&G officials attribute the increase to favorable weather last hunting season that brought snow to some areas and drove elk out of the high country, or just made them easier to hunt.

The increased harvest in 2010 is more notable considering Fish and Game sold 7,800 fewer elk tags in 2010 than it did in 2008 and 2,256 fewer than it did in 2009, so it was actually fewer hunters killing more elk, which drive the statewide success rate up to 23 percent.

But we’re hunters, not accountants, right? What does it mean for this year?

F&G game officials expect this fall’s harvest to be similar to 2010.

Elk are not as prone to winter kill as deer, so elk herds tend to be more stable.

Despite that, elk herds are facing different sets of challenges, including habitat, predators, and cow productivity and calf survival.

Hunters also have faced challenges when elk herds dwindled in traditional strongholds, while herds elsewhere have maintained populations or increased.

“We have good elk populations and fully functioning herds in two-thirds of our zones,” F&G director Virgil Moore said.

“That doesn’t diminish the fact there are large portion of the central part of the state where elk populations are down.”

F&G’s surveys show 12 elk zones are meeting cow population objectives, 11 are over objectives, and six are under.

The state of bulls is similar, with seven zones meeting bull objectives, 13 over objectives and nine below objectives.

But nowhere in big game hunting is there a bigger gap between what the biologists see during winter helicopter flights and what hunters see during the fall hunting season.

Both hunters and biologists say elk have changed their habits because of wolves.

“They don’t just stand around on open hillsides like they used to,” Moore said.

Elk now tend to favor timbered areas where they are harder to spot, and bulls are less vocal during the fall rut, which makes them harder to locate.

But hunters are adapting to different elk behavior and becoming more effective at hunting them.

There’s also been a migration of elk hunters out of traditional elk hunting areas where herds have declined and into areas with healthier elk herds.

It often takes hunters a couple of seasons to learn a new area and figure out how to hunt it successfully.

“I think there’s a fair amount of that going on in parts of the state,” Moore said.

Many elk hunters are celebrating the return of wolf hunting as a way to relieve some predation on elk, but Fish and Game officials caution hunters to temper their expectations, because an overnight rebound in elk populations isn’t likely.

“The reality is wildlife populations tend to respond relatively slowly,” wildlife manager Compton said. “The first thing you want to do is reverse the trend, and that’s going to take a couple years, at least.”

But Compton thinks elk herds can rebound, and the harvest could return to the heyday of the mid 1990s.

“I would like to see us back in that 20,000 range,” Compton said.

“Most folks thought elk hunting was better then, even though success rates were similar (to last year).”

BY ROGER PHILLIPS - rphillips@idahostatesman.com

Woman Catches 1,025 Pound Gator

Maryellen Mara-Christian of Massachusetts kills her first alligator on a hunt in South Carolina and she winds up hooking celebrity status in the process.
Hooking and killing the 1,025-pound, 131/2-foot gator has made her something of a celebrity.

“He was just a big old gator,” she said Friday by phone from a hotel in Washington, D.C., where she will be interviewed on a morning news show today. “The hunt of a lifetime, I’d say.”

The 48-year-old laid-off bank marketing officer from Fitchburg, Mass., was hunting Wednesday with her husband, Mark, who is a firefighter in Massachusetts and a part-time hunting guide in Maine, and Lake Moultrie guide Kevin Davis.

“I came down to South Carolina hoping for a 10-footer and I just lucked out to may have gotten one of the biggest ones people have ever seen,” Mara-Christian said.

Alligator hunting is part hunting, part fishing. Hunters use a regular fishing pole with a heavy line and a large snatch hook. They try to get several hooks in the alligator to get him close to the boat so they can shoot or harpoon them. It is illegal in South Carolina for a hunter to shoot a free swimming alligator.

It took about two hours for Mara-Christian’s party to secure the gator before they could shoot it. But the .22-caliber gun they had wasn’t powerful enough to put the animal down so Mara-Christian used a knife to sever the animal’s spinal cord at the base of its head.

“It was just shake, shake, shake,” she said. “I was shaking for a long time after, but that happens when you hunt.”

