Uvalde Winter Dove Report:

2021 marked my 22nd straight year as a Uvalde dove hunter. I love the area for its numerous farms, high concentration of town birds (i.e. Whitewings) and its explosive potential for influxing Mourning doves during the Winter season. I entered Uvalde County early last Friday morning December 17th with high hopes of finding a field with conditions favorable enough to sustain a few hunters for a couple of days. In years past this wouldn’t have been any problem but for the last two winter dove seasons, finding birds has proved to be a significant challenge and quite pricey as well when an outfitter with birds was located. It was 7am (perfect) as I pulled into my 200ac late season Milo field about 9mi north of town, dry, a light southeast wind under heavy overcast skies and not another hunter in sight. Weaving my way on the perimeter dirt roads towards the back corner of the field I see that the farmer has had both the time and inclination to PLOW UNDER HIS CUT MILO TWICE! The food (Coo Coo Yum Yum) that was in this field and holding good numbers of Mourning doves two-weeks ago has now been pushed so far under ground that even the mice on this farm are starving. For the first hour and a half of sunrise I stood and scanned the flat and featureless field of dirt for some sign of activity but as you have probably already guessed, no food and no ground cover is a one-two knockout punch for favorable hunts. This 200ac field where I have literally hunted solo in years past to the tune of thousands of feeding doves was now as empty as a Joe Biden campaign promise. Bummer for sure but NOT the end of the line for a seasoned dove hunter with 20+ years of experience chasing Grey Ghosts around Uvalde County. There was still another 1000 acres of fields owned by this farmer to scout then a few individually owned small tracts of land (50ac or less) to be checked and no less than seven area outfitters (Ray Harper / aka “Larry the Cable Guy”, Brewster of Batesville, Mark Roberts, Chris Crocker, Stephen Rambie, Jason Schneemann, & Chris Keller / Nooner Ranch to contact. It was now 8:30am as I began a 50 mile drive around the county. I noticed a definite consistency with fields as I traveled ; all or most harvested fields were completely plowed under, at least 30% were planted with Winter Wheat that had already germinated and NO fields with any signs of Sesame. Outside of this I did encounter a couple of Cabbage fields but very little of anything else including doves which I may have seen six or seven of over the next two hours of scouting. All in all, very similar conditions to the last year and the year prior to that. It would appear that the Farmers are taking full advantage of new technology for faster growing crops, less reliance on fallow fields and crop rotation, more time to manicure fields in preparation for the next crop… all good things from the Farmer’s perspective but not so good for attracting and holding large numbers of birds.

Time to dig deep as I reach for my smart phone and search for the area Dove Outfitters. Here is the documented communications that I had over the next few days:

Me -“Hey Harper, how are you fixed for doves this winter?”
Ray – “Sure have not seen any bud. Spoke with a couple of other guys and not much either.”

Me - “Hey Mark, I am looking for a two-day hunt for me and my 5 friends, do you have any doves this winter?”
Mark – “Yes.” Mark Roberts (830) 261-9467 $150/day

Me - “Hey Brewster, how are you fixed for doves this year?”
Brewster – “Duh, auh, wuh, Birds? You mean like duh doves? Yea, I guess we got doves, we are hunting them right now.”
Me – “How much do you charge?”
Brewster - “Duh, auh, wuh, Charge? You mean like muh money?” Brewster in Batesville (830) 261-1746 $125/day

Me - “Hey Chris, how are you fixed for birds this winter?”
Chris – “We hunted yesterday and the birds were late. Hunters shot from about 9am – 9:45. Groups of 20-100 coming into field. Chris Crocker (512) 587-3791 $125/day

Me - “Hey Jason, how are you fixed for doves this winter?”
Jason – “We did good Friday and Saturday. At the moment I have a decent amount of birds.” Jason Schneemann (830) 741-1717 $125/day

Me - “Hey Stephen, how are you fixed for doves this winter?”
Stephen – “Looks like we have some now.” Stephen Rambie (210) 289-9156 $150/day

Me - “Hey Chris Keller, how are you fixed for doves this winter?”
Chris K. – “………………………………………………………..” (Evidently Nooner Ranch is NOT interested in any new clients at this time because they do not return their phone calls or texts) Chris Keller / Nooner Ranch (830) 261-931-7256 $250/day Groups of 40 or more ONLY!

So there it is fellow wing shooters, my contribution to the group for winter 21/22. Please keep me in mind if you have any leads on some good late season dove hunting opportunities that I can join in on. Have truck will travel. Mojos are for sissies.

Kevin Kramer (936) 537-6759

Thanks for the update for the Uvalde area...

I tried Medina County on the opener of the second split...and saw very, very few mourning dove. :-(

Saw some large flocks of white wing, but they were very spooky and offered few decent shots...

Hopefully it will pick up with some additional fronts moving more birds into the area.

I saw no birds down there last week. 2 weeks ago was loaded.