Hope ya'll are doing well. I didn't grow up hunting and last season was my first. I'm teaching myself as no one else in my family hunts. Thankfully I have a couple buddies with land and got invited twice last season to go shoot dove with them. But I tried several solo hunts on public land with no success. But I enjoyed just being out there anyways. I'm a grad student in austin so I have time to hunt even during the week. Wanted to see if any of ya'll more experienced hunters have any advice or tips (for a college student with no land) about how to get more birds. Thanks!

Scout, find birds, find the fields they are using, find the flight paths they are using, find the area of the field they are using, find what time of the day they are using the field.

If you find answers to all the above you will have successful hunts. It may take hours and days to find the above answers but once you do you will know where and when to hunt.

Now granted just bc TPWD has a dove field availible to hunt doesn't mean it will ever hold any concentration of birds. It could be a lack of food, to much hunting pressure, or some other reason.

I am in the same boat as you. This season will be first hunt with my daughter for doves in Lytle, TX. I am usually a big game hunter but decided to take up bird hunting as my daughter competes in shotgun and wants to have more shotgun time.

I see your a Grad student and live in Austin. I have lots of places to hunt but the big question is did you vote for Biden being in Austin and all

Public dove hunting in Texas pretty much sux, at least around DFW. If you shoot 3 birds, that’s a good hunt.

If you get to a field and you have never been there, post up on the tallest dead tree. Dove love dead trees. As other guys mentioned, look for flyways and where the birds roost before the hit the fields. Usually in heavy mesquite stands out west.

Good luck and have fun.

Shoot in front

You have to lead birds that are flying and my advice is if you are missing them then start leading them even more. I tell my kids to start leading them way more than they think and that usually fixes the missing problem. Good luck and this forum is a great place to get questions answered

Butt belly beak boom

You probably didn't do anything wrong last season. Sounds like you found Public Land just no birds and last season, for me, was very hit or miss. I had better success hunting the South Zone then hunting Central Zone last year.

If you have a couple spots you're interested in start scouting now. Not sure where you are hunting.

Well, welcome to the sport! been hr many moons, all i can add, like some did, is our best hunts have been near or hunting over stock ponds in the
evenings prior to sunset. Birds water before going to roost. you find a good hole, your in biz. Only thing here now, in central TX, brenham area, we
had a very different wet and pretty rainy spring, and summer now. All ponds full, very few sun flower patches to hunt over. hay production is full swing in
our area, so birds have limited food plots of years past.
Maybe we get a future norther here in few weeks, may move northern birds down to texas, but thats not predicable.


Anyway, good luck, be safe, remember the good times....