Meat processor Steve Drummond, owner of 301 Processing and Taxidermy, initially estimated that the gator weighed 900 pounds, but he and a friend were curious and procured a certified scale. Drummond, who has killed more than a dozen gators over the years, and processed the meat of many more, said it was the biggest one he had ever seen.

He said he has weighed gators that were just three feet shorter, but weighed less than 400 pounds.

“That is a very, very, very heavy alligator,” Drummond said. “That one there had gobs and gobs of fat on it.”

In fact, there was so much fat that only about 40 pounds of the meat is usable, he said. Drummond also will do the taxidermy on the gator so Mara-Christian can display it.

Only 1,000 licenses were given out for the month-long alligator hunting season, according to the South Carolina Natural Resources Department website. Each hunter can get one alligator a year. The state is divided into four regions with no gator hunting allowed in the northwest area known as the Upstate. Licenses are awarded by lottery and hunters must stay in the zone where they were selected.

Mara-Christian was hunting on the lower of the Santee Cooper lakes, which are about halfway between Columbia and Charleston.

Drummond and Mara-Christian had gone hunting the day before, stalking the gators while standing in about a foot of water on the edge of the lake.

“I was never afraid, I had to trust the two people that were in the water with me,” she said. “You have to be aware and smart. We just stayed along the edges. The gators are out ahead of us.”

Mara-Christian said she and her husband have hunted black bear, deer and other animals.
“Every animal that we hunt is a different experience,” she said. “It’s hard to compare one with the other. But this was truly a great experience, like I said, probably the hunt of a lifetime.”

by Kristine Doluche

Oklahoma’s “Most Wanted”: 206-inch Trophy Buck

George Moore’s instincts told him this would be a good day for deer hunting. He had been pursuing an elusive trophy buck nicknamed “Most Wanted” that usually left him perplexed, but today was different.

Most Wanted was a cautious buck that spent the daylight hours in dense bedding cover before coming out at dark. Though Moore chronicled the buck’s routine on game cameras, previous attempts to arrow the bruiser had been futile.

Rumors of a giant buck in the vicinity of Moore’s property were confirmed with a single trail camera photo in 2009. From that point on, Moore was obsessed in his pursuit of the buck. Photo courtesy of Mike Lambeth.

On October 18, 2010, when Moore climbed into his tree stand for an afternoon hunt, he noticed the temperature had cooled off. His wait was brief before does and a small buck appeared and fed beneath him. Suddenly, the deer were alerted to something Moore couldn’t see. Peering intently into the nearby trees, the agitated deer slowly moved away.

Moore wondered if a bigger buck was approaching. With tensed nerves he slowly reached for his bow, knowing that something lurked just beyond his view.

In seconds, Most Wanted appeared from behind a big cedar! While staring at the huge antlers of a true trophy buck, Moore nervously drew his bow.

A DEER FANATIC

In 2009, Moore was told that a giant whitetail had been seen on the property next to his hunting area. It was believed the wide-racked brute shared time on Moore’s property as well. However, Moore had never seen the buck nor captured any images on his game cameras. He wondered if the giant buck actually existed until a friend confirmed his suspicions with a trail camera picture of the brute.

One glimpse at the great buck was enough to cause Moore to become obsessed. His zeal drove him to strategically prepare the food plots on his hunting property before the 2010 season. In addition, Moore decided to feed huge amounts of rice bran to supplement the deer on his property.

Care was also taken to hang three tree stands near areas where the buck traveled, in hopes that Moore or his son, Matt, would get a crack at Most Wanted.

Less than a month before the archery season opener, Most Wanted was photographed directly beneath Moore’s stand with a smaller 7-point buck. Moore was ecstatic that the phantom whitetail had a penchant

for the area by his favorite tree stand and vowed only to hunt the deer when the wind was right.

Moore’s Oklahoma bruiser had several of the ingredients for a great score — mass, tine length, and an impressive spread. Photo by courtesy of George Moore.

