How bad is the drought out west on the sunflower/milo crops around Abilene? My friend talked to an outfitter we use and he is canceling all hunts at this time unless conditions change. He handles large groups and is booked every weekend normally so that is very drastic. Is he over reacting or are the crops that bad? This place is used for dove hunting only.

Oh it's dry no doubt. But there is still some sunflowers around

+2 on that question, we hunt in Quanah. and its real dry out there this year. Does anyone have a report that travels on Hwy 287?

Wichita falls (287) and surrounding areas are REALLY dry. Wichita is 16"+ under our average rainfall for this year so far and I don't know of many, if any crops that produced.

Try this link out: http://water.weather.gov/precip/
You can get the departure from normal, total ammount over the last day or the last year. Click on Texas for a local view.


It's pretty bleak, but the place I hunt usually only gets a few inches a year anyway. Dove seem to be pretty resilient.

In abilene here. The Sunflowers i've seen are fairly short.

But i wouldnt worry about it. I bet it will rain in august, maybe enough to fill up the tanks.....hunt over water.

Never seen it this bad. Stock tanks are almost dry, and even the few sunflowers we have will probably be dead by September.

Don't really think it will be a horrible dove season but it sure as hell won't be great. For all you metro-mess folks I don't even know if it would be worth the drive out here.

South of Abilene has not been hit as hard as north Abilene IMO. Anything north of hwy 180 is a wasteland.

Heading to Graham, pulling the pit with lots of ice cold beverages. going out with a pessamistic attitude, that way if there are birds it will be a bonus. I know the party will be GREAT!
We had a great hunt last year near Commanche/Brownwood. The outfitter isn't even hunting it this year.

Looks like there was a little rain around Graham last week, probably not enough to wet the ground.

Let's see, with my luck, we'll get a hurricane and be stuck in the mud all opening weekend!!

We hunt on my in-laws farm land about 30 miles north of abilene and they feel like their tank has about 3 more months of no rain to dry it up entirely.

They say they see tons and tons of doves still every day, but July and August are the best time to go shooting out there. Too bad TPWD doesn't see it that way.

There showing 106 and 108 temps for us Sunday here in Bell county . Its sad shape here . All my millet and rice are dying and most of the places I hunt don't have water

i'm hoping the WMA's in our neck of the woods hold up. fortunately my 2 dove areas I go in are right off of water. I need to do some scouting, but i'm hoping it will cool off in August so I can actually go out there and not die of heat stroke in a field.

not so great its hotter that heck the sun flowers are still coming up tho

I contacted one of the large outfitters north in Albany who I have been with the past several years and they expect to have half the # of fields as usual. I might just sit at my deer lease near Dallas and see what flies if they don't hunt either. Some groups are going to be pushed out looking for places to go it sounds like.