Opening Day
Dove Season Is Upon Us
By Bob Kaspar/Special Contributor
This September, thousands of Texans across the state will take to fields of cut sunflower, millet, and milo to eagerly search the skies for the flapping white-trimmed wings of dove on their annual migration across North America.
Family heirlooms will be pulled from safes and painstakingly cleaned. Shotgun shells will be bought by the crate. Cheers and curses, muttered excuses, and the report of barrels shall compose a symphony in the orange- painted skies of dusk and dawn. It is dove season in Texas and it couldn’t come soon enough.
Friends and family will hold court on tailgates and lawn-chairs, setting the world to right between incoming flights. Shotguns will swing gracefully ahead of their acrobatic quarry. Hunters will fumble shells into receivers, struggling to
load their guns fast enough while the shooting is good. They’ll contemplate shooting a dragonfly when the shooting is slow. Smartly trained dogs, eager for the first taste of the coming season will smile triumphantly around a retrieved bird.
When the day is done, post-hunt parties will be held in fields and on patios under an expanse of starlight. Conversations both pandemic and political will be eschewed for bragging rights of filled limits and seventy yard miracle shots.
As summer proceeds to fall, things will be as they should be; friends and family taking part in an age-old honored tradition with an eye toward even better times ahead. In those shifting seasons are the promise of cooler weather, the potential of adventures yet to come, and the perfection of that first bite of a Jalapeño Dove Popper on a peaceful September evening. It’s dove season in Texas and it couldn’t come soon enough.