In photos, the buck appeared to be very typical with all the ingredients necessary to score well — several long tines, mass and a wide spread. In an effort to carefully monitor the buck, Moore set out cameras along a creek where the buck traveled.

Since Moore’s hunting property was surrounded by a housing addition and golf course, he wondered if others were after the big buck, too.

ARCHERY SEASON OPENS
On opening day of archery season, Moore’s son, Matt, was unable to hunt, so Moore took his son-in-law, Chris McMiller, instead. McMiller was given his choice of the three stands and chose the “Hilltop Stand” where his father-in-law usually hunted himself. Moore decided to hunt a stand near the creek nicknamed the “Fenceline Stand.”

As darkness approached that evening, Moore saw nothing, so he walked to his truck and drove towards McMiller’s location. When McMiller wasn’t at the meeting place, Moore glassed the distant tree stand and noticed he was still there.

Moore grabbed a flashlight and walked to the stand, sensing something was wrong. McMiller was shaking. He told his father-in-law that Most Wanted stood beneath his tree stand for 15 minutes, but he was shaking too badly to shoot.

“The buck’s tines were long and dark-colored,” McMiller told his father-in-law. “He was huge!”

Moore knew that if he was going to kill the big buck he needed to hunt the Hilltop Stand only, and the wind would have to be perfect.

THE FATEFUL DAY
Being in the oil and gas business, Moore stayed very busy for the next 10 days and was only afforded one day to bowhunt, which produced the same small bucks and does he had become accustomed to seeing.

On October 18, Moore had a feeling that his luck was going to change, and knew he needed to go hunting. Stymied by morning meetings at work, Moore called Matt and set up an afternoon hunt.

Moore and his son arrived at their lease just before 3 p.m., parked their vehicles, and loaded up in the Polaris to head to their stands. Moore drove Matt to the Fenceline Stand and then headed to his spot on the hillside.

At 3:15 p.m., Moore climbed 30 feet into his stand. He saw nothing for the first two hours. With a little more than an hour of light left, Moore saw some does and fawns approaching his location.

The deer were feeding 20 yards away when the biggest doe in the group snapped her head up and gazed intently into the trees. Unnerved by what she saw, the doe began easing away with the other deer.

In a few minutes, a 7-point buck walked out and began feeding on the rice bran. Soon the other deer returned, but their attention was focused on the woods. Coming out of the trees with his nose to the ground was Most Wanted, now feeding 20 yards away.

“I couldn’t believe he was finally in front of me” Moore said, “I was going nuts. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, so I wouldn’t get nervous from staring at his massive antlers.”

When Moore opened his eyes Most Wanted was consuming the rice bran that mysteriously appeared every few days. Taking careful aim, Moore released an arrow that struck the buck’s left shoulder. The buck spun and ran with the arrow buried to the fletching.

After waiting in his stand until 6 p.m., Moore called Matt with the good news. Matt soon drove up in the Polaris, and the pair started to look for the buck as darkness fell. Moore found hair near the spot where the buck was standing. At Matt’s urging, they decided to return the next morning to look for the buck.

The next morning, Matt met his dad at the lease at 9:15 and they drove to the spot near the Hilltop Stand. Matt found a good blood trail and 80 yards away lay Most Wanted. When Moore saw the huge buck he was overcome with emotion.

“I thanked God as I grabbed the buck’s rack,” Moore said. “I was amazed. The buck was awesome!”

The antlers were a mainframe 7×7, but one side had seven sticker points. Moore took the buck to Terry’s Taxidermy in Oklahoma City, where the veteran taxidermist estimated the buck to score in the 180s.

Sixty days later, the buck was officially measured and the non-typical rack grossed an amazing 206 5/8 and netted 191 7/8.

 by Mike Lambeth

'Pork choppers' go to work today as feral hog season opens

Coincidentally, on the same day that hunters can begin to scour the skies for doves, hunters in helicopters can take aim down on feral hogs.

A new state law goes into effect today that allows people to pay to hunt hogs from helicopters, or what some have nicknamed "pork choppers."

