5 hunters in Throckmorton County. 2 hunts opening day, 21 birds total. Thursday morning, 4 hunters 2 birds total. Fewest in 15 years. Multiple 5 gallon buckets of dead birds picked up while feeding cattle during week long freeze. It ain’t the same, but the red legs will show up at some point.

Gonna take some cool fronts

My sunflower field project worked pretty good. These birds have been sitting on it for 2 to 4 weeks. My 12-year-old son and I are shot limits pretty easily and my ten-year-old got his first five dove ever. Overall a success. But we were not just covered up in birds. Probably saw about 300 resident birds come to the field. Going to take it pretty easy on them because I don’t know that they have reinforcements coming for a while. Everyone keeps saying that we need cool fronts to bring birds in, but if the freeze killed them north of us also, where are these birds going to come from? Did they fare better in Oklahoma or Kansas because they’re a little different strain of northern birds that handles cold-weather better?

Not many birds yesterday at Vancourt. Milo's being cut now. Hopefully it will improve when we start getting cooler weather.

If Stompy didn’t have birds; there weren’t many. I’m hoping this was a one off; the freeze. I really hoping it’s not a trend of evolution that the bigger birds shoving the more fragile morning dove out of nesting sites in town. Thus no babies. And those big birds stay in the trees in town and won’t fly out to the fields.

No doubt the freeze had a direct affect on bird population this year. As others have said once those fronts start pushing we will see better numbers.

We hunted in Haskell county on 9/1 and all got our limits, but it was hard hunting. We saw very few birds in the evening. On 9/2 in the morning on the same tank we saw even less birds.

Sat outside this morning for about an hour to drink my coffee. I only heard about 10 shots and usually it sounds like a war zone. Also have not seen as many on my bird feeders. Hope a front brings in some birds for you guys.

They should be coming down pretty soon.
We had a nice cool front move through yesterday.
Saw a ton of ducks on water that was bare 4 days ago.
Tons of blue wing teal, they are on the move starting down.

Saw few dove yesterday before the front and I bet most started down too.

Thanks for sending them down. The teal too....

Yessir, that's usually how it works down here.

I think the killer part to the freeze was the snow cover and frozen water holes. The birds could not eat or drink for days.

Not to beg the question, but why do we think the birds to the north of us fared better? Obviously it was colder further north… Do birds from Oklahoma and Kansas just tolerate zero or below zero much better than our birds because they are a little different strain of dove? I hope you guys are right, I just don’t know why there would be birds that did better north of us. I would think these birds to the north of us had a significant kill also.

They did better because they were all in Mexico.

Opening morning 1st bird went down with the first shot. Wahoo!! Shot twice more that morning with 2 misses. That afternoon only a few distant birds, not a shot. Next 3 days very few birds seen, out of the next 10 shots hit 2 birds that got lost in the very tall grass. That sucked. Didn't hear a single shot either morning or evening yesterday. Have 1 lonely breast in the freezer. Saw 2 damn snakes, pretty sure one was a fat rattler. He was next to the chairs that I left out and moved quick into a bunch of dead trees when I approached. Gave me the heeby jebbies! Made going in that tall grass a little more dicey.

My thoughts also. Just no energy to fight off the cold.

We were putting out water and feed during the freeze and still lost birds....I think we helped a few make it through but conditions were just too harsh

Whitewing with what looks like frostbite damage on feet

Every white wing we killed was missing toes.

I don’t care what the parks and wildlife report say there is a drastic reduction in the number of dove.

I talked to an insider at Parks and wildlife this week and he said there are people there that think that we lost upwards of 60 to 70% of the white wings and no telling how many morning Dove do to the freeze.

I plant and manage three properties in Bell County for dove. Each has anywhere from 20 to 70 acres of sunflowers.

We’ve been hunting these properties for at least five years.

Property 1 on opener we hunt 30 people snd shoot between 350 to 450 birds depending on people’s ability to hit. This year we shot 40.

Property two we always hunt the second day of the season with 10 hunters and 100% of the time over the last eight years Weve gotten 150 birds being 90% white wings. This year we got 75.

Property three we hunt 10 people and always get 150 birds yesterday we shot 38.

My family has decided that we’re not shooting any more dove off of these properties this year. We’re gonna let them be sanctuaries to try to help these birds recover

Yeah, my heart is not really in to shooting as many of them as I normally would want to… due to my thinking that the population is way down because of the freeze and whatever else knock them down in our county prior to the freeze. I am afraid duck season may be less than impressive with poor hatches up north due to extreme drought. I hope not. I sure would love us to have a decent duck season.

I hunted same lease on the 4th and got my limit in 2 1/2 hours. No flights but they were coming in singles to 3 at a time. Sand burs and brush did wear me out but it was okay. Did finish out the day with 4 foot rattler...I am hurting over him! being the village idiot I am I was chasing him and I fell in mesquite with him and ended up with few scrapes (at moment of fall we were both in full retreat of one another but ended up rather close proximity) but I got him!

Worst opening day in Bell- Williamson County area I have ever seen. Waiting on the cold front coming as we always say. TXDPWL seems to not be able to forecast very well in my opinion.

My Game Warden stopped by yesterday and we talked about that. He told me TPWD does not contact wardens about real time conditions. He told me TPWD go by spring and summer range conditions and assume numbers and hatches will be good.

Pretty slow Stompy? Friend and LO In Throckmorton said it was bad.

Yea it was slow, Game Warden told me yesterday that he hasn't checked anyone that's had a limit yet this season in Stephens county.