With the new law, Dustin Johnson, owner of Knox City-based Cedar Ridge Aviation, said his business is changing completely. For three years, landowners have been paying him to get rid of hogs by shooting them from helicopters. Now, he said, hunters will be paying him to shoot hogs.

"I am 100 percent fully booked for September," he said, explaining that he has heli-hunting trips scheduled every day.

To be able to hunt hogs by helicopter requires a state permit as a qualified landowner or landowner's agent, said Steve Lightfoot, a spokesman for the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. To qualify, a person cannot be convicted of a felony or Class A misdemeanor or of the federal Lacey Act, which deals with the illegal transfer of wildlife across state lines.

Helicopter operations must be registered with the state as a wildlife aerial management operation, Lightfoot said. About 130 helicopter services are registered, about 30 more than a year ago, he added.

Johnson said he already has permission from the landowners in Haskell and Knox counties, where most of his hunts take place, and he takes care of the required landowner's agent paperwork.

Safety is his biggest concern, he said, but no training is involved to learn to shoot from the open door of a helicopter.

"I can tell you everything you need to know to shoot out of a helicopter in less than 10 minutes," he said.

"There's zero tolerance on 'no shooting when we say no shooting,'" Johnson said. "If you shoot when we say don't shoot, you're going to find yourself walking — you're kicked out of the helicopter wherever we are."

The helicopter will be banking at times as it flies, Johnson said, and if the helicopter blades are damaged by a shot, the helicopter is going to land "really hard."

As a helicopter flushes hogs out into the open, the pilot maneuvers it into position and tells the hunter when to shoot and when not to shoot.

The helicopter flies about 10 to 20 feet above the ground, and sometimes only 4 to 6 feet.

Hog hunts can last from two hours to all day. Johnson charges $600 per hour with a two-hour minimum. The weapon of choice is the AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle.

Hunting feral hogs by helicopter has helped reduce the hog population, said Russell Flanary, president of Haskell County Hog Control. The association was formed by about 125 landowners who hired Johnson to shoot hogs on their 32,000 acres.

"Before we weren't able to grow milo or anything because of the hogs," Flanary said. "Now we're able to grow milo again. ... We've all tried night hunting, trapping, all types of methods to get rid of hogs, but the helicopter is leaps and bounds better than anything else."

State Rep. Sid Miller, R-Stephenville, who authored the new state law, said hunting via helicopter has

proved to be the best means of controlling hogs.

State agencies estimate there are more than 2 million feral hogs in Texas. According to a Texas Department of Agriculture study, each hog causes between $50 and $500 in damage annually to agriculture and wildlife habitats.

It's a statewide issue, Miller said, not just a rural problem. Hogs have been moving into suburban areas and damaging cemeteries, golf courses and parks, not just crops and fences in the country, he said.

"Landowners have been able to get a permit to do a helicopter hunt prior to the passage of this law," Miller said. "What this does is allows the landowner to sell that seat on the helicopter. Instead of being an expense for the landowner, it will generate some income."

Plus, he said, the bill directed the Parks & Wildlife Department to set guidelines and safety regulations for helicopter hunts. The Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission adopted those last week.

After a few months of hunting hogs by helicopter, landowners in Haskell County said they saw a reduction in the number of hogs.

"We used to have pig trails 40- and 50-feet wide crossing the dirt road, now we see three or four tracks" Flanary said. "By no means do we have the amount of hogs we had before."

By Larry Zelisko

Virginia's goose and dove hunting seasons are open!

What's a hunter to do on Thursday, when West Virginia's goose and dove hunting seasons open on the same day?

"The goose season opens a half hour before sunrise, and the dove season opens at noon," Steve Wilson said with a chuckle. "I'd suggest that hunters go goose hunting that morning and hunt for doves that afternoon."

Division of Natural Resources officials start the two seasons on the same day for a reason; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sets the seasons for migratory birds, and federal officials have decided that no season should open before Sept. 1.
Wilson, the DNR's migratory bird project leader, said Mountain State officials "want seasons to open as soon as they can. Hunters are eagerly waiting for those opening days, so we set for the first day the federal framework allows."
The goose and dove hunts differ from most West Virginia seasons because Sept. 1 usually falls on a weekday.
"I like the weekday openings, because they spread the hunting pressure around," Wilson said. "If we opened

them on a Saturday, like we do the deer archery season, the popular hunting spots would get pretty crowded. At places like the McClintic Wildlife Management Area and the Green Bottom WMA - both of which are good goose- and dove-hunting locations - the shooting would get pretty intense.

Wilson said he "frankly doubts" that hunters consider same-day openers a problem.
 "Dove and goose hunters tend to be at opposite ends of the spectrum," he explained. "I'm not sure how many hunt both. The few folks that have to make a choice of which species to hunt on the first day aren't really missing a lot by waiting a day or two to take on the other species. There's good hunting for both after opening day."
Wilson believes both species should be readily available to hunters this year, even though goose reproduction was "spotty."
"There were some areas where we found very few young birds," he said. "Even so, most folks won't notice a big decrease in the number of geese they see. Where there is a scarcity of young birds, the remaining birds will seem a little smarter because there aren't as many young, dumb ones in the bunch."

The key to bagging some of those older, smarter birds, Wilson added, is to take regular trips afield to discover where flocks are feeding.
"A typical deer hunter scouts before the seasons and spends all his time hunting after the season begins. With geese, you need to keep scouting even after the season begins. You have to keep up with where they're resting and where they're feeding," he said.
Agricultural lands are the best places to look.
"If a cornfield is getting cut, there's a good chance geese will be on it the next day. If a hayfield gets cut, the

hunter should wait two or three days, until the first spurt of good green growth comes along, and then go hunting," Wilson said.
The best day to scout, he added, is the day before a planned hunt."Just because geese were in a field a week ago doesn't mean they'll be there when you go hunting. If you find out where they are right now, you improve your chances of getting some the next day."
Finding doves on opening day shouldn't be nearly as difficult. Not only are doves far more abundant than geese, they tend to inhabit a more easily defined home range.
"They can be fluid in their movements, but they aren't nearly as mobile as geese," Wilson said. "Look for

them where agricultural crops have recently been harvested, or in places where seed-bearing weeds have recently been brush-hogged."
He described this year's dove population as "pretty good."

"We do call-count surveys in the spring, and dove numbers were much the same as they usually are. Also, every year we have biologists in three of our six game-management districts capture a given number of birds and put bands on them. This year our people had no trouble catching their quotas, so dove numbers are pretty good."
The banding efforts took place in Districts 1, 3 and 5 - the northern, central and southwestern counties.
Wilson said goose and dove hunters need a special license or two to hunt migratory birds. For example, hunters for both species must obtain a federal HIP permit.
"HIP stands for Harvest Information Program," Wilson explained. "The permit is free, and it can be picked up at any DNR office or from any hunting-license agent. If you buy your hunting license online, you can do it electronically."
Fish and Wildlife Service officials use the HIP registrations as the basis for their periodic surveys of hunter success and preferences.
"The questionnaire asks you how much you hunted the year before, and which species you prefer to hunt," Wilson explained. "It just tells the feds which hat to put your name into for a possible survey. They don't want dove hunters getting into waterfowl surveys, and vice-versa."

The HIP permit is free, but it is mandatory. Hunters who fail to obtain one can be cited for hunting without a proper license.
Goose hunters must also purchase a $15 federal migratory bird hunting stamp, commonly known as a "duck stamp." They can be purchased at most hunting-license outlets, and they are available online at http://www.duckstamp.com/.
Shotguns are goose and dove hunters' preferred firearms, and federal regulations differ slightly from state regulations in their use.
Pump or auto-loading shotguns, for example, must have their magazines plugged to hold no more than three shells. That restriction applies to all migratory species - geese, doves, ducks, woodcock, rails, snipe, gallinules and mergansers.
Waterfowl hunters must also use non-toxic shot. Lead shot is OK for dove hunting, but forbidden for goose or duck hunting.
This year's early goose season will run through Sept. 17. The early segment of the three-part dove season is brief. It lasts only until Sept. 